The release is August 18.  I scheduled my vacation for August 18-25.  My April pre-order will be wasted.

Stupid, stupid.  It will wait at home, unopened, while I swim and kayak.  The cat sitter will put it on the dining room table with the Land’s End catalogu… Read full post »

Like Verizon Wireless’ billing department, love is a mysterious thing.  Over the years I’ve learned a few things about the latter.  As for VW billing, I’ve delegated that to my husband, who has a higher tolerance for hold music than I.

Since I began my exploration of the… Read full post »

Bounty, you’re off the hook.  Just when I was ready to slam you for the Worst Commercial Ever, Toyota came along and one-upped you. 

• I will therefore limit the Bounty bashing to a text box: Suburban kitchen. Father and son chat at
… Read full post »

Parents:  some day you might have the pleasure of joining your children on college tours.  You will walk with them beneath sturdy elms and past neoclassical structures named for decidedly non-ethnic people from days past.  You’ll soak in the honor of helping your excited offsprin… Read full post »

I’ve said that parenting has the lowest barrier to entry of any profession.

I’ve said that I’m sick of baby pictures.

Et maintenant, je m’accuse.

Today I got my favorite kind of email—news of a family coming into being.   Nobody’s pregnant.… Read full post »

If I were a stronger woman, I could duck out of the Tiger Mother conversation that has bunched our national panties beyond our fingers’ reach.

However, since the eensy beensy bikinis started their hike up Mt. Buttock, dozens of people have asked me to weigh in, which I did inthis post./… Read full post »

In most partnerships, before children come along, (at least) one family member plays a non-trivial role in the happiness, decision-making process, and schedule of the household.  When children come along, this household member takes a tumbling, decidedly non-slippery slide into anonymity.

%IMAGE… Read full post »

I recently did a phone interview with a nice reporter from the Washington City Paper.  This article was one of the results.   I think it's a great article, partly because the author quotes me comparing my favority mommy website to masturbation and Taco Bell.  There's more,… Read full post »

Amy Chua don’t take no crap from nobody.  Snap. She, like her mother before her, is a Chinese Mother.  By her definition, that means that she helps her children find their pride by lashing them to the piano and hurling sharpened chopsticks at them until they can play the complete work… Read full post »

For your consideration, I offer the following items from the news. 

Item 1:  If you like civil divorce (has anyone ever witnessed one of those?), you’ll loooove religious divorce. 

See, in civil divorce, you have to tell the court who you are, that you can’t stand each… Read full post »

It’s the last night of Chanukah, and I’m already singing Christmas carols.  We had a heck of a Chanukah at the Schwartz-Goldberg residence.  We invited friends to open presents the first and seventh nights. The kids played with them for approximately 12 minutes before they had t… Read full post »

Hellos can be awkward.  As a woman of marginal social skills and limited commitment to personal hygiene, I appreciate the quandary of that second moment in the presence of another person.

Hello. (That went well.)

Oh, hi! (What now?).

My favorite old George Carlin shtick involve… Read full post »

My kid has been able to go up a flight of stairs on her own since before she was a year old, but it didn’t occur to me to send her upstairs for the things she wanted until she was six.  Although at every checkup her doctor confirms that her eyes function perfectly,/… Read full post »

 Put on your shoes.

Put on your shoes.

Put on your shoes.

Put. On. Yooooour.  Shoes.

SHOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

There is a term for this:  “frequent prompting.”   That’s what the report card says. 

Work habits and social skills.&nbs… Read full post »

I’m still hoarse from my daughter’s soccer game yesterday. No, I’m not that d-bag who manages every second of the game like an air traffic controller with an OCD.  I’m not the dippy aunt, just in from California, who squeals “goooooooo Madison” just below dog… Read full post »

 Greetings, Adequate Nation.  I apologize for my relatively long absence.  If you missed me, it might be time to get some real-world friends and/or reintroduce yourself to your family and friends.  If you didn’t miss me, what the fuck is wrong with you?  I spend countle… Read full post »

Hi!  I’m Nancy’s mommy.  I wasn’t always called “Mommy.”  My name used to be something like Susan.  Or maybe it was Denise.  I don’t remember.  Anyway, they are both decidedly (that’s fancy for really, really) un-fancy names, but… Read full post »

According to some parenting gurus, babies become happier, more confident people if they have the benefit of “co-sleeping,” a practices that is defined, variously, as baby and mother sleeping within reach of each other, sharing a “family bed,” or “sleep-sharing,” wh… Read full post »

This was the post I could not write.

I told my friend Larry over brunch (you remember Larry; he was featured in “I think we need to see other people”):    

This is the post I cannot write.  They have taken me past/… Read full post »

Would you like green boots and glam? 

I do not want green boots and glam

I do not want them, Spam you Am

Would you like them on your blog?  Would you like them with a frog?

I would not like them on my blog; I would not like them… Read full post »

Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat… college.

–Woody Allen as Alvy Singer in Annie Hall

“Yes, I was raised Jewish,” I say to the fifth person who acts surprised to see me and my daughter at school.  It’s Rosh Hashanah, but in my househo… Read full post »

According to a recent NY Times article, the labor market is difficult for mothers.  The latest proof?  The last three male nominees to the Supreme Court have been married, with children.  The most recent three women, on the other hand, are single and do not have children.  Conclus… Read full post »

The sun is setting.  In the dim afterglow of a short December day, a woman sits in her aunt’s old maple rocker, one hand resting on the smooth arm and the other on her bulging belly, which cradles a six-month fetus, two pounds of placenta, a gallon of orange… Read full post »