Oprah used to state — when the subject came up — that stay-at-home mom was the hardest job in the world. Each time those words left her mouth, it felt, to me, insincere, like she knew she had to say them but what she wanted to say was, “Seriously? I work 18 hours a day, I run a zillion businesses, I own a school and I’m responsible for hundreds of people’s livelihoods, and someone who is home, at this very moment, watching TV, in the MIDDLE of the day, has the hardest job in the world?” And one of her employees, with a mic on their head and a clipboard in their hands, would say, “Remember who…

Oh, what a special time! You’re pregnant with your first child, and you and your husband are so proud. You can’t drink anymore, but that’s fine. It’s worth it, right? Your husband still can. So he does, and he goes out to bars. And for a while you go with him and everyone loves having you around because you’re the designated driver. But you quickly realize that drunk people are boring and it is only temporarily amusing to say to yourself, look, this guy is so drunk he is telling the same story again. You try to talk to anyone, but they are all happily enraptured in the retelling, like kids …

When I was pregnant with my firstborn, my husband, my mother and I came to the decision that instead of the home birth that I desired, I would have the baby at a birth center. It was an agreeable compromise. They were both nervous about a home birth, and I was nervous about a hospital one. My husband and I were not sure if our insurance company was going to pay for the birth center, even though it was about $6,000 less than an uncomplicated hospital birth. I procrastinated doing the paperwork because I didn’t want to find out that it wasn't covered. Instead, I preferred to have anxiety …

Marriage Vows for Her. By Rev. Seuss Will you love his dirty socks? Will you love his midnight talks?   Will you love his cans of beer, that he leaves both far and near? Do you love him as you wish, or will you hate each dirty dish? Do you love him here and there? Even in white underwear?   Marriage Vows for Him. Will you love those perky breasts, when upon her knees they rest? Will you love her cranky tone, and not wish to be alone? Will you love her squishy thighs, and put up with those pouty cries? Do you love her here and there?  Even in huge underwear?   I have to admit I haven’t spent …

My younger brother got chickens recently, to have fresh eggs, to enrich his children’s knowledge of animals, and to inadvertently teach them about life and death. He started with six chicks. The first two were killed by a loose neighborhood dog. A third one died a few days later, either from sadness or internal injuries. Then one was eaten by a hawk or an owl. Besides the heartbreak of losing the chicks, my brother said it was a solemn experience the first time they ate chicken after that. “Maybe you shouldn’t be your chicken’s friend,” he lamented. His comment reminded me of a Brazilian …

I was talking to a friend — a childless friend — and she was saying that spanking kids is child abuse. I’ve never had someone inadvertently imply that I was a child abuser, so I sarcastically replied, “Oh, I don’t believe in spanking,” and I paused for effect, “except when you’re angry.” My friend was aghast. She went on a long spiel: “No, that is exactly when you shouldn’t because you will only hit harder and blah, blah, blah.” I rolled my eyes and wondered if my friend had no sense of humor, or was hitting innocent children really not funny? (My sense of humor lies pitch-perfectly between …

I have a strict rule against women wearing shorts after the age of 30. Nobody needs to see your (read: my) fleshy white cellulite thighs. Yes, there are some exceptions to the rule, but about 60 percent of women think they are the exception and only about 9 percent are. (These are actual statistics.) Being a good rule follower (and a bit of a teacher’s pet), I stopped wearing shorts when I was 24. I happily sweated it out in Capris or a long skirt. But because I made this rule in the ignorance of my youth, I failed to realize that as you age, your tolerance for heat shrinks to the size of an …

Last Friday my husband took my sons and I to a game at the Florida Auto Exchange Stadium in Dunedin. It made me realize how great the Tampa Bay area is to live in and raise children! Especially for a batball lover like I am. In case you missed my article in October, I am a new sports fan. I became one after I got to watch my husband’s favorite team, the St. Louis Red Cardinals, win the 2011 America’s Cup. As I explained in October, it took me a while to understand batball because sports vernacular is complicated, intricate and masculine. But I am a quick learner, so after a couple weeks in …

One evening my children and I were driving away from a strip mall, and in front of our car waddled a mama duck and 13 babies. The itty-bitty ducklings followed their mom in a bumper car huddle — all except one, even smaller than the rest, who trailed far behind about to die from exhaustion. My boys named this last one Tiny, and every couple of minutes the mama had to stop to let Tiny catch up. We watched the ducks for a bit before we started to drive away, but my youngest cried that he never got to say good-bye, so I turned the car around to let him. By the time we got back, the ducks were …

Dear Mrs. Cheap, I don’t feel like spending $500 on an expensive professional cake, invitations, entertainment, and goody bags for my daughter’s birthday party, do I have to? Also must I include every member of her kindergarten class? That is 18 kids plus their families. I wanted a small party but I don’t want to be rude or cheap.  - Not Cheap but Not Frivolous. Dear Not Cheap but Not Frivolous, What have we done to kids’ birthday parties? Doesn’t anyone realize that we have been fooled by the decadent marketing from the '00s and by narcissistic mom-blogs celebrating how beautifully they live…

If you want to guarantee that you screw up your child’s hood, just like your parents screwed up yours, then do the exact opposite of what your parents did. I call it reactionary parenting. My parents, I guess in some loving and demented way, thought it was best to never share with my brothers and me the tragedies that occurred while we were kids. As an adult I believe that they thought we were too young to understand, or they desired to protect us from pain. But as a child, you can still comprehend that something is going on and you feel crazy being lied to. Besides being maddening, keeping …

Holiday Character Complaint DepartmentEaster Island and N. Pole Corp.Bentonville, AR 72716 RE: Easter Bunny Performance Dear HCCD, I’m writing this letter because of the unsatisfactory experience I recently had with your employee, the Easter Bunny. When I awoke on Easter morning I initially didn’t notice that anything was wrong. My children’s Easter baskets were nestled outside their bedroom doors, filled with treats, as expected. In that regard the Bunny’s work was timely and discreet.   It was only when my children started opening their candy-filled eggs that I discovered three problems, …

The evening after McGruff the Crime Hound came to my son’s pre-school — while I was cleaning up the living room and my son and my husband were on the couch, both enthralled with their tiny (wait for it …) hand-held devices (still sounds bad) — I asked my son if McGruff told him to never talk to strangers. My son nodded his head in agreement, or in disagreement, or possibly he was just nodding in motion to the mean bird that he was slinging across outer space at egg-stealing pigs. I rolled my eyes in disbelief. He is already a man, I thought.   I continued folding blankets, having bitter …

The first step to coping with a mental illness is to admit that you have a problem, and today I am taking that scary first step. I hope you will be supportive of my decision to go public with my disease. It has taken great courage to write this, and it will be a shocking confession for my friends and family. Here it is. (Deep breath.) I suffer from a severe case of RBDD (Reverse Body-Dysmorphic Disorder). This disease makes me believe that I am much younger and more attractive than I actually am. I can handle it on most days, as long as I avoid mirrors or photographs, but as soon as I catch a…

It all started with an article published in January of 2011 about a children’s art show at the local community center. My co-writer Katherine Shirer’s son had his art photographed in the article, and so the article was emailed to all Katherine's friends and family. And that was how I first ever heard about Dunedin Patch and Patch.com. I want to write for Patch.com, I thought, filled with jealousy at some lady named Katie Dolac who was getting her work published there. A week later Katherine suggested we propose to this very same Katie Dolac — no, not marriage — but a parenting column …

One of the surprising things about being a parent is that sometimes you have a kid who acts just like you. And you never knew how annoying you were. I wonder how I have any friends at all. “I don’t want to play with you anymore!” my son and I yell simultaneously at each other and run off to our rooms, each slamming our respective door. We are two little mirrors, my son and I. Although I believe that drama is tailored to fit more naturally on a woman than on boys ('cept for our favorite 10 percent), seeing my understudy whip his head around and stomp up the stairs might have shocked me into …

It was a beautiful sunny Florida winter day and my husband and I had taken the kids downtown for ice cream: Vanilla for my youngest, strawberry for my oldest, and chocolate for my husband. None for me thank you. I’m being good. Good but no fun. We all sat outside in the warm sun, and they ate their ice cream. I closed my eyes and tried to absorb the sunlight. Then I snuck a peek at them enjoying their ice cream. I thought, who would want to hang out with me? I won’t bring myself to eat some ice cream? I realized what a grump I had been all weekend. I was pouting over some obscure …

Before Conan O’Brien took over "The Tonight Show," there was this guy named Jay Leno who hosted. ... wait my husband is trying to tell me something. ... apparently, he says, Jay Leno is still hosting "The Tonight Show" and Conan O’Brien is ... somewhere else. Anyway, back to my point. Jay Leno had (has?) a bit on his show called "Jaywalking," where interns would go out to the streets of Los Angeles with portraits of government officials and other people who run the world. The interns show these photos to random pedestrians who hilariously can’t recognize pictures of the vice president or the …

Have you ever noticed that if you're told something totally crazy over and over by experts you will start believing it? So much so that you may even find yourself dolling out these crazy “facts,” even though somewhere deep down in the bottom of your gut you can hear your intuition’s muffled cries. (Poor intuition — bound and gagged — never stops screaming, "These facts cannot be true!") For example, I went to the vet recently, and she condescendingly asked me, “Now you don’t ever feed your dog people food do you?” I could tell that I was supposed to say no so I gave a muffled reply of, “No, …

A woman walks into a store and tells the salesman: “Hi, I would like to return this husband for the upgraded version. I’ve had him for 30 years and I figured the newer ones probably accept more input, and have better firmware.” “I’m sorry, Ms., but there are no upgrades,” the salesman says. “What? But there has to have been some improvements in the last 30 years,” the woman says. “No Ma’am, same version that has been around for the last million years,” he says. “But I see a large selection here. What are the differences between all these?” she says. “Well they do come in different shapes and …