I wasn't expecting the phone call alerting me to the e-mail. I sensed something uncomfortable afoot when she became eager to hang up the...

Two years, two months and nine days. That’s how long I was able to hold off introducing Ittybit to the inherent evils of fast food. Friday m...

The snowman sits on the lawn, a sad little puddle of his former self. “Oh, no! NO MAYN,” Ittybit opines with every ounce of drama she can mu...

While my husband was away on a business trip recently I joined a cult. I know it may sound a little bizarre coming from a lapsed Catholic, f...

I am an anxiety-riddled worry wart who thinks every ache and pain — every pimple, bruise or rash — is the beginning of the end. If I were to...

My husband believes that Aussie quartet “The Wiggles” rise in popularity with the preschool set is directly related to boredom level of Gen-...

It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your mom is? If she’s anything like my husband’s wife she’s catching up with her friends on “flickr,” an onli...

Fourteen minutes and the clock is ticking. Calculating a complex series of equations in my head — subtracting the two-hour nap she missed th...

I have a tendency to ardently believe things that are not true. That’s the tricky part of logic and an even sketchier part of memory: the tr...

“Hey, do these jeans make my butt look big?” I’m not sure whether he’s kidding. Just the other day I found my truck-driving, manly-man husba...

- Cloud #7 There are whole conversations I can’t have with people because our experiences are so far from shared that the light from shared...

She’s looking up at me with a scowl on her face, eyes growing smaller and more certain by the moment. She is silent.

I had chills thinking about the flight this past Christmas Eve, a three-jump journey to the Duluth grandma and her growing reunion of family...

We had such good intentions. As we move along this path of parenthood, we had aspirations of shaping a child who found the simplest of pleas...

Sitting in the examining room in a paper gown, the obstetrician spun the wheel that would tell my future, and I held my breath. Making the d...

It’s midnight and I’m sitting up with a glass of wine and my favorite holiday movie — “Barfly.” OK. “Barfly” has nothing to do with the holi...

Sometimes I think the neighbors I know best are the other motorists I encounter each day on my hour-long commute to work. They’re the folks ...

As I read the instructions on the chamomile ‘aroma therapy’ shampoo bottle to make sure I’ve gotten it right (… do I rinse and repeat or is ...

In August I was so hungry I told my husband “I can’t wait for Thanksgiving.” He suggested I make myself a sandwich, and perhaps that would t...

For a society that has gone to the moon and back, figured out a way to send a 3,000-page manuscript through the phone lines (if you’ve got t...