I'm handed a tightly packaged bundle and it moves, opening its cornflower blue eyes, and coos.  Love erupts, and I can't imagine the future because I'm enchanted by the present. Time passes, the bundle grows.  Fists unfurl like daisies shaking off the dew and welcoming the sun.  Legs kick and stretch, still a bit bowed, but sturdy.  These same legs support a wobbly body – our little weeble – held upright so he won't fall down. Tummy time on the play-time mat.  Initially, not a happy time for either of us.  Red-faced from the effort, finally after several months, a successful rollover.  Then …

The American Pediatrics Association recommends that children from birth to age two not watch television.  Having taught more children in the past 10 years diagnosed with ADD/ ADHD exacerbated, they say, by hours plunked in front of the television, I can appreciate the warning.  If it weren't for Jeopardy, the Phillies, the Flyers, and the Eagles, we could happily live without cable. So, worried that I'd be condemning our son to a life of attention span equal to that of a goldfish's memory (eight seconds), I determined that we would keep the television off until age two.  Initially, he …

Another Valentine’s Day has passed, and with it –the heighted expectations of girlfriends expecting (hoping for?) proposals, overpriced red roses, Godiva chocolates and a fine dining experience. Valentine’s Day, now more a Hallmark and Kay Jewelry holiday, encourages these clichés and it requires detailed, determined searches and thought to find less-traditional means to express one’s love.  My ex husband’s ideas of Valentines included buying me a lawn mower one year – not his finest moment – but he redeemed himself the next year with a good book I curled up to devour. I wonder how many …

Since a colleague's little guy wears clothing about a year ahead of my peanut, we inherit many hand-me-downs I'm desperately seeking, like snowsuit or swim trunks.  Not being much of a shopper, I never realized until I needed to find these vital items, that I should have sought the swim trunks for June in January and the snowsuit for December in July. Sadly, not one place I visited offered a Magic 8 Ball able to predict the size my unpredictably growing son would be wearing six months hence.  Thank goodness for the hand-me-down tradition still alive and well – and for thrift and consignment …