Tenzin and I watched the premier of Parenthood last night. Other than the fact that it was a giant ad for Nissan, it was a good show. And they're not shying away from the hard stuff. In the first episode, they were already taking on autism. Crazy bastards.From the start of the show, 8-year-old Max [...]

I've been lying around all day, sick with a cold, and I made the mistake of spending most of my time cruising the internets. I spent at least an hour searching for Chinese New Year party favors and another hour trying to figure out how to put better ads on my blog (and succeeded at [...]

So as I mentioned earlier, I'm sending out New Year's cards instead of Christmas cards this year (due to my usual lack of organization and punctuality in this department). Many of you, I assume, are reading this as a result of receiving said card and not receiving my annual holiday letter. Instead, you got a [...]

If you're a skier, you know there are two cardinal rules of taking kids up the hill for the first time -- go when the weather is good and don't go when it's too crowded. Actually, if you've been a parent for more than about a year, you've usually figured out this general rule for [...]

I am officially the Wicked Bitch of the West.I was attempting to talk on the phone tonight when Elfie yelled down from the top of the stairs, crying about her "throat hurting." In my defense, she'd been running around like a chipmunk on speed and nitrous oxide just 2 minutes earlier, and this was the [...]

I have officially thrown in the towel. Or at least the cake pan.Newt's 7th birthday is coming up. A few months ago, when he declared that he was having his party at a well-know, pre-packaged bouncy-house place, I subtly tried to talk him out of it in favor of an at-home party with a cool [...]

I spent the last four days holding my breath, waiting for Elfie to start puking. Last Monday, she made the unfortunate decision to share lip gloss with her friend who threw up later that evening. Apparently there's some virus going around with a 4-ish day incubation period. So during our entire drive to San Francisco [...]

Another "outing" (I never realized how many things I didn't talk about until I started this blog). Some of you know that Newt was diagnosed as having high-functioning autism/Aspergers Syndrome at age 3. Most of you who've met him within the last two years would, I'm guessing, be shocked to hear that information. Whether you [...]