One of T.'s current favorite books is this one, by children's book author Jane Yolen. The book is about the powers of the imagination, and about how two innovative kids take a boring, dreary, rainy day and make it magical by building a huge "soft house" out of blankets and quilts. [more]

I've been thinking a lot about guilty pleasures lately. According to trusty Wikipedia, a guilty pleasure is known as something one considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it. I've been thinking about my own guilty pleasures mainly because of several comments I've gotten recently when people have seen me with this book:

and this one: [more]

Does this sound familiar?

I finally get R and G to sleep or rest for their nap/quiet time. FINALLY. A minute of peace to: clear the kitchen table from lunch, sweep the floor, unload the dishwasher, do the dishes, change the load of laundry, sort the mail, pay some bills, fold the laundry…and then, in a seeming millisecond, they are awake, and I am still trying to calculate how much the preschool tuition payment is this month (“Will R stay for Lunch Bunch three or four times this month?”).  [more]

If you are the parent of a teenager, most likely he or she is part of the social networks MySpace and Facebook. If you are the parent of a teenager, most likely you should be part of the social networks MySpace and Facebook. A new study, reported by CNN.com, finds that 54 percent of teens on these social networks talk about sex, violence, and alcohol and drug use. [more]

A few days before we left town for Christmas, I got together with a friend for coffee. While I sat waiting for her, and sipping a gingersnap latte, a young couple came in and sat at the table next to me. They were, to put it bluntly, all over each other. They sat elbow-to-elbow, hands clasped, whispering sweet nothings over their lattes, and every now and then they kissed in a long and lingering way. [more]