I've never laid a hand on my child. Well, almost never.

I grew up in a household where spanking was taboo. Neither of my parents believe in corporal punishment, and I was a beneficiary of their no-spanking policy. As a teenager and young adult, I believed I'd administer a similar policy in my home.

DH, on the other hand, was different. He grew up in a household where spanking was not only allowed, but a routine punishment. He remembers his father -- by all accounts one of the gentlest men I've ever met -- using a belt a few times. And his rural high school used something called "pops" -- a pop on the butt using a wooden paddle -- as a deterrent to bad behavior and an alternative to detention.

I adhered to my "no spanking" mandate until G was about two and a half. At that time, I was roughly seven months pregnant and absolutely losing my mind. I don't remember what set me off -- a sassy mouth? not listening? doing something she knew she shouldn't? -- but I reacted by smacking G on the butt... hard.

My immediate reaction was guilt. Embarrassment. I felt like I'd not only let my daughter down -- showing her violence was an appropriate reaction -- but I'd let myself down as well. I was disappointed in my short fuse and vowed never to let myself resort to spanking again.

That is, until the next time.

I can still count the number of times I've spanked G on one hand. But the fact that I can remember each and every time I've spanked proves how poorly this punishment sits with me. DH, swayed by my anti-spanking rhetoric pre-children, also finds himself at loss when he resorts to spanking -- which, like me, has only happened a few times.

What do you think about spanking? Do you think it's an effective punishment -- both in general and, more specifically, for your child(ren)? What do you find to be a better alternative?

With me working freelance out of our home more often these days, I've started to see the need for a babysitter again.

The first time we sought a childcare provider for G -- a process that started before she was born and didn't end until she was the age Baby C is right about now -- it was a laborious process. We did drop-in visits at local childcare centers, in-home daycares, and interviewed countless potential nannies before finally settling on the most wonderful sitter a mom could ask for: the kind of sitter that made it ok for me to go back to work full-time.

This time around, though, things are different. For one thing, money is tighter so our budget is much lower. I know how hard it is to find good help, but geez, our new sitter is a bit of a square... or really, she's more like a rectangle.

That's because -- if you haven't figured it out already -- our new sitter is the television.

Sigh.

A year ago, I was the type of mom who lorded it over other women in my playgroup that G only watched a scant 30 minutes of TV a day. Easy for me to say! I was working the evening shift (3-11:30pm) at the TV station, and I wasn't home with her half the time; sure, I only let her watch 30 minutes of TV daily -- but how much did DH let her watch when I was at work? or the sitter? I'm sure it was far more than just one episode of her beloved "Dora"...

But fast-forward a year, through a tough pregnancy and the birth of our son, and my TV mantra is vastly different. I admit, there are times when I use Disney's "Tangled" in lieu of a nap (why? Because she refuses to nap, but will happily watch Rapunzel swing from her own hair for 90 minutes straight); there are times when I plop her down in front of a "Fresh Beat Band" marathon on Nick Jr. (by the way, am I the only one who doesn't like the new Marina?) as I do my work; there are nights when I'm so exhausted by 7pm -- and so ready for DH to get home roughly 30-45 minutes later -- that I let her watch "Backyardigans" til the cows (or rather, Daddy) come home.

Where I was once judgmental about other families and their TV habits, I must now admit to my own weaknesses and faults. I've read all the studies about how too much TV time (two hours a day seems to be the upward limit, before negative repercussions start to surface -- I do try to keep it under this amount); heck, when I was still working in TV news, I was writing those stories for broadcast!

But now, I see TV for what it really is: a work-at-home's mom best friend, and her worst enemy. I guess that makes it a "frenemy," right?

Honestly -- how much TV do you let your children watch daily?

If you are a direct family member of myself or DH -- or knew either of us before the age of 10 -- stop reading this post right now. Seriously. And if you continue to read on anyway, well, don't say I didn't warn you.

If you've spent any time reading Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, or even Cosmopolitan, then you're familiar with those advice columns that urge you to reconnect with your husband by getting it on. There are even articles -- written by couples with way too much time on their hands -- extolling the virtues of having sex every day for a month, 100 days, a year.

Who has time for that much sex? Not me. And even DH will admit that, though his virility is strong, he doesn't have the energy for it.

But in our effort to put the spark back in our marriage, we're making a solid effort. With two kids under the age of three in the house (including a toddler who, inexplicably, is a worse sleeper than her three month old brother), that means scheduling sex -- and yes, I mean writing it down in ink on our calendar (but no, I don't actually write the word "sex" -- I use a highly-evolved red star instead).

So one night a few weeks ago, DH and I put the kids to sleep (remember that part about G being a poor sleeper? don't forget it... it will be a crucial part of the story later on) and then hopped in bed. It was our first time since Baby C was born, and I was hesitant. After a few false starts (see why I warned some of you to quit reading?), we finally got back in our rhythm. As I frequently say in my freelance work, it was short, sweet, and to the point (and, blessedly, painless).

No sooner had we -- ahem -- finished than I heard what I thought was the pitter patter of little feet. Oh dear.

Oh dear.

Oh damn.

G's bedroom is just a few feet from our own, across a small hall. Before I had a chance to jump out of bed and put my clothes back on, I heard the door open and...

(insert wide-eyed almost-three-year-old daughter)

Yes, coitus interruptus of the toddler kind.

Let me take this chance to mention
that our bedroom door does have a lock
on it... it just doesn't work.

"Daddy just took a shower!" I blurted out, although G had yet to ask for an explanation for our state of mutual nudity. She took a glance at her naked father, only to adroitly ask me why he didn't have a towel and why his hair wasn't wet. And why was mommy naked too? Had she just taken a shower as well?

Had she been older, I might have sat her down for a grown-up girl explanation of what she'd just witnessed, a la a scene from "Modern Family." Instead, I swept her questions under the proverbial rug with a shrug of my shoulders, slipped on my nursing nightgown and shuttled her back to bed.

Have you ever been walked in on?
Done the walking in?
How did (or would!) you handle it?

I woke up yesterday morning at 5:30am to find my daughter crawling into bed with me. This is an unusual circumstance; typically, once she makes her way out of her bedroom, she is ready to go for the day. But on this day, she was more than happy to curl up on DH's empty side of the bed (he'd left for the gym almost an hour earlier, God bless him) and shut her eyes again.

I should have been in heaven, but all I could think about was my bladder. I had to pee, but I knew that if I got up, she'd wake up... and that was out of the question.

When she did wake up 90 minutes later, she did so by shouting that she had to use the restroom, so we dashed to her bathroom, stripping her clothes off along the way. No sooner had I started to sit down on the porcelain throne than Baby C started crying bloody murder in his nursery; apparently, the flushing of the toilet next door woke him up. Thwarted again.

After that, it was a whirlwind of changing and nursing the baby, walking the dog, making breakfast, cleaning up from breakfast, getting G into her clothes for preschool summer camp and nursing the baby again. I managed to brush my teeth, slap on some SPF-moisturizer and throw my hair up into a ponytail to get her out the door and to preschool by 9am... without ever making it to the bathroom.

You'd have thought I got home from dropping her off and headed straight for the bathroom, but you'd have thought wrong. Baby C had made the world's biggest fart on our drive home, resulting in the changing of the most disgusting diaper I've ever seen. 47 wipes, three cloth diaper inserts and one impromptu bath later, he was clean. He was also hungry. So I nursed him again before putting him down for his mid-morning nap.

Finally, peace and quiet and -- CRASH!!! Just when it looked like I'd finally to be able to relieve myself, the garbage truck started making its way down the street. Normally, this wouldn't be cause for concern, but it's bulk trash pick-up week in our neck of the woods, and I was thrilled at the idea of the trashmen finally getting our old queen-size box spring off our lawn... until I saw them driving away with the box spring still squarely on my curb! I dashed out the door, running two houses down to alert them to their oversight, only to be told they didn't have enough room in that truck for the box spring and a second truck would be by later in the week to pick it up.

Just as I was heading up the driveway -- with the restroom on my brain -- I spotted the mailman coming up the street. As I was waiting for a paycheck from my freelance job, I figured I would wait to collect the mail myself. The check wasn't there, but G's preschool confirmation letter was, along with three unsolicited credit card offers, two weekly store circulars and a letter from my alma mater asking for (more) money. I adhere to the "only touch mail once" policy, so I immediately walked into the house and began to sort, file and shred it all.

By now it was 11:25am, and my G-free morning was almost at an end. I had just enough time to wake up C from his nap, change his diaper and nurse him (again) before heading out the door...

Dammit, I forgot to pee again!

No use going back inside now, I'd already set the security alarm and gotten C into his carseat -- and since it's 152 degrees outside (only a mild exaggeration), I know better than to leave a baby in a car on a hot day, even if it is inside the garage.

Get to preschool, pick up G, start heading home... only to realize, we are out of peanut butter, jelly, fruit, milk, and just about anything and everything else I would use to make lunch. So we head to the store. I definitely will not be peeing in a Walmart public toilet.

By the time we get home, it's 1pm; G and C are starving. I make a quick sandwich for G, plop her down in her booster seat and grab C for a quick nursing session. He falls asleep mid-boob, so I swaddle him up and lay him down for another nap (at this point, he's slept more in the past 24 hours than I have in the past 24 weeks). Simultaneously, G finishes her lunch and -- in an attempt to help clean up her dirty dishes -- puts a cup full of red juice directly into the dishwasher... which is full of clean dishes. So I spend 15 minutes sorting out what escaped the red storm, what can simply be rinsed and what must be completely rewashed.

I put flip on Disney Junior, because I'm too tired to take care of my kids, and finally make my way to the bathroom. Peace, quiet. I should set up camp here. Maybe I could hide a mini-cooler underneath the sink, or in the johnny cabinet. Wire the place for surround sound. Turn the mirror into a flat screen TV or wifi hotspot.

And just as I'm about to go, I realize... I don't have to go anymore.

Apparently, between nursing a starving three month old baby (who, by the way, is almost 18 pounds -- so definitely not starving) four times in nine hours and never once stopping to get myself a drink of water, my body "relieved" itself.

Oy.

Last week on Facebook, several of my friends posted a link to an amazing video. Check it out, because it's simply beautiful; one of those videos that has me crying and slobbering all over my computer desk. It asks women to share what they would tell their pregnant-selves, right before their first child was born.

As I was watching it, I found myself wondering what I would have said to myself three years ago this month, as I eagerly awaited G's birth.

Turns out, Darius Rucker -- yes, of Hootie and the Blowfish fame -- already put it perfectly. If you can get through lyrics without bursting into tears, then you're strong woman (or man!).

He didn't have to wake up
He'd been up all night
Layin’ there in bed listenin’
To his new born baby cry
He makes a pot of coffee
He splashes water on his face
His wife gives him a kiss and says
It gonna be OK

It won’t be like this for long
One day we'll look back laughin’
At the week we brought her home
This phase is gonna fly by
So baby just hold on
‘Cause it won't be like this for long

Four years later ‘bout 4:30
She's crawling in their bed
And when he drops her off at preschool
She's clinging to his leg
The teacher peels her off of him
He says what can I do
She says now don't you worry
This’ll only last a week or two

It won’t be like this for long
One day soon you'll drop her off
And she won’t even know you're gone
This phase is gonna fly by
If you can just hold on
It won’t be like this for long

Some day soon she'll be a teenager
And at times he'll think she hates him
Then he'll walk her down the aisle
And he'll raise her veil
But right now she's up and cryin’
And the truth is that he don't mind
As he kisses her good night
And she says her prayers

He lays down there beside her
‘Til her eyes are finally closed
And just watchin’ her it breaks his heart
Cause he already knows

It won’t be like this for long
One day soon that little girl is gonna be
All grown up and gone
Yeah, this phase is gonna fly by
So, he's tryin’ to hold on

‘Cause it won’t be like this for long
What about you? What would you want to tell yourself, before you had your first baby?

Dear Baby C,

Just writing that title hurts me, because it takes me back to a place I don't like to remember. It takes me back to the morning I found out you were joining our family; to the morning I lost my faith.

We conceived you exactly one year ago tonight. Some might think it strange I know the exact date, but I do. First of all, it was the only time during that entire month we, ahem, got it on; secondly, I remember the stormy night clearly because I had called in sick to work on what I can now fully admit was a "mental health day." I think that's what you might call irony.

I knew nearly instantly that I was pregnant. I don't know why, I don't know how; I just know that something clearly felt different, and no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, I knew I was pregnant. And I knew it was a mistake.

I maintained this cruel stance for the first 14 weeks of my pregnancy. For 14 weeks, when someone congratulated me on my pregnancy, I cringed; when I tried to explain to that unexpecting person that you were an accident, they cringed. I felt constantly nauseated, throwing up more in that first trimester than I had in my entire life up to that point; I was convinced I was poisoning you with my negativity from the inside out, the vomit a physical symptom of my emotional state. (As you can see by the picture at right, that fear was totally unfounded; Baby C has constantly worn a smile, showing off his easy laugh, almost since the day he was born.)

I cried, I mourned, I panicked. I didn't know how I would make room for you in my heart, in my life. I was sure it wasn't possible.

And then something amazing happened. Your daddy and I hadn't been able to come up with a name for you; while we'd always known what we'd name your sister -- literally, from the day we got married -- we'd never had a name for a second child. One night during my last week of work, I was sitting at my computer desk when it came to me: Faith.

Had you been a girl, we would have named you Faith Catherine. The reason is simple: that single word symbolized my entire pregnancy up to that point, and really, beyond. Learning you'd join our family was a test of my faith. It shook me to the core. It made me doubt everything I thought I was and everything I wanted to be. It made me realize that I was not in control of my life -- not by a long shot -- and that the only way out of the dungeon I'd carved for myself was to look to God. He was the only one in control of what happened to me, to you; and He doesn't make mistakes -- He makes blessings.

From that point on, I worked to put my faith in Him. I trusted that he knew what was best for me, for you, for our family. This was not an immediate, overnight conversion. At times, like Thomas, I still doubted. Even as I carried you into the 40th week of pregnancy, I wasn't wholly convinced; I'd have to (metaphorically) touch your hands and feel the hole in your side.

And then you arrived... and you were a miracle. As I held your minutes-old body, you grabbed my pinky finger with your tiny hand; I touched the silky smoothness of your side. I did what I'd feared for nine months I'd never be able to do: fall in love.

I like to think that I fell in love with you because of me, and because you are mine. But I know both these things to be false, although I don't like to admit it. I know you are not mine, you are His, His entirely; and it is despite me -- and because of Him -- that I fell in love... oh so deeply in love.

I'm not an overly-religious person. I consider myself a practicing Catholic, but I frequently miss mass. I don't read the bible on a regular basis, although I do pick up scholarly texts on theology or divinity.

I'm not a saint, but even I know a miracle when I see it. And that miracle, baby, is you.

Like Bill Clinton, I didn't like it. I didn't inhale, and I never tried it again.

I'm talking about pot, of course (although if you're younger than me, you probably don't have a clue what I'm alluding to with that 1993 Clinton quote).

It was the eve of spring break my senior year at Duke. A late night of partying had ended at the apartment of my friend's boyfriend, a bit of a stoner who took roughly seven years to graduate (although my friend C -- a reader of this blog -- will have to confirm that fact). I'd already had several beers by the time the bong headed my way. I'd never tried marijuana -- or any recreational drug, for that matter. Heck, I'd never even taken a single puff of a cigarette. But I was a senior in college, about to enter a much more "real world," and figured it was now or never.

In retrospect, I should have stuck with the "never" option. Although -- like our former president -- I didn't inhale, I did end up violently ill. Within minutes, the combined affects of the alcohol and pot had me running for the nearest trash can. I spent a full 45, delusional minutes head down in the can before my friends decided it was time for me to go home. That's how I ended up rolfing all over the front seat of a friend of a friend's car; that's how that same friend of a friend -- whom I hadn't met until that night -- ended up explaining to my confused roommates what had happened, cooking me some Ramen noodles to alleviate the munchies, and putting me to bed.

It's not a very flattering story.

So why am I telling it to you now?

One of my friend's recently asked me and some of my other girlfriends if we planned to tell our children about our youthful indiscretions. Most of my friends said no; some prudes among us (I won't name names... but you know who you are!) said they had nothing embarrassing to share.

Me?

I said absolutely.

I will definitely share my "pot-gone-wrong" story with G and C when they're old enough. Why? Because it gives a concrete illustration of what can happen when you put the stuff -- even an admittedly small amount of it -- into your body. It shows what happens when you let your judgment lapse. It shows that even mommies can make mistakes... and we can learn from them. What good is that mistake I made at 21 years old if I can't use it to impart the idea of making wise choices upon my children?

What about you...

Will you share your youthful mistakes with your children?
Why or why not?

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If you don't recognize the acronym "M.A.S.H." then you must have grown up somewhere outside the U.S., or were homeschooled. No, I'm not talking about the Vietnam Era television show; I'm talking about the game every third grade girl played in the margins of her spelling worksheets.

Remember?

M = Mansion

A = Apartment

S = Shack (or in some really rough times, a sewer)

H = House

You'd draw a square, placing your living options -- shortened to the first letter of each word, naturally -- along the top line of the box. Along the right side of the box would be four options for the kind of vehicle you'd drive. The bottom of the box would have four numbers, symbolizing the number of children you'd have.

But it was the left side of the box that always held the most intrigue. It was here that you wrote down the names of the four boys -- often encrypted by using their initials only, so if a boy got his hands on your M.A.S.H. game, he wouldn't know you'd selected him as an option. Whichever boy was left standing when the game was over would be your spouse.

The game was only fun if you made it a bit of a challenge to have a great life. A la the "shack" option in the housing department, it was en vogue to make a "Toyota Tercel" one of the vehicle options, to give yourself the chance of having 18 children, and of marrying the dorkiest boy in your school -- who in my case was named Jeff and had a locker right next to one of my best friends from high school.

Back in the day, I envisioned myself living in that mansion, marrying Steve Matthews (yes, that's the real name of my elementary school crush), having six kids (I was a huge fan of the Brady Bunch) and driving a Ferrari, or at the very least, a Porsche.

Today, my dreams have changed a little bit.

Instead of a 6500 square foot mansion, DH & I live in a 1750 square foot three-bedroom house that is one room too small (I desperately need/want a separate room for my office, so it's not surrounded by G and her toys 24/7). A mansion's not even on my wish list.

Instead of six children, we have just two. I don't want any more... I think.

Instead of Steve Matthews, I married a former college football player who grew up thinking everyone in my home state was a yankee. His family probably still thinks I'm a yankee.

And instead of a sup'd-up sports car, I drive the staple of suburban America, an SUV -- although DH would make the argument that some days I ride a broomstick instead. And I really want a minivan, which I once considered the motherhood equivalent of the Tercel.

How I got to this point in my life, though, is just as much a result of chance as a third grade game of M.A.S.H. If I hadn't gone to a frat party one night my junior year of college -- just one night after getting dumped by a member of that very fraternity -- I'd have never met DH before he transferred schools. If I hadn't taken a chance on a realtor I'd never met in person, who was working three states away from our then-residence, he'd never have pointed me in the direction of our current home, which I love (well, with the exception of that one "missing room"). If DH and I hadn't taken a chance on getting it on just one time before starting my new method of birth control, we wouldn't have our amazing Baby C. Heck, even our SUV has an element of chance -- we chose not to take the chance in sinking more money into our old (and paid for) vehicle, and instead made the investment in a new car.

I think Shakespeare got it wrong; life isn't a stage with the men and women merely players -- life is a game.

How is your life different than you dreamed it would be when you were a kid?

"Sometimes, I feel like we're just roommates," my husband said to me late one night, as he (once again) headed downstairs to sleep on the couch. "Sometimes, I worry you don't love me."

Ouch.

Long before DH and I started our family, we agreed our marriage needed to remain the top priority. His parents -- and mine -- had made it perfectly clear as we were growing up that their marriage came first; they believed without that solid foundation, the rest of the family would crumble.

But DH's stinging, late-night indictment was justified. It's no secret that DH and I like to sleep in separate beds from time to time. But all that nighttime separation has taken a toll on the physical aspect of our marriage, and hence, on the relationship itself.

My first reaction was not shock, nor confusion, not even sorrow. In fact, at first, I was fine with his assessment of our marriage. I know plenty of married couples who don't even particularly like each other. I enjoy spending time with him; we laugh, we have fun, we explore new places and things, usually with our children in tow. What's wrong with that? I wondered.

For a solid week, I allowed myself to live under the illusion that I could go on happily ever after in a platonic marriage. And then, on another late night alone in our big bed, I realized something... I want more.

Between balancing my freelance work, taking care of two young children and running a household, I'd forgotten to put my marriage -- my husband -- first. I'm not talking about refreshing my makeup and meeting him at the backdoor with a kiss and a beer when he gets home from work; I don't have the energy for that, and quite frankly, it's not my personality. But I need to make the energy -- and time -- to cuddle with him at night, give him a kiss in the morning, and not only tell him but show him that he is the most important person in my world.