All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.

Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.

As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line.

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

Most mothers entering the labor market outside the home are naive. They stagger home each evening, holding mail in their teeth, the cleaning over their arm, a lamb chop defrosting under each armpit, balancing two gallons of frozen milk between their knees, and expect one of the kids to get the door.