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.

A grandparent will help you with your buttons, your zippers, and your shoelaces and not be in any hurry for you to grow up.

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

Kids need love the most when they're acting most unlovable.

For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.

The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms. . . and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.