I can cook; but not well. I figure I have six years until my children discover what their friends' mothers make for dinner.

Well, every now and then I would hear the preposterous notion that that Jane Pauley sounds like Barbara Walters. Like I could if I tried?

I was an unusually private person - in a way, kind of insufferably so. I think I thought the celebrity thing when it happened was a temporary phenomenon, and I was above it.

The most likely moment for something incredible to happen to me was the moment I was most certain nothing ever would.

I came back to work when my children were two months old. At that early age, they seem to have little awareness of anybody but their Raggedy Ann dolls, so it wasn't a matter of them missing me. I was missing them.

About the time I turned 50, I experienced the profound biological change that often accompanies women at that age. Also, I put two kids in college and lost both of my parents, so I'm no longer somebody's daughter.

My son has been known to throw a book at the television set when he called for me to come play and I was obviously busy in the box. But I'm told that children of television performers grow up thinking that all mommies or daddies work on TV and that it's no big deal.