The best parenting advice I ever got was from a labor nurse who told me the following: 1. After your baby gets here, the dog will just be a dog. 2. The terrible twos last through age three. 3. Never ask your child an open-ended question, such as "Do you want to go to bed now?" You won't want to hear the answer, believe me. "Do you want me to carry you upstairs, or do you want to walk upstairs to go to bed?" That way, you get the outcome you want and they feel empowered.

Things break all the time. Day breaks, waves break, voices break. Promises break. Hearts break.

As Lacy waited for her turn to speak on Peter's behalf, she thought back to the first time she realized she could hate her own child.

I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?

Iknew that all the attributes he was teased for, at age five, were going to work in his favor by thetime he was thirty-five...but I couldn't get him there overnight. You can't fast-forward your child'slife, no matter how much you want to.

She became whoever she needed to be to survive,but she never let anyone else define her.

Any time you put on the mouthpiece of somebody that you're not, there's a professional responsibility to get it right. I did a great deal of research in both of those arenas.