"What happens if that snake bites me?" my 4-year-old daughter asked as her sticky little fingers rested on the plexiglass that separated her from a viper, a viper with a mouse-sized lump in its gullet.

I winced and answered as cooly as I could, "Uh, you could die." I prepared...

I'm a crunchy person up to a point. I trek to the farmers' market every weekend to fill up my recycled-plastic shopping bags with avocados and organic strawberries, but I've never made my own reusable fabric toilet paper squares.

When my daughter was born, I decided I'd be the...

Like most humans, I don't feel great all the time. As my 3-year-old daughter says, "Sometimes Mudder gets frustrated." I taught her the word "frustrated" early in her life, as I needed a way to convey to her when I was neither mad nor sad, just miffed, because it happens...

Thomas the Tank Engine
C/O North Western Railway Company
Island of Sodor

Dear Thomas,

You're a train with a face, so I knew I had to get in touch. For a long time, when your program came on the television, I took it as my cue to lure...

What advice would you give to a woman pregnant with her first child? I mean, I don't know. Don't drop the baby? Don't forget to change their diaper every few hours? Find a wooden spoon and bite on it until the baby turns 1?

I have two friends pregnant...

"I quit, you bitches!" he yelled before ripping his apron off, throwing it on the ground, and storming out of Starbucks, leaving me with my rival to finish the shift. Neither of us were sad to see the guy go -- he was a grown man who replied, "Do I...

Dear NBC,

Look, I'm not proud of this, but I really like to watch gymnastics. True, I forget about it for three years out of every four, but there was a moment a few months ago when I was like, "Huh, 2012 is an Olympic year, right? GYMNASTICS!" and then...

In 2005 I was a 25-year-old barista at a Starbucks in Hollywood, which was a terrible waste of my anthropology degree, insofar as an anthropology degree can be anything but wasted. But despite failing at life, I had come to think of myself as a mentor to one of my...

It's fitting that parenthood begins by getting screwed, because that's roughly what happens every day thereafter. Though children are long on delights both existential and immediate, the practicalities of parenting are daunting, especially in the United States, where there is little subsidized childcare and most parents are only eligible for...

My dog's ashes are currently in a small silver gift box on my bookshelf. I loved my dog, but I hate that ugly box and its stupid tassel.

When my husband and I decided to cremate Bernie, we thought we would scatter his ashes along one of his favorite hiking...

Sup, Kids Today.

I am a mom, but I'm not your mom, so don't think of me as a parental figure. I'm just trying to figure some stuff out before my own children, both of whom are very young (the worst thing they can think to do online is...

I chose to move to Portland when I was twenty because that's where my favorite band, Sleater-Kinney lived. That tells you everything you need to know about my maturity and decision-making faculties at the time.

I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do with my life, perhaps become a...

"Brah, you used to be fun." That's what Timmy, my husband's 16-year-old cousin, liked to remind me during our ridiculously frequent text message exchanges.

He was right. I did used to be fun. But then I became a mom. During my daughter's first year, nothing was too small for me to...

"So, you know that thing I do when I talk a lot about body acceptance and how my butt is an intentional affront to the tyranny of thinness, but then I secretly hate my body?" My friend nodded knowingly. We'd hashed out my hypocrisy many times before during our moms'...

"Mommy! Mommy! I won at ballet!" So claimed my 3-year-old daughter as she bounded into my arms after her first dance class.

I know ballet can't be won, least of all in a free "Itty Bitty Dancer" class at my local YMCA, but holding my triumphant child, I felt...