My grandmother used to tell me the story of how she came to America. When I asked her how long it took for the ship she was on to get to the U.S., she said it was hard to say in English but the ship inspired a phrase in Yiddish...

Our dog Benjamin will be 13 this fall. There won't be a bar mitzvah or a confirmation, but we'll note the occasion with some extra treats, and maybe one of those singing birthday cards that he loves to destroy.

I was talking to a friend recently about family, dogs,...

Kids don't come with instructions, yet we figure out pretty quickly how to nurture, teach, and protect them. I just didn't expect that we had only 17 years and 364 days to accomplish everything we set out to do, before the start of a whole new ballgame.

My youngest son...

Yesterday, I saw a toddler playing a game on an iPhone.

I wonder if she ordered it online. I heard kids today can do anything that involves technology. They're born with their thumbs wagging. While she was on the phone playing the game, her mom was multitasking: shopping for...

While writing this column, I've touched on the difficulties inherent in transitioning from one stage of parenting to the next. The thing about transitions is, sometimes it's helpful to revisit the past in order to see how much you've grown. Recently, I thought about my father's passing -- and a...

By the time you read this blog post, my family will have gone away and left me home alone for the weekend, then returned -- presumably with tales to tell. Borrowing two expressions frequently heard from the teenagers who visit my house on a regular basis: It feels totally weird...

Have you ever played the game of free association? Someone says a word, then you say the first thing that comes to mind? I played a version of that last week to take my mind off the mailbox during the Week of Reckoning -- waiting to hear if my son...

A friend of mine, a mom, recently asked me for ideas on how to distract herself during an upcoming medical procedure. I told her to think Bucket List, and then I told her my story:

Many years ago, when routine tests confirmed I had breast cancer, it became very clear,...

There's been some discussion in the news lately about the new definition of old, and what to call someone who's over 60. It seems that referring to adults as elderly, old or older can sound wrong, regardless of how accurate it is.

At 52 years of age, I know...

This week, on my way out of a restaurant after lunch with a coworker -- a restaurant filled with moms in their 20s and children under three, one that uses paper plates in the event a food fight erupts -- I smiled and waved at a baby in a car...

When I was little, I wanted to be That Girl, from the TV show starring Marlo Thomas. In my 20s I moved to New York and set about to define my career and conquer the city. It worked for awhile, but before I knew it, I was married with children,...

My husband took our youngest son to visit a college out of town last weekend. I stayed home. Then my aunt came to babysit me.

Normally, as the parent with a more flexible work schedule, I'm the one who would have gone. But this time, the guys finally got a...

The Monday before last I wrote a paean to Motherhood and put it away to publish on, you guessed it -- Mother's Day. Last Monday I was in a multi-car accident when someone ran a red light. It wasn't pretty. It could have been worse. Today, I no longer believe...

While out for a walk in my neighborhood this week, a mom I know, driving her well-used Suburban, called out to me. She has six children -- the youngest is in middle school, the oldest is several years out of college.

"I love your column," she said.

"Thanks,"...

The other day, I got to see someone I hadn't seen in a long time -- the real me. It wasn't in a mirror, it was in the eyes of a 19-year-old boy at the supermarket checkout. Let me tell you, it was an eye-opener. After 20 years of raising...

When I was a kid, before there were shoulder seatbelts and air bags in cars, there were mothers with right arms. Mine stuck hers out, palm to my chest, whenever I rode shotgun and we stopped short.

The parental instinct to protect our children is a powerful thing. It...

Normally, when it comes to movies, I'm a Die Hard, Bourne and Bond kind of gal. Last week, between the cruddy news in the world and the looming changes in my own nest, I found myself in a bathrobe-wearing, chocolate-grazing, hot tea-drinking sort of mood, for which the only cure...

There's something about mothers and transitions; the whole notion of moving us forward when we're stuck, or afraid, or need comforting. Sometimes they help us transition purposefully -- and sometimes it's just because they're near.

This Christmas, the last with our youngest still in the nest, my Jewish mother...

It's just after midnight in Texas and I'm lying in my bed, eyes wide open, staring into the darkness. My husband is sound asleep beside me. The lists I so often fall asleep creating --Mother's Lists if you will-- are getting shorter. On this December morning, just over 20 years...

My grandmother lived to be 107, having won what appeared to my family to be the genetic lottery. Several weeks ago, on the morning I was scheduled to take my son back to college, I wondered if the genes had skipped my generation.

It's 5 a.m. and...