To my amazement (read: horror), the top three searches on Yahoo! in 2008 were:  1. Britney Spears; 2.  WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment); and 3.

Couldn’t tell there was a recession yesterday at the Green Hills Mall. After 10 minutes of fruitless searching and dizzying circling, we finally found a cramped space at the very top of a packed parking structure. (My husband took the opportunity to remind me how much he dislikes parking structures – leftover California earthquake “heebie jeebies.”)
 

Well, our early Thanksgiving was a huge, exhausting success!  Everyone left filled and fulfilled.  Now, at least for our family, the hoilday has come and gone, so it's sort of strange to hear others still referring to their upcoming celebrations.

It was bound to happen.  Sooner rather than later.  When I broached the subject of Thanksgiving with my two oldest children (20 & 23), a bloated pause preceded throat clearing and deep breaths.  Independent of one another, my oldest son and only daughter told me that they had made plans with their significant others' families this year.  Their voices were even, polite and, I think, even tinged with flickers of sadness.  Without saying as much, they wanted me to understand, and not be hurt.  After all, I know them better than I know myself.

I'm not quite sure why my type-A personality doesn't extend to my holiday gift-buying tendencies.  It's just about this time of year, while planning Thanksgiving (this year, for 14 instead of our usual intimate six -- five of us plus my mom), that I realize I haven't bought a thing and I'm running out of time. About 6 weeks and counting...fast! Part of it is financial.  I keep waiting for a little "surplus" one month before I start shopping.  Sometimes, that surplus never materializes.  Other years, I'm just late.

A new national study by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, discovered that 213,000 plus children under 18 years of age are treated each year in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for playground-related injuries; the number of injuries stayed consistent during the 10-year study.

Despite playground guidelines and standards, high numbers of playground equipment-related injuries illustrate remaining unsafe conditions for our children.  Parents should be aware of the study's key findings:

I heard the frustration and sadness tinged with anger in the mom’s voice. Even on the other end of a phone line, I recognized it well. About five years ago, it was my quivering voice on some expert’s voicemail begging the virtual (though highly-recommended) stranger to “please help me help my son.”

I stopped to chat with a long-time neighbor yesterday.  We both have three kids, who've gone to school with each other for years.  After standard pleasantries were exchanged, she asked me if I had heard about her 17-year-old's recent car accident.  Though most subdivision "news" spreads faster than an outbreak of chicken pox, I hadn't heard a thing.  Apparently, rushing home to make curfew on a Saturday night two weeks ago -- driving too fast and intoxicated -- he flipped and totaled his car about a mile and a half from home.  Miraculously, other than surg

My teenager should get an award...an award for "Most Excuses."  Last week it was a stuffy nose, then a headache and finally a pain in his ankle that Logan cited as reasons why he couldn't complete his Biology homework.  This weekend he claimed that exhaustion and an all-day acting workshop (very strenuous...NOT!) should excuse him from Spanish homework.

Confession:  Hubby and I are going out for dinner and a movie tomorrow night...on October 31!  After 22 consecutive Halloweens, we've left all our haunted house trimmings in the boxes that have stored them in three different garages, two states and for almost a quarter century.

Logan spent 20 minutes yesterday afternoon searching for (and harumphing about!) his skateboarding helmet before he realized (read: I finally insisted that he sit down and calmly think about the last time he wore it!) that he'd left it at a friend's home the previous weekend.

Today, it was his baseball mitt.  His aggravating and noisy "hunts" always begin the same way.  With his majesty shouting throughout the house, "MOM!  Do you know where my _____ is?"  "My" being the key word in that question.

There's definitely something to birth order affecting personality.  My oldest is the most conservative of the three, not into risk-taking and definitely disciplined compared to his younger siblings.  My middle child is good at compromise and has exceptional people and negotiating skills.  The youngest is charming, creative, funny (they're all pretty funny, actually), manipulative and fearless.

It must have been temporary insanity.  The scene:  Logan's room.  Logan, 15, and his buddy, 14, playing Rock Band (ask a teenager); the friend is on drums and Logan is the vocalist.

The incident was so unnerving that I forgot which song they were jamming to -- I think it was the Stones -- and I don't know what came over me, but I ran into the room, plopped onto the bed next to my youngest son and joined him on the chorus of the forgotten classic rock tune.  My head next to his, belting out the words...until I noticed I was singing solo.

My girlfriend and I were recently reminiscing about our pregnancies -- our pregnant cravings to be exact.  I recalled sending my poor husband out late one night in the middle of December with a warning, "Don't come back without fresh blueberries."  I was about six months into my first pregnancy at the time.  Later on in that same pregnancy, refried beans from Taco Bell became my chronic craving...never mind I normally hated them when the cells in my body weren't being invaded by aliens.  In fact, it was also my first pregnancy that turned me into a vegetarian,

I remember the days when preparing for a trip sans children (even if hubby were staying behind) involved weeks of planning and plotting.  Schedules, rides, extracurriculars, meals and more, all had to be prearranged and written down.  And, of course, when the kids were real young (not that I got away all that often, mind you), then long lists crammed with feeding and sleep schedules, emergency numbers, allergies, instructions, tips, contingency plans, preferences of all kinds had to be left strategically around the house for the adult left in charge.

In my wildest dreams (translation: terrifying nightmares), I can’t imagine what parents of multiples experience (translation: endure). I am in awe. I bow to their super humanness. So, in honor of those miraculous, brave gals who are pregnant with twins or more and those who’ve already been delivered – literally and figureatively – to their altered universe, I give you the Top 10 Mistakes Made by New Parents of Twins/Multiples (list only from about.com, a part of the New York Times Company).

Hubby and Logan took off for a weekend of male bonding and dirt bike riding.  Lots of dust and roaring engines and testosterone.  Sleeping in the back of the van, cooking over a campfire, waking at the crack of dawn.  Sounds like fun...NOT!

Meanwhile, I find myself strangely alone...at home.  A rarity indeed!  What to do?  What to do?  I know one thing.  Whatever I choose to do won't involve rising early.

I don't remember ever actually having a conversation with hubby early on in our marriage about me becoming the sole toilet paper roll replenisher and chief receptacle (and hair) holder for sick children and he becoming adept at things involving drains, gutters and filters in our daily family dynamics.  Likewise, I haven't a clue how I wound up wearing the shoes of Cruella de Homework Shrew.  Been there, still doing that (for the third time), and continuing to hate it!

I wanted to pass along the Mom's Choice Awards 2008: Children's Picture Books (ages birth to 9).

*  A Great Time:  Children's Poetry in English and Russian (White Stag Press/PDG) by Masha Shurin

*  Un peda de pan/A piece of bread (Panamericana Editorial) by Aida E. Marcuse

*  Abraham Lincoln and the Forest of Little Pigeon Creek (AmeriTales Entertainment, L.L.C.) by T.D. Carter and Randy Jennings

*  Adventures of Riley -- Operation Orangutan (Eaglemont Press) by Amanda Lumry

Celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary (yesterday) was surreal enough.  Firstly, in this day and age, marriage vows seem to expire faster than frozen ground beef.  And, secondly, how could I be married almost three decades when I'm only 39?  But, miracles aside, at Mambu's restaurant last night during our celebratory dinner (which in the words of Rachel Ray was "YUM-O!"), we bumped into one of our oldest son's friends and his date.