It was at a retail store that my four-year-old daughter Munchkin taught me a lesson. She, like me, is an affectionate person, frequently hugging her friends and her family. She also enjoys giving out compliments, telling whomever she meets that she likes their eyes, their lipstick or, for some reason, their voice. 

On that day, we were at a local store picking out a birthday gift when my daughter ran up to someone and gave her a hug. Munchkin is pretty small, so she basically hugged this woman's legs and while I rushed to tell Munchkin that it's not appropriate to ambush complete strangers, the woman brushed it off and, I noticed, looked pleased. She patted Munchkin's back and smiled and I realized that this kind woman, maybe a decade or two older than me, needed a hug. I don't know if she was lonely or having a bad day or perhaps hadn't had chubby arms wrap so tightly around her legs in a long time, but I saw that there was a special sparkle in her eyes as she looked at Munchkin. 

Last week, my boss asked me to attend a Wednesday evening event with my fellow colleagues. It was scheduled for 6pm, almost two hours before my husband typically gets home from work so I booked a babysitter and planned out the week leading up to the event.

Valentine's Day was coming up so on Monday I went to the craft store and spent $25 buying hearts, stickers and tiny "LOVE" doo-dads to signify my children's undying affection for their classmates. Tuesday, I pondered which dinner I could make for the sitter to serve up and settled on whole wheat pasta. When I noticed we had an after-school wine-and-whine playdate on Thursday, leaving me with one less day to make Valentine's Day cards, I suddenly realized that on Wednesday I would have to get the kids, help Monkey with his homework and help them make about 35 Valentine's cards all while trying to shower and look appropriately corporate for my 5:30pm departure. 

A few nights ago, my husband and my in-laws--newly arrived from India--raised our glasses and toasted one year of living a suburban life. Just 12 months earlier, my in-laws had helped us pack up the last boxes as our family left the two-bedroom apartment we had called home for more than five years. It was the place we moved into when Monkey was a few months old and where we brought Munchkin home from the hospital in a NYC cab. From our apartment, we enjoyed the whir of helicopters, our view of NYC, and the quick subway ride to Manhattan. 

This winter has been extra snowy, chilly and unkind to runners like me who do not like treadmills. As I stared out the window last month and lamented my increasingly soft form, I decided enough was enough. Sporadic trips to swim laps at the indoor pool and short runs sprinkled between snow showers was not enough to keep this 40-year-old body in shape. It was time for a goal. After some research, I registered for a local half marathon taking place in May. Excitedly I printed out my Hal Higdon training schedule only to realize I was already a week behind. 

As someone very familiar with the pain of over-training, I eased into the first two weeks of running by "only" running three times a week. It's not much by training standards, but way more than I'd been doing recently. It's been two years since I did (my slowest) half-marathon (ever), and I do not plan on going through the agony of again running a race for which I was under-prepared. (Not to self: never register for a half-marathon that takes place in March, unless I can train somewhere warm.)

The Valentine's Day Party was wrapping up. As my husband and I grabbed coats and wiped off smudged hands, a fellow mom I'd just met said, "Thank you. Thank you for letting your daughter get messy and play on the ground. I'm just now learning that lesson myself."

I laughed and said I understood, but internally, I really appreciated her words. I know not every parent wants their kids to get dirty, but I do know I don't want to be the parent that doesn't let their little girls get dirty.

This weekend, my husband and children and I are spending a few days with friends who live near a ski resort. For the first time ever, Monkey is going to learn how to ski and boy, is it expensive. Since Monkey is not yet six, he has to have a private lesson, which at only $10 more than a group lesson, is going to cost around $100. I'm looking forward to seeing if Monkey enjoys skiing, but part of me is incredulous that I am spending $100 on a 90 minute class for a five year old. Some serious skiers might think the price is reasonable since this is Pennsylvania, not Aspen, but when I look back on my own childhood, I can't recall my parents spending $100 on me in a single day, much less a few hours. I think an entire week of camp (band camp, mind you) was $100, including meals, practices, cabins and night-time sing-a-longs. 

When we moved into our new house and offered to host Christmas (well, with all the different beliefs in our family, we call it Christmakkahwali) I envisioned a family trip to a tree farm where we'd drink cider and sit on bales of hay as we toured the farm to pick out our perfect tree. After the drive home, I imagined playing holiday music and the four of us wearing awful Christmas sweaters, while baking cookies and decorating the tree. In reality, it turns out that most tree farms are 45 minutes away and since we are short on time on weekends, I took the kids to a local farmer's market on Wednesday, dished out some serious cash for a pine needle-dropping tree and had to wait until after the kids were asleep to get it off the van roof with my husband. Thursday, with nary a CD player* working in the house, I had to look up holiday mixes on youtube and keep reminding Munchkin to turn away from the screen so we could decorate. 

Halloween is upon us and while it's a lot of fun for kids, I sometimes think the ghosts of Halloweens past are playing tricks on parents. While the kids get to revel in the joy of costumes and candy, it's up to the parents to juggle holiday fun with logistics.

"What logistics?" you ask. Lets start with the sheer number of events involved in celebrating Halloween. I have two kids who go to two different schools. That is, Munchkin attends a day school three days a week and while Monkey attends that day school those same three days, he also goes to public kindergarten in the afternoons. That means that I have one Trick-or-Trunk night, two different Halloween parades and three class parties. As a parent, that means dressing the kids in a variety of layers under and over costumes multiple times, various snacks to provide, cash to give for the school pumpkin patch and the never ending search for facility-wide-nut-free-candy kids actually want to eat. 

It's 5:30 in the morning, a full 90 minutes before my alarm is due to go off. I packed lunches last night, but I forgot to set out the kids outfits and I'm anxious to get them dressed and pack their change of clothes for daycare. A million thoughts go through my head while I try to convince my brain to shut off and sleep. Instead, my mind fails to stop racing, so I get up and start preparing for the day quietly so as not to wake up the kids. 

About six months ago, I took a part-time job a 15-minute walk from my house. I set up a schedule that allowed me to drop off and pick up Monkey from PreK and lined up two babysitters for my gregarious Munchkin. As my first day of work approached, I packed three lunches--Monkey's, Munchkin's and mine--set out clothes and planned out the day of drop-offs and hand-offs, dashing around in work clothes that had been languishing in the back of my closet for nearly two years. For the most part, work fit into the schedule I'd already established with the kids. We were always out the door at 7:50 am and back home in the early afternoon. The main difference was that while Monkey still went off to school, Munchkin was home with the sitter while I went to the office.