At 4.5 years old, our daughter N is a lovely, outgoing child (much of the time). She is well-liked at preschool by her friends and teachers and plays very nicely with the other kids. She is fun and funny and has a sparkling sense of humor.

Except when we attend a birthday party. Or a school picnic. Or a day on the farm hosted by her preschool. In those cases — all of which happened in the past busy week — my sweet little daughter turns into a grumpy, antisocial old man, complaining…

As soon as I woke up this morning, I felt annoyed.

It wasn’t that Baby Sis had been up intermittently since 4:00am. It wasn’t that N came downstairs at 6:00am to watch me do my exercises and chat while I was working up a sweat. It wasn’t even that I was bleary-eyed and tired and just wanted to go back to bed.

I was annoyed at my dad for dying five years ago tomorrow.

Especially annoyed that he chose to take his own life.

Each year around this time, I feel a weird,…

After four and a half years of being a mom, I am finally ready to accept that I’m never going to be the perfect mother.

You’d think I would have realized long ago that there are no perfect people, ergo no perfect parents. The ideal “mother” figure (as well as the ideal “father”) is a myth, an invention of our collective psyche. It only makes sense that I wouldn’t try to hold myself to some ridiculous, unreal standard.

But I do. Every day, I’m hard on myself for some parental…

I believe N just wrote her first hit song this morning. We were trying in vain to get out the door on time, as usual, with me attempting to hurry things along. Typically the first dozen or so times I say “please go upstairs so we can brush your teeth,” I’m using a nice voice. Then nice turns to exasperated, and finally to yelling, “IF YOU DO NOT GO UPSTAIRS ON THE COUNT OF THREE, I AM GOING TO COME AND MAKE YOU!  ONE…TWO!!…”

Today N responded with a song: “Baa-aaby, stop bein’ rough…