Gunnar, who will turn three in March, has been dabbling with potty training for months, with the first morning pee in the potty pretty much a sure thing. Trouble is, that's where the momentum ended most days.

At the risk of sounding like an obnoxious Gen-Xer, people over 50 seem sort of astounded with my husband's level of parental involvement. Sometimes I'm not sure it's even a compliment, as if somehow Brian's willingness to take a five-minute break from work to hang out in a couch fort or even join us for lunch makes him somehow soft.

I had a somewhat mortifying incident with the kids about a month ago. Our trip to the park started out fantastic. The playground equipment was dry (as usual, I'd forgotten a towel to wipe the prior day's rainwater off the slides), intact (not sure why anyone would vandalize a toddler swing, but we've met that disappointment repeatedly), and, since school was back in session, we had the place to ourselves.

That's not to say I wouldn't be ecstatic to do it again.But the 2009 cross-country season has wrapped, and I'm hanging up my figurative whistle and stopwatch until further notice. Like the end of every track season I've ever been a part of, I'm both high and exhausted.Out of the entire 12-week season, I felt marginally comfortable in my role for maybe the last three of them.I reported to my old stomping ground in late August with zero credibility other than the fact that the head coach--a friend and former teammate--invited me on board as an assistant.

So, has anybody else out there read that timeouts are the new spankings--i.e., totally ineffective and potentially damaging?Apparently, by denying our children affection for a couple of minutes after they break the rules--generally set to prevent kids from experiencing or causing others physical harm--we're subjecting them to conditional love.