Sister Math is very different from regular run-of-the-mill math. It's sort of like string theory is to algebra--it just operates on a very different set of rules. For instance, in Sister Math, the amount of times your sibling has done something is directly proportional to how much trouble they will be in when caught. They may have only done it two times if no one is ever going to know but that number can swell well into the double digits if mum or dad notices. 2 + 2 really can equal "ten times today alone" if the transgression is something like raiding the liquor cabinet.

Raise your hand if your kids are sleepy.  Mine are.  They've been staying up entirely too late watching Olympics, and who am I to stop them?  I was 12 years old when Mary Lou Retton won her gold medal, and I remember having my nose firmly glued to the TV.

Last week in the car, my four-year-old daughter asked me who she thought she should marry.  I told her she needn't worry about that until AFTER HIGH SCHOOL. Then she asked if she should marry a boy.  And ... it gave me pause. 

“Whoever undertakes to set themselves up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”-- Albert Einstein It was a steaming hot summer day when I was driving across the country through the deep and humid south of America. As I walked through the big glass doors of a huge truckstop, an older couple and their grandson came out. I looked down at the clean but shabbily dressed little boy and smiled. He made his hand into a gun shape, pointed it at me and said "BANG! You are dead old lady, because I killed you!"

I've been reading picture books aloud to my children for over a decade, and we've definitely worn out a few favorites until the layers of Scotch tape can't help anymore.  Here are some of our family's best-loved children's picture books:Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown:  Of course.  This one has to be at the top of the list.  I could do it from memory, probably backwards, but it never fails us as the best of best.

Earlier today, I participated in a panel discussion at BlogHer on Mommyblogging: Public Parenting and Privacy.  The other panelists were Chris Jordan, of Notes From the Trenches; Crystal, of Boobs, Injuries and Dr.

It's a beautiful day and Dad has taken the kids out to play on an inflatable slide; they're all laughing and having a great time, and he snaps some pictures of the fun... until he's called a pervert and told to stop. I think that sounds like a plot for a ridiculous, contrived fiction story, but it's what actually happened to the U.K.'s Gary Crutchley when he was on an outing with his two sons and other parents protested his picture-taking:

When I was potty training my first child, a good friend (herself in the middle of potty training her child) called me, at the end of her rope.  "You know," she sighed, "there should really be a camp for this.  Some place we could send our toddlers, and they could just come home trained.  At this point, I'd pay big bucks for that."

Does your mom still have an AOL account? Does she email you her random, yet charming, thoughts on life and love? Does she wish you called more often? Postcards From Yo Momma is a collection of the many delightful correspondences these traits inspire. Learn more about From the 'hood.

I remember being Henry’s age and getting into trouble, and having my mother say, “When your dad gets home I will need to talk about this with him.” That always freaked me out, not because my dad was tougher than my mom but because that meant that there would be no end run around the punishment, no claiming to one parent that the other parent had said something different. I was going to be in trouble and there was going to be NO getting out of it. Susan Wagner and her husband carry on the tradition of the United Front.

Cate was yelling at me. Again. Every day it’s the same story. I pick Cate up from school and she happily shows me the new trick she can do on the peddle car; the stone she dug up in the sand pit; how many times she can hop the jump rope on one foot. We find Eden and start the ten minute walk home. By minute seven Cate is screaming about something. Anything.

I recently read BlogHer Contributing Editor Laina Dawe’s post in reaction to Barack Obama’s speech about his white grandmother. I started thinking about how much our families influence our own views about race, whether we agree or disagree. Once you hear someone make a hateful remark about another person based on the color of their skin or the shape of their eyes, it’s hard to forget your reaction.