My kids are worried about contracting Swine Flu. And that irritates me to no end. Because if there’s one thing I don’t need right now, what with my company tanking and bills mounting and stress levels higher than high, it’s having my kids all panicky about dying from the flu.

My 4-year-old seems to think that Swine Flu involves morphing into an actual pig, which is amusing, but my older kids seem to be inching toward paranoia, and that is not cool. We’ve done everything we can to reassure them, but with two parents who work in the media, it’s impossible to ignore the hype.
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My 4-1/2-year-old has a birthday party or a playdate every weekend for the next five weeks. She’s become quite the social butterfly — sometimes with her 2-1/2-year-old brother in tow. Which is great, except now I’m faced with a birthday party dilemma: Invite the whole class or just a few kids?
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Earth Day came and went with nary an acknowledgement from me. I woke up today, realized that I missed it entirely, and felt a wee bit guilty. For about a minute.

It’s not that I’m not interested in saving the Earth or conserving resources. It’s not that I don’t want to “go green.” It’s that I reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as I can already — why should Earth Day be any different?  It’s becoming a bit like Valentine’s Day, in some ways, but with CFLs instead of cards and candies. It feels like we’re encouraged to do all sorts of little things to mark the occasion, and then we’re in the clear to go back to our wasteful ways for the rest of the year. 
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April is Autism Awareness Month, and I’m a parent of a child on the spectrum. With autism now more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined — The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 out of 150 kids have autism, an increase from previous estimates — if your child isn’t on the autism spectrum, chances are good that he or she knows (or will eventually know) someone who is.
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Yesterday, for the first time ever, I was late picking my little kids up from preschool and daycare.

It was a crazy day — my husband is away, things at work are extra tense, I had a phone interview to do while driving home (we could also title this post “Safety Fail” — or “Yay, Multitasking,” I suppose), and traffic was at a standstill. The 40-mile dash to pick up the kids before 6 p.m. took almost two hours, and I breathlessly punched in the keycode at their school 10 minutes past deadline.

I know that doesn’t sound like much, but when there’s a per-minute late charge, and your kids have been there longer than usual that day anyway, every second counts.
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I’m traveling to my hometown later this week, to give a talk to students at my old high school. It’s career day, and I’m on a panel with a handful of other journalists.

I’ve done this gig before, and it’s always been a blast. But while I’m looking forward to this trip, too, there is a very large difference this time: The industry I’ve devoted my career to is collapsing, and I’m supposed to be doling out advice to students who want to follow the same path I have. What on earth am I going to tell them?
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Like most working moms, I often credit what’s left of my sanity to my ability to multitask. Whether it’s folding a mountain of laundry while watching TV or typing emails while trying to keep your toddler from pecking at the keyboard, multitasking is how busy moms manage, right?

According to neuroscientists at MIT: Maybe not.

Apparently, we’re not doing several things at once as much as we’re doing several things one at a time, very quickly — and not necessarily very well. So multitasking? It may be just a myth.
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The economy is impacting us in myriad ways, but one of the most shocking, to me, is the way it’s had an effect in the bedroom. People are trying to figure out if they have enough money to have another child; a heartbreaking number of people have decided that they do not, and are putting their family plans on hold, choosing sterilization, or deciding to have an abortion.

It’s a terrible decision to have to make, and there’s another layer of difficulty that’s being discussed often these days: Doctors and nurses faced with having to decide between their faith and their jobs. 
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Our youngest kids started at a new preschool and daycare recently, and the Mama Drama is back. Not my 4-year-old, she of the dramatic yet silent tears. This time, it’s my usually cheerful 2-year-old. And it is killing me.

Week One of “New School” was fine and dandy. Both kids were up and raring to go (way too) early in the morning. My daughter instantly became the Queen Bee of her classroom, fitting in easily and happily among her new friends. My little boy decided his teachers were “Weally awessum, Mama” and was a hit with new friends as well.

Then came Week Two.
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