Those Keebler Elves Won't Deny Me Again

You don't see a lot of people extolling the virtues of the good stuff. You see plenty of the kvetching when it's gone. But the good stuff? We take it for granted, and then, poof, some bean counter decides the cost of toffee goodness is too high, and they whip it away from us.

It's the crap that no one really talks about that will be there forever. Like Diet Pepsi Lime. Seriously, people, stop buying it for your party on the off chance that someone will drink it. You're just going to end up pouring it down the drain, and the folks at Pepsi won't know it. They'll think you actually drank that disaster.

And now you understand why I need to do this, why I need to write an entire odd to the good that is the Toffee Sandies.

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Debate Gun Control All You Want But Let's Stop This Nonsense

The gun control debate was inevitable. When a psychopath entered a crowded theater in Aurora, Colorado armed with enough weapons to obliterate a small town, the victims had to be spoken for.

Even as the Constitution provides for the right to arm a militia, it provides us the right to free speech.

This debate that will play out for weeks to come, long past the funerals of the 12 innocent men, women, and children who were massacred during the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, is our right. It may even be our duty.

But my fellow Americans, is it so hard to ask for civility? For common sense?

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If This Isn't Summer, I Don't Know What Is

It's not that "in focus," but something about this photo makes me want to dive in. It just screams summer fun, doesn't it?

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She Googled Herself and Found ...

And so, it has begun. My child has known about Google for awhile now. She's searched for important, life-altering things. You know, the name of the My Little Pony queen and the like.
But today I was roused from the seat in front of my computer by the type of shriek that means "Come. Now."

She thrust her Kindle in my face. And there she was. Or rather, there we were, mother and daughter, the blue curtains of our dining room behind us.

She'd Googled herself. And up popped a photo from a few months ago when The New York Times sent a photographer to our house.

She recognized it. "The New York Times put me on Google," she announced.

Well, sort of kid. Sort of.

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Sometimes I Wish I Was the Sucky Parent

She sat in the front of the crowd, her fingers crossed. Some people smiled indulgently. My heart sank.

She was hoping to "win" something at soccer camp graduation. I knew it wasn't to be. My daughter will never bend it like Beckham.

This is OK.

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Kids Are Reading '50 Shades of Grey'

I realized something about the kerfuffle over '50 Shades of Grey' and decided to share it with the "someecards" world ...

What did YOU learn on the school bus?

Have you "liked" Inside Out Motherhood on Facebook yet?

Sunscreen Now Official Instrument of Torture for American Spies

Notice the sunscreen smear (& Wacky Wednesday hair)

She screams. She wriggles her body, furiously wresting her shoulders from my grasp. "Stop! You're hurting me! Mooooom. Noooo!"

What is this instrument of torture I'm inflicting on my innocent child?

Sunblock. Or are we supposed to call it sunscreen these days? I can't keep up.

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Photographers: You'll Wish You Had Us When They're Gone

I think I was 6 when I got my first camera. It was blue plastic, made by Fisher-Price, the kind that required one of those sticks of flash bulbs. You'd take several photos, burning one bulb at a time, then flip it to use up the rest.

I'd buy my flash sticks at the grocery store, thinking I was some big shot.

Most of the photos are long gone. What remains is an almost obsessive relationship with my camera. It's all documented. The birthday parties. The bizarre outfits concocted by a child with a flair for the unusual. The first tooth. The first friend.

It's obsessive.

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