My new motto

I'm taking a few minutes out from our family vacation, after playing Bingo with my son and before watching the movie "13 Going on 30" with my daughter, to share what I think is going to be my new motto. It's from Calvin Trillin's book Family Man, and it goes like this: "Sometimes, I find myself drawn to the simplest possible way of explaining what may count in rearing children: your children are either the center of your life or they're not, and the rest is commentary."

I like to think my husband would agree that this is what counts in our family, too; I'd ask him, but he's busy giving our son a bath, while I'm in the living room of our timeshare listening to my daughter's new favorite CD, which is rather louder than I'd like but not blatantly eardrum-busting or lyrically offensive. And, of course, I'm tapping away on the computer, which my husband would probably point out is not exactly putting our kids at the center of my life. Neither is reading bunches of books. I'd argue that putting our kids at the center of my blog should count for something, and that most of those books I read have something to do, at least tangentially, with children in general or children with special needs in particular. And that part of the reason he was so eager to supervise bathtime was to avoid having to listen to the CD and watch the movie. Maybe our children are really just the center of our excuses. But they're pretty vital at that.