Do you recognize your flags?  

The parenting teen gap...that fragile space between getting your family’s basic needs met, and really connecting with your teens, while at the same time giving them an appropriate amount of independence. (A skillful tightrope walker comes to mind.) Are you in the throes of it? Most likely you are.

Myles, Celia and I just got back from two solid hours of trick-or-treating. I'm a big sap, obsessed with my Norman Rockwell vision of the world - even though that vision, more often than not, involves all sorts of personal proclivities that many people would deem decidedly alternative. It is what it is. And it is sweet.