At Considerable Cost

I think this year was the first one I remember when there was not a single message about Halloween posted on the server for our Catholic mom's prayer group.   There was one article posted on the Facebook group page, but no arguments ensued on the main e-mail server.   That was nice.   We'll see how we get through girl scout cookie season.   And no new Harry Potter novels or movies, so that shouldn't come up, either. My memories of Halloween contain no gore, no horror movies.   I looked forward to the huge hot dog and marshmallow roast at our friends' house.   Dressing up was fun and it was the only time I got to wear make-up during my elementary school years.    That was back in my pre-Catholic days.   Pre-baptism of any kind days.   The only people I knew who didn't celebrate Halloween were Protestants who thought the holiday evil because of its Catholic origins/connections.   I w...

As a parent, I've changed so much since my first child was born.   She never watched television until after she was two years old.   She didn't have her first potato chip until after she was two and she said, "Water" whenever she saw a McDonald's sign because that was all she had ever had there.   When Child 2 came along, I told the pediatrician, "I've done everything wrong with this one." "No," he answered.   "You did what you had to do to survive!"   I really love our pediatrician. When we moved into this house a year ago, the kids started having real problems sleeping through the night--or even falling asleep--because they were accustomed to our bedroom being right down the hall from theirs.  Now, our room is on the other side of the house.   I became even more protective of what I considered their "sensitive" natures. Recently, I discovered  BBC's Desert Island Disc s podcasts.    This radio program has be...