Looking for a Christmas gift for a new parent or parent-to-be? Consider giving them my book (look to the book cover to the right over there - the red one. ), Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child. You can order it by clicking on the cover or get it at any major bookstore.

OK, blatant commercial plug over now ;-)

I have a new story in Hip Mama about the huge controversy surrounding the new president of the American Academy of Pediatrics' decision to speak out against the upcoming federal breastfeeding promotion ad campaign.

I am now officially old.

As I sit here working on my laptop, my handsome, shaggy haired son, Henry is standing next to the family CD player in his Chuck Taylors, guitar slung across his chest, earnestly trying to learn the chord progressions in the Nirvana, Cramps, and Ramones songs to which he's listening.

I'm 36 and he's 12 and we like most of the same music. My parents listened to The Stones, Neil Young, etc, and I loved all that stuff too, but they didn't like what I liked in high school, which included stuff like The Clash, B52s, Talking Heads, Adam Ant, REM, Pylon, Love Tractor, The Replacements, Patty Smith, X, The White Animals (swoon), and Mission of Burma.

I have a new column up today at Metro Pulse about Lisa Belkin's recent New York Times Magazine piece on what she calls "The Opt Out Revolution."

It turns out that the late Senator Strom Thurmond was even more of a sad, conflicted, and self-loathing man than anyone knew simply on the basis of his racist political agenda. During all the years he worked to prevent integration, voting rights, educational equality, and more, it turns out that he was quite consciously working to prevent his own daughter from enjoying all the benefits of American citizenship. It's hard not to view a man who lived his life in this way as evil, but I really do think the more accurate view is to see him as simply pathetic.

I am pleased as punch to announce that I have been named the Essays Editor for the online magazine LiteraryMama.com.