A confession. Want to know the one thing above all others that makes me feel like a failure with Larkin? It's her diet. What she eats – mostly, what she doesn't.

The frustration came to a head on Thanksgiving. Molly and I had 15 people here for a potluck extravaganza. The dining room table was loaded with dishes: ham, mashed potatoes, red cabbage, honeyed carrots, baked beans, broccoli casserole, salads, quiches, and on and on. And there stood Larkin, surveying this festive smorgasbord and whining, "I want Rice Kris-i-pies!"

Snap, crackle, pop: It's basically all she wants to eat, morning, noon and night. OK, well, there's yogurt too. And fruit. Pasta. Cheese – sometimes. Corn – sometimes. The occasional hot dog – if we slice the skin off of it.

It's funny, but depressing. You know you're in desperate culinary straits (not to mention nutritional) when getting a hot dog into your child is your great triumph. We worry about it.… Read More

Am I an Überparent? The other day I read a New Yorker article, called "The Child Trap," about the phenomenon of "overparenting," formerly known as "spoiling." This is the much-maligned way we boomer and post-boomer moms and dads ruin our kids by ladling too much attention all over them. Think of it as a parental comedy of errors: take the never-say-no fallacy, add the center-of-the-universe mistake, toss in violin lessons, write your kid's college essay, and bingo —… Read More

Can I call time out on the serious for a moment and discuss how strange, how surprising, how hilarious it can be to talk with a two-and-three-quarters-year-old? Sometimes conversation with Larkin has this Abbott-and-Costello, "Who's on first?" quality. Other times it's way more Dada...as in the surreal, Tristan Tzara kind of Dada.

Usually she isn't trying to be funny. It's just the language machine, cranking into high gear in a child her age, producing backfires and wheeling around in wild circles.… Read More

This summer, a great job offer fell into my lap. Just like that: a gilded box, dropping from the heavens and landing right smack in front of me.

Turns out the box had been sent by someone I knew from — of all places — the playground. A fellow father I'd met on three successive Sunday mornings last spring, each of us with toddler in one hand and New York Times in the other. The kids played, the dads talked. We… Read More

First things first — the EPT was negative. So for now anyway, we're still one and done.

Next, thanks to everyone who posted or emailed to offer encouragement (and to suggest that Molly fire her OBGYN!). Your words were funny, wise, and provocative. One old friend sent this advice:

Rand, Larkin's childhood is going to be completely different from yours. Embrace that. Don't try to duplicate your own experience. The life you two have chosen is not one of a doctor and… Read More

The other day Molly was visiting her mother and mentioned she had some news. "You're pregnant!" her mom burst out. It wasn't anything like that, but that's how people think. Have one child, soon you'll have another.

In fact, Molly and I have been talking about whether we in any conceivable way might want to, you know, conceive again. These discussions began haphazardly. Molly was tired of taking the pill. What did I think about getting a vasectomy? she inquired.… Read More