Source: Babble.com

As the Mommy Wars are heating up again for the umpteenth time this week with Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In movement, Marissa Mayer’s ridiculous telecommuniting policies and the NY Magazine article on the “retro feminist wife,” I know only one thing.

I do not judge or blame Kelly Makino, the young woman profiled in this article as a complacent stay-at-home mom who is being compared to Phyllis Schlafly for setting the woman’s movement back.  Schlafly is known for her opposition to modern feminism and for her campaign against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.  Makino is a 33-year-old former social worker who chose to become a stay at home mom because she “believes that every household needs one primary caretaker, that women are, broadly speaking, better at that job than men, and that no amount of professional success could possibly console her if she felt her two young…were not being looked after the right way.” Also she argues that because girls typically grow up playing dolls, “women are raised from the get-go to raise children successfully. When we are moms, we have a better toolbox.” Makino was used as a tool by the magazine to make a point, and if I were her, I wouldn’t be bragging about my inclusion  in this grossly written article to my friends.  I wouldn’t call it a pleasant portrayal for someone who is hopefully more interesting than she is made out to be.

I wouldn’t exactly call her values “feminist”, but I’m not saying that a housewife can’t be a feminist either.  I certainly did not give back that title when I chose to stay home.  But like Betty Freidan wrote in The Feminine Mystique, I knew I had a problem.  I longingly watched my friends get on the train in the morning and leave our suburb for the city, knowing that they had something other than formula and breastfeeding to put their minds to.  My choice to leave the work force was not only economic, but it was also so I could enjoy my child without the chaos of dealing with a 3 hours a day commute.  I knew that eventually I would return to work and I was fortunate to have a choice. I don’t think that most men have to worry about juggling the two worlds quite as much as women, which is part of the problem that Friedan described and still one that we face.

Why must women continue to judge other women? We all know how tough these choices are.  None of us ever expected to “throw away” our graduate degrees and flourishing careers when we had children, but some of us didn’t quite understand the extent of the changes that we were about to experience.  I know I didn’t.

The New York Magazine article finishes by using Makino as bait: “By making domesticity her career, she and the other stay-at-home mothers she knows are standing up for values, such as patience, and kindness, and respectful attention to the needs of others, that have little currency in the world of work. Professional status is not the only sign of importance, she says, and financial independence is not the only measure of success.”

After ten years of doing this thing they call motherhood, these are MY decisions. I know not to judge any mother for the ones they have made.  Being a stay-at-home is a very honorable job.  So is going to work.  Just because a woman decides to do one thing doesn’t mean that she won’t change her mind later.  Even with the addition of flex-time and part-time jobs in the last decade, it doesn’t mean that these types of jobs are always available.  Even though men are more helpful than during the time The Feminine Mystique was written, it doesn’t mean that they are as helpful as Sandberg’s husband who apparently does 50% of the work.  It doesn’t help that maternity leave policies are less desirable in the U.S. than other countries where women are given more time to be with their newborns and jobs are held for longer periods of time and then turned into part-time jobs for the first few years of their children’s lives. We have to work with the policies that we have in place and push for better ones.

It’s all about choice.  Let’s stop judging  each other for the ones we make and do this thing called Motherhood together.

Source: WorkFlexHours.ca

I’ve written a lot about my quest for the perfect situation to enable me to both work and take care of my children often on this blog.  A few years ago, I posted over on ScaryMommy about the dilemma I faced when I went back to work fulltime after my daughter was born.  Faced with a long commute across state lines to the office and raging hormones after just having given birth a few months earlier, I made the decision to leave when my flexible schedule to ease my return to work (3 days in the office, 2 at home) went out the window.  I left a job I loved to enter the world of motherhood, and the transition was really, really hard for me.

Eventually I would realize that being at home was not for me and that I needed to get out of the house, so I found a job that allowed me to come into the office a few days a week and work the rest from home. And suddenly, my freelance career was born.  For the last nine years, I have worked in and out of the home for companies nearby and far away.  My first job was in Long Island City.  I worked in the office two days, one at home.  I relished the adult contact in the office but also appreciated my ability to be with my kids the rest of the week.

A few years later, I worked part-time for a company based in Chicago. My manager saw the value of my work and let me work from home completely, flying to town once a month.  As a mom of two young children, it was heaven on earth.  There were plenty of challenges – childcare, making sure my sitter was at the right places at the right time, feeding the kids the foods I wanted them to eat, being on time for events and meetings at school.  But I made it work.

Since then, I have had several jobs offering me the flexibility I have required to navigate the waters of motherhood and I have managed to progress my career at the same time.  I’m proof that it can work for a company.  I’ve worked just as hard, if not harder than others, to juggle my two worlds but have never wasted my time at home.  I set up a workspace, created files and systems and worked during the day and later into the middle of the night while going into the office when necessary and always being available.  I get hired to work a certain skill set, and with direction and a plan created with my managers, they have always known what I am doing. One of the last CEO’s I worked for was a wonderful, savvy man who saw the value of blogging and referred me as an interviewee for an article in Publisher’s Weekly.  He knew how hard I worked and encouraged me both in the office and from a distance.  By working from home and going contract, I was able to start my own company, which I am very proud of.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer sent a memo to Yahoo’s remote employees last week, of which there are hundreds that they have to begin working in offices. If they don’t want to, they can quit. I can imagine that many of them feel the way I did when my flexible schedule was taken away after my daughter’s birth when I did ultimately decide to walk.  It was not an easy decision for me, let me tell you, and it was one that I questioned long after the fact, but in hindsight, it was the best decision my family and me.  I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on my children’s youngest years and my skill set advanced.

Please read this post by my friend Estelle Sobel Erasmus: Why Yahoo Just Became Obsolete: CEO Marissa Mayer Bans Working from Home.  She lays it all out for you and explains that at home employees can be just as, or more, productive than employees in the office.

I hope that Marissa, who went back to work after two weeks of maternity leave, snaps out of it soon.  Before it’s 2050. These are modern times, not ancient.

While I was traveling, I posted on Facebook on occasion, and very often on Instagram.  I truly thought of my time in Asia as time to regroup and decided I would benefit from a break from real life and that included social media. I also didn’t carry my computer nor did I have Wifi access everywhere I went.

I have never been in such a visually stunning place in my life, so photography became my best friend and I filled my Instagram stream with dozens of images daily. I wasn’t showing off that I was there while everyone was back home working. taking care of kids or just experiencing the daily grind.  I wasn’t trying to say, LOOK AT ME.  I was letting everyone know that not only was I okay, but I was doing something good for myself.  Plus, I was in a part of the world that not every American visits AND THEY SHOULD.

Some people, like Jen Maidenberg, author of one of my favorite blogs, I Made Aliyah, really got it.  About my trip, she wrote:

I am struck by the pictures my friend Holly is sending back to us from Hong Kong and Vietnam.

She’s feeding her wanderlust with banana pancakes, dim sum, and gorgeous panoramas, while feeding our desire for travel photography “porn.”

I love instagram.

Almost in the same moment that the drool drips down my chin,  while mesmerized by the lush green mountain ranges and Buddha statues, I long for the eyes through which I saw Israel in the first months I lived here.

Jen and I have to meet one day.  There are some people that I’ve met via social media who are like my soul sisters.  She is one.  If you don’t know how pro-Israel I am and how much I am dying to move to Israel, well, now you know.  And I admire Jen for making the plunge and I love reading about her daily life. I devour every word and image that goes into her posts. (Jen, I will live there one day.  I may be walking with a cane, with my hair completely white, but you and I will take long walks together and talk until sunset.)

I was feeding my wanderlust.  But it was more than that. It was about reconnecting with myself on a very visceral level that needed to be experienced without children in tow.  While I was traveling throughout Asia, my backpack attached to my back, I was Holly Rosen again.  That adventurous traveler that existed before I had kids.  The girl that tried and tasted everything, and jumped to travel every chance I could.  I was that girl again.

My friend and I were so ecstatic about our travels.  Every day we would turn to each other and tell each other how surreal the experience was and we felt compelled to post photos every chance we had.  The comments on Facebook in response were hilarious.  Here are some verbatim:

“Holly your pics are gorgeous!!! What r u doing in Asia?”

“Beautiful photos. Why North Vietnam? How did you get your husband to agree? Mine would want to come along!”

“I’ve never met Brian, but he’s obviously an awesome husband!”

“You’ll have to tell me how you managed to get away!”

As I read each comment, I laughed.  And I sighed. And my friend and I agreed that every mom should get away and reconnect with their inner beings every once in a while. I know that some people thought that I was going through a mid-life crisis or that I had some great desire to get away on my own, but that could not be as far from the truth as possible. I just wanted an adventure.  I had been dying to go to Asia for the last nine years since I had kids and my husband and I agreed that our kids were not quite ready for the kind of traveling that I wanted to do.  I wanted to take night-time trains.  I wanted to sit and eat street food all day. I wanted to jump on boats and rush off for seafood on remote islands at night.  I wanted to hike, kayak and ride motorbikes.

And I did.  All that and more. My husband has been to Asia, and he wanted me to have the experience.  He was very happy and supportive of my traveling solo and stayed home and followed my adventures along with everyone else.

While I was away, my mom stayed with my family and I felt confident that everything was running smoothly.  The few times I did Skype or Facetime home, my son would say, “Mom, I can’t talk now. Grandma and I are watching a movie.” or my daughter would say “I’m busy, talk to Daddy.” They hardly noticed I was gone.

When I heard that my daughter and husband fell ill several days after my departure, I felt sorry for them but I didn’t feel bad.  Whether I was home or not, everyone would survive. And they did more than that – they coped without me. The only time I felt slightly guilty was when my daughter emailed me that her ear was bleeding.  She had pierced her ears a month before I left and one was infected. Her email read: Mom, please help me. You’re a girl!  But by the time I phoned to find out how she was, she was 100% fine and it had all been forgotten.

When I returned home, I guess a part of me was still in Vietnam.  I was tired.  I felt a wave of exhaustion like none other I had ever experienced. It lasted a week.  I would fall asleep at odd times and wake up at even odder times.  I wasn’t quite ready to make meals for everyone and clean the house so I kind of let things go, which is very unlike me.

But now after a week of being back, I am getting up and making things happen. I have a new perspective on life.  After what I have seen – there was beauty but also extreme poverty – I feel changed.  I can not get the scenery out of mind.  The food is stuck in my brain.  But the people left a long-lasting impact on me.  Not only the people we met who were traveling but also the people who live in Vietnam.  The ethnic minorities left a long-lasting impression on me and I will not sit idle in America without helping them in some way.

I have also noticed a big difference in my parenting the last few days.  I am more attentive.  I am putting my work aside when I’m with the kids.  I am shutting down the computer.  I am focusing my energies far more than I used to on them.  My break in Asia did far more than I could have ever asked for and reconnecting with the side of me that pays more attention to the little people in my life was something I needed.  My son came home from school yesterday, ecstatic over a magic trick that he learned in his after-school club and he proceeded to spend the next four hours doing the trick over and over again for just me.  And I let him.  And I enjoyed it.

Three amazing women we met in Halong Bay called our trip “pediatrician prescribed”. They were doctors, of course.  And it was.  I recommend a break for all moms in the world.  Whether it be for one day, two days or two weeks if you can afford it or have childcare (believe me, scraping the childcare together was HARD – we have no family support where we live but my mom was able to come, which was a blessing). I’m not saying it’s easy to leave your kids, and maybe you think it’s wrong to do anything without them, but for me, it was valuable to the way I parent, the way I live and the way I will make decisions moving forward.

Have you ever traveled without the kids and husband? How were you perceived and would you do it again?

It was an honor to be included in this group of amazing women. It was surreal to have been included in a room full of women who have made such an impact as as writers with huge voices, as entrepreneurs, as women, as moms.  Meeting Kristin Davis was icing on the cake, and now I really have to see her in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man on Broadway.  I asked her how the cast was feeling about Vidal’s death and even shared information about the two shows I’ve personally worked on myself this year.  She could not have been a more genuine person and expressed her own pleasure gained from being in the room with so many inspiring women. (and, yes, I did thank her for all those important years of bringing Sex and the City into my life, how could I not?)

Here are some photos from this first-class event:

Kristen Davis and our host, the fabulous Liz Gumbinner from Cool Mom Picks

Varda Steinhardt from Squashed Mom, Elissa Freeman, Kristen Davis and myself (left to right)

Kristin Davis’s shared her own healthy tips for new moms and I’ll vouch for each one of them:

·         Eat Right
Prepare healthy meals and snacks (like brown rice) when you have a few minutes so you can throw it in the refrigerator and have something healthy on hand when you get the chance to eat.

·         Go Natural
Rely on natural products you can trust, especially when you get sick.  You can’t be at your best when you feel terrible!  I love Zarbee’s because it’s an all natural product that helps with coughs and allergies without making me drowsy.

·         Make Time for Yourself

It is hectic being a mom so try to carve out some “me” time during the day – even just a minute to breathe and assess what you need so you can be at your best for your baby.

Zarbee’s Cough Syrup is all natural and gluten free, contains no drugs, alcohol and dyes, has no side effects and carries no risk of overdose.  Also, Zarbee’s has no Dextromethorphan (DM), the most common over-the-counter treatment for coughs, which is not supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Disclosure: I was invited as a guest to this luncheon, for which they provided the images viewed above.  It was an honor to be there and I’m excited to try out this product.

Every Child deserves a 5th birthday.

That sounds so obvious, but every year 7.6 million children lose that chance. Right now, Save the Children is asking mothers around the world to raise their voices to help more children everywhere survive. Together we can insist that our children’s health and well-being is more than a personal priority it should be a global priority. Death from preventable causes like pneumonia, diarrhea and newborn complications are no longer acceptable. Officials from around the world are meeting in Washington, DC this week to discuss how to reduce child mortality in the years to come.

You can make a difference by urging world leaders to take action and end child deaths by sharing and signing this petition.

More information can be found in this article that ran yesterday in USA Today.

Here’s to raising your voice for children around the world!

When I was pregnant, I glanced at What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff.  It wasn’t until I had my first child that I really delved into the details of raising one.  It was on-the-job training.  Of course, I was interested in what was going on inside my body, but other than that, I wanted parenthood to be a surprise.  Pregnancy had taken me by surprise, when I found myself with child only after trying for six weeks (though I was exceedingly happy), and I remember the raging hormones and gradual changes in my life very well.  The film version of the book reminded me of many of those moments, and for that, I am grateful.  I like going back in time, remembering that time in my life that I will not be returning to…one that changed my life forever.

But as a film, the movie didn’t entirely work for me.  Directed by Kirk Jones, with a screenplay by Shauna Cross, it features very high-profile actors and actresses, many who were likely cast for that reason, and not all of whom have experienced pregnancy in real life, like Cameron Diaz.

Diaz plays a fitness TV host on “Lose It and Weep” who gets impregnated by her dance partner, played by Matthew Morrison (who I admit I said a silent “Hooray” for when he came on screen).  Not only could I not truly relate to her character who struggles with the decision of whether to circumcise her son or not, but her experience with pregnancy just didn’t seem genuine.  I’m not saying that the actress needed to be pregnant to feel the part, but even her pregnant belly looked fake.

Jennifer Lopez plays a photographer, who’s adopting a child from Africa with her partner, played by Rodrigo Santoro.  While their storyline is touching, it’s hard to understand his ambivalence about getting a child after they so clearly tried to have a child for years via IVF.

Anna Kendrick and Chace Crawford play former high school flames, now food-truck competitors, who become pregnant after a one-night stand. Their story doesn’t really fit with the others – they’re a lot younger than everyone else.  I don’t want to reveal what the storyline involves, and it is an important pregnancy issue, but I would have preferred one less story-line as there are a lot to keep up with.

My favorite storyline involves Elizabeth Banks who owns a breast feeding shop who becomes pregnant with her hubby, who was once a contestant on Diaz’s show.  She is one of those manic, over-the-top pregnant women who won’t use her cell phone out of concern for infecting the child in her belly.  She has this fabulous assistant played by Australian actress Rebel Wilson (I am going to track down other films/shows she has been in) who puts pregnancy and motherhood in better perspective than anyone in the film, laughing all the way to the film’s end. Banks has an epiphany about being pregnant and motherhood near the end of the film when she breaks down about it publicly, landing herself on You Tube and becoming an online sensation with what becomes termed “Baby Lady Meltdown”, declaring that “It’s all bullshit” and that “Pregnancy sucks!”  Banks, who has a child in real life, demonstrates the realities of pregnancy in a way that’s refreshing and real.

That’s only one of the funny moments this film offers, I must admit there are many (see, this is not a bad review, after all).  Chris Rock and his walking group of other daddies (the DUDES GROUP, I’m not kidding) that meets every weekend in Central Park serves up the laughs royally with comments that really hit home like “Women control the universe- they carried the damn thing!” Their walks through the park are really riotous as they call cars “vaginas”.  About parenthood, Rock declares, “You just jump on a train and hope to die.”  They compete for the worst daddy mishaps which is hilarious: “Last week my kid ate a cigarette” and “I dropped mine off the changing table last week.”

I definitely shed a tear at the film’s end, when Lopez and Santoro pick up their adopted child in Ethiopia and we see Santoro’s character finally accept his new destiny.  They pick him up in a traditional adoption ceremony and he is adorable, so we see them fall in love immediately.  Now I want to go research adoption rituals and find out if that is what they really do.

Can I recommend this film?  My companion during the film is pregnant herself and she definitely enjoyed it immensely, as the film opens a lot of the truth behind pregnancy and there is a lot to relate to, welcoming her into the “mommy club”.   The film brought back memories of my own experiences and there were definitely elements of truth in my my own experiences, like the way I blamed my poor husband for “knocking me up” when I went into labor but forgot every ounce of pain as soon as my sweet Olivia and Max were born.  Banks’ character really turns into someone I would want to know during her own mini evolution in the film, but other than her, I’m not sure if I really want to be friends with the other characters. The film was probably what I expected, as I wasn’t expecting much in the first place.

Disclosure: I was given complimentary tickets to a screening of this film, but all opinions are my own.

I’ve been reading all the comments on Facebook, Twitter and all over the social media world.  The headline is stirring up issues of  breastfeeding, parental rights, child advocacy and media sensationalism, to name a few. I would definitely say that the magazine has achieved its goals of reaching the ultimate amount of publicity and dollars in a single day.

When I first saw the cover, I didn’t know what to think.  I’m a huge breastfeeding proponent, so that’s not what my shock was about.  I admit that I stopped breastfeeding both my kids at 12 months and would never go far as the blogger featured in the photo, Los Angeles-based stay-at-home mother Jamie Lynne Grumet, 26.  Apparently, her own mom breastfed her until she was 6.

Well, you know what, that’s her prerogative, I have nothing wrong with that.  To each her own.  Breastfeeding a child that late is not for me, but for millions of other moms, and breastfeeding is a choice, like all the others one I have in life.  I have vivid memories of my friends and family members who were not able to breastfeed their babies and how agonizing it was for them, and it’s not certainly not fair to pass judgement on any of us for bottle feeding our children. Like I said, breastfeeding was for me, but I never once told any other mother that is was the only choice and no mother should be made to feel guilty about how they fed their child ever.

What also bothers me is why Time Magazine has chosen to put this image and headline that don’t go together on their cover the weekend of Mother’s Day when it has little to do with the article referred on the cover.  To drive sales, perhaps?  Well, that’s obvious.

But it hurts.  Doesn’t the world understand already that being a mother is one of the most life-changing experiences of our lives?  Motherhood is the best kind of responsibility but with it comes choices.  Everyday there are decisions to make about what my children are eating, who is taking care of them while I’m at work, who they’re spending time with, how to find time for their homework and activities, keeping them safe and so much mre.  And these are no one’s decisions but my own (made jointly with my husband).  Mothers have to make decisions and they aren’t easy ones, and it’s not fair for anyone to judge us.

And that’s this magazine cover does.  It pits moms against each other.  It makes us look at each other and compare ourselves, wondering are we really good enough?  And that’s not fair.

Being a mom is the best job in the world, so let us go do our work.

Time has never flown faster than these last nine years since I became a mother.  Sometimes when I try to remember certain parts of my children’s early years, it’s hard.  The memories are getting blurrier and blurrier, and they are still quite young.

That’s why I really enjoyed reading Heather Armstrong’s “Dear Daughter: The Best of the Dear Leta Letters”.  It took me back in time to a time that was unlike anything I had ever experienced.  I read the book on a plane and spent the next hour and a half dreaming about my first child and what it was like bringing her into the world.  It was my first born specifically, as that is also what Heather wrote about.  The joy of the unknown.

The book consists of monthly letters that Armstrong wrote to her daughter, Leta, from the age of 8 weeks old to age 5.  From diaper changes on the changing table and sticking her feet in her mouth to the dimples that first formed on her cheeks, Armstrong talks fondly about these times and how she fell deeply in love with her daughter.  It reminds me of my own unconditional love for my daughter that started as soon she exited my womb and marched into my life.

I know that Armstrong suffered from postpartum depression after she had her daughter, I have read her thoughts on that time and time again as there were parts of that time I could relate to, but she focuses on the good times in this book, and there were many.  I love the way she summed up the times with her new child and jotted down these lines while reading:

“I wanted to scoop you up and cover you in kisses for as long as you would. I know there are only a handful of moments like that in life.  Thank you for that one.” (page 42)

“Motherhood is not at all like the image I had in my head for decades.  It’s so different, so phenomenally different and what a wonderful surprise.” (page 57)

“When I see the features in her face, the way her cheekbones meet her thin nose in symmetrical angles, her milky complexion peeking out of the black of her business suit, I realized that everything was going to be okay. That was one of the most spiritual moments of my life.” (Armstrong on her mother) (page 72)

“We all know that we would sacrifice anything for each other, and one of the many reasons your father and I decided to have another child was to give you the possibility of that friendship.” (page 173)

My only question is how much of this was truly written when Leta was in her first five years and how much were these lettered edited or embellished along the way?  I thought about that many times when reading the book, but in the end I am happy that it took me back to a time in my life I want never to forget.

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book to facilitate this review but all opinions are my own.

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Before we left, I was worried about how I could pick up and leave so many things.  But my husband wanted to to go to the UK, as he was homesick and wanted to spend Passover with family (as did I),  and the kids were off school on break.  A trip can never hurt anyone, you can only gain from exploring the world.

It was good to get away from the everyday routine, open my kids’ minds up to new places and people and “unplug” as much as I can (although I admit it wasn’t 100%).  We explored castles, we went caving, we went to wonderful art exhibits, we visited family, we had Passover seder in London.  And I separated myself from work/everyday life as much as possible and it was good for all of us.  I read, I wrote posts on our trip and I unplugged.

Of course, I came back to a big launch at work (Ruckus Reader, which I will be blogging about in the near future), a play that I’m producing called Listen to Your Mother that has a imminent show date on May 6th and a new MamaDrama campaign which I’m very proud of and will be able to share details of soon.  I had to jump right in.

So, how do I balance it all on a daily basis?  Slowly and with care.  My kids come first and I never want to lose sight of that.  I don’t want to feel extra guilt when I’m 95 years old looking back on my life.  When they come home from school, and I am here, I put my work aside and dedicate my time and attention to them.  Some say I do too much, but I want to enjoy my time as a woman just as much as a mother and professional achievements are very important to me, as well.

Lucila McElroy from the Perfect Mom Syndrome just published a great post that outlines steps to achieve a healthy balance.  She talks about guilt – the guilt of not being where we are supposed to be or want to be but can’t.   I have to share her list which you can find here.

-Accept that some things in your life are not working 100%.  We are so caught up in looking strong and put together (for others and ourselves) that we suck it up, keep going and say “everything is ok”.

-Gently observe your thoughts.  Take five minutes per day EVERY DAY to think about a challenge your are faced with.  Then, just sit and notice your inner dialogue.  Tip: keep noticing your thoughts, notice your “judging”.

-Write down what you noticed and ask yourself: “what am I making this mean about myself, my character, about others and about the world?  Tip: this “meaning” is your interpretation and it is in the realm of the interpretation that we start to feel energized or drained.

-Notice your energy level while you get present to your interpretation.  For example, if you noticed you started to judge yourself about something you did or said, how does that leave you feeling?  How is your energy level now?

-Choose.  Choose to let go of the interpretations that are not serving you.  Choose to look at your situation from a different perspective.  Choose to try on a different attitude.  Choose a different way of being.

-Ask yourself: “What would be possible if I chose to look at this situation from a different perspective?  What actions would be available to me now?  And try these on!

I realize that I can’t do it all.  But with a new sense of purpose, a new vision of how I spend my time, I’m realizing that it’s okay. And now?  I’m going for a run.  Then I’m going to read a book to my child.  (Harry Potter, if you were wondering.)