Blog Posts by Mommyish

The Full Spectrum focuses on the trials and tribulations of raising a child who ranks on the autism spectrum.

Google "how to survive motherhood" and you'll find the most common answer is friendship (a good washer and dryer helps, too). When you have a challenging child, your need to feel normal and understood by friends becomes even more critical.

When my older son S. was diagnosed with Aspergers two years ago, I felt like I had been transported to a foreign land in which I didn't even speak the language. My instinct was to look around and find a "support friend" ­- someone who had been in my shoes and could mentor me through this big life change.

The Full Spectrum: 'I Live With The Nagging Feeling That I'm Being Judged'

It wasn't a frivolous pursuit. Once you get an Aspergers diagnosis, you don't have time to sit around and see how things will play out (at least not if you're neurotic like I am). Research indicates that early therapeutic intervention is the key to

My five-and-a-half-year-old son is - as SpongeBob would say - a scaredypants. I mean that literally: as in, he's afraid of his pants.

Not all pants. But I recently bought some second-hand ones that happen to have a thick underwear-style waistband decorated with little storm clouds spitting lightning and looking angry. (At the time, my biggest reservation was the liberal use of pink in the waistband, a colour that causes him to break out in hives.) They're not particularly fierce, as you might imagine, with pink cartoon frowny clouds.

Why I Chose To Have An Elective C-Section

Yet my son is terrified to wear them. In fact, he's terrified even to have them in his dresser drawer. I thought he'd get over it, but each time I've brought them out again, gently suggesting he try them on, his terror appears to increase.

As a 41-year-old scaredycat myself, I'm fairly sympathetic and don't wish to force the issue. I am pathologically averse to watching violence of any kind,

As if Pregnant in Heels weren't trashy enough, turns out there's a whole breed of 'stupid mom' shows on air featuring women who make Jerry Springer regulars seem like PhD candidates.

BBC Three's Misbehaving Mums To Be, out of the UK, featured 20-year-old Charlie Wilcox, who claimed that smoking 3500 cigarettes while pregnant made her baby stronger. Since having her baby, Lily, 14 weeks ago, Wilcox still maintains that smoking while pregnant improved her daughter's health. She believes that she made her baby's heart work harder by cutting off the oxygen supply - ultimately improving her overall health. (Lilly, by the way, arrived 10 days early and weighed 6 lb, 2 oz - more than a pound lower than the average UK birth rate for a girl.)

What's sickening about this whole thing is not just the fact this mom endangered the life of her own baby (that goes without saying). It's the fact that Wilcox, much like Botox Mom - she made headlines worldwide for injecting her 8-year-old

Welcome to Splitsville. This weekly column will focus on parenting after a divorce, break-up or one-night stand that didn't end like a Katherine Heigl movie.

The short answer to this question is: anything you damn well please. Women should not have to justify where or why they spend child support money. The depiction of a woman getting pregnant just to scam child support off some unsuspecting and totally innocent man is complete and utter bulls---. Single motherhood is not easy. It's not some money boat where you don't have to work because a man will support you and your children for the rest of your lives. In 2001, the average child support awarded to custodial parents was $5,000 a year. That's about $415 a month. Just for comparison, I pay $500 a month in daycare costs. And plenty of mothers never see the amount promised to them by the courts.

Is Lady Gaga To Blame For Bare Baby Food Shelves?

Child support is supposed to be a way for non-custodial parents to help with

Kendall Jenner, the 15-year-old sister of the Khardashian "klan," has recently been revealed to be on birth control. The internet seems to be brimming with articles asserting how irresponsible it is for her parents, nudging readers about her age, and even alluding to her sister's sex tape. These sloppy, easy attacks on the sexuality of a young girl fail to recognize the smart parenting in being proactive with birth control.

Kendall could be on the pill for many health reasons, something other writers gloss over but don't mention. Young girls often go on birth control for so many reasons: acne prevention, regulating menstrual cycles, relief from extremely painful menstrual cramps, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, and cancer prevention to name a few.

Pay It Forward: I Give My Friends The Gift of a Messy House

That being said, if Kendall is on the pill because she's considering being sexually active, or is sexually active, there is no shame in admitting that too. Although the

Last holiday season my daughter, Lola, gave me something truly priceless: a clean slate.

In preparation for the school Christmas pageant, her teacher had asked the children what they thought their mothers wanted Santa to bring them. Then she read them aloud, one by one, to the audience of parents who had come to watch the show. Eliza, for instance, said her mommy would like a pair of rollerskates, so she could get around faster. Tom's mom would like for the baby to stop crying. Kids do say the darndest things.

'The Miracle Of Birth Is Not Pretty' And Other Thoughts By Dads-To-Be

Indeed, when the teacher was halfway down the list, she announced: "Lola says her mom would like Santa to bring hers a bottle of wine and one glass."

Every child goes through a tattling phase, and we've dealt with Lola's by firmly reprimanding her when she spitefully exposes the foibles of her sister or friends. We figured we had a handle on things.

15-Year-Old Kendall Jenner Being On

The other morning I schlepped my kids, husband and GBF (gay best friend) to my favorite Saturday haunt - Artscape Wychwood Barns. The space, in midtown Toronto, boasts an awesome water park, fresh farmer's market, lots of green space and, best of all, some major DILFs.

My childless, shacked-up friend immediately yelled out:

He had spotted an especially yummy daddy getting down and dirty in the sand - with his 2-year-old.

It's true. This park is home to some serious hot dad eye candy (not that I'm looking).

TMI: My Kid Rats Me Out

A DILF, for those who might not know, is an acronym for "Dad I'd Like to F@#k" (derived from the more prevalent MILF nickname for hot moms). He's the guy you see - clad in a signature white tee, worn-in jeans and Aviator shades - pushing a souped-up Bugaboo along downtown streets, play wrestling with his children in the neighborhood park or feeding them quartered

My daughter, who is turning eight, believes her stuffed animals are real.

"Does she really think they're real or is she pretending?" my partner's 11 year-old daughter asked while we were all in the same room. I shook my head like a mad woman to shut her up.

"Of course they are real!" I responded.

"Yeah," my daughter said. "They are real."

When I say my daughter honestly believes her 'stuffies,' as we call them, are real, I'm as serious as a heart attack. This morning, after she had breakfast, she fed the stuffed platypus beside her (a bowl of dry Cheerios.) Every night, when we lie in bed, she needs to know what Clancy (her stuffed bear) did while she was at school.

The 'Tween' Epidemic: Encouraging Kids To Grow Up Too Fast Since 1997

Yes, it is always me putting on a fake voice as I say, "I made a lemonade stand!" And then my daughter will ask questions:

"Where did you get the lemonade, Clancy?"

(Me as Clancy: "I had to stand on a chair to reach it