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Kids take all the fun out of being sick. I'm the kind of person who rarely ever got even so much as a cold, and when I did, it was a great opportunity to stay home from work, cozy up, and be lazy and miserable... and at least have a little pleasure while doing it. Imagine... sitting in bed all day guzzling hot mugs of TheraFlu and having loved ones cater to your every whim. Bonus points if there was a Columbo marathon on A&E! I might be a sniffling snuffing mess, but that would stop me from having the Best Day Ever.

Move that clock forward to after you have two small children running around the much-too-small house. Think you have time to be miserable? Think again! Forget about hanging out in bed all day, because you've got responsibilities to take care of. Chances are your dear spouse is sick, too, since you've both been infected by some bug brought home from preschool or Kindergarten (oh, the irony). Nobody's got the time to help take care of you.

And, don't forget, the kids have been up all night for a few days with the colds that started things off. Extra bonus points if multiple children had the cold in succession, thus multiplying the misery!

Now get out there and change that diaper... I don't care how sick you are.

One of the most effective ways to keep kids occupied for the last, oh, 40 years or thereabouts has been to give them a tub or two of Play-Doh and maybe the garlic press and let them go to town. It kept you busy and out of your parents' hair when you were little and so it will for your children, too. You recognize that distinctive Play-Doh smell, don't you? Open a tub and take a whiff—nostalgia in a plastic container is what that is.

Play-Doh is, like many things beloved by small children, not without its drawbacks. Most of all, it gets everywhere. Small balls of Play-Doh scattered as far as the eye can see, and of course squished into the rug. Play-Doh of course tells you that it's easy to clean up: simply let it dry and vacuum it out of the carpet.

A while back I blogged about "Walking the Line When You Work from Home," an excellent and useful article from the always excellent and useful online Web design magazine A List Apart. Today they've published a great follow-up: "Working From Home: The Readers Respond," containing, as the title implies, reader-submitted tips on working from home and the unique struggles involved. I especially appreciated the first section of tips on balancing work and family. It's nice to know that there are a lot of others in the same boat.

It's not as if I led a deprived childhood, but there were some toys that I desparately wanted as a kid and never got. Of course now that I have kids, I can finally indulge those desires of long ago by getting them the stuff I never had! And who said being a grownup is no fun? Although there are plenty of adults in their 30s and 40s who have no problem in buying themselves toys (or "investing" in "collectibles") more suitable for someone a few decades younger, I always thought the idea was just a little unseemly. This is not to say that I didn't occasionally indulge myself in toys, as anyone who's seen my desk at work will attest.

It's actually kind of funny to look at myself and my fellow parents and to see how we're seemingly immature—call it deferred adulthood—compared to our parents, and in turn to compare them to parents of previous generations. I'm addicted to Mad Men on AMC, and I find it interesting, and even a little frightening, to look at a character like antihero Don Draper in his suits and ties and hats and Coupe de Ville and to think that he's supposed to be around my age, and of course is played by an actor my age, but seems so much older than I, and I'm sure many others, see themselves.

It seems that longtime Bay Area institution Mother's Cookies, maker of such childhood delectables as Circus Animal Cookies (pictured), has abruptly announced it's going out of business. A childhood without pink and white frosted animal cookies? Unthinkable! Better go stock up on a bag for my kids, and myself, of course. Seriously, I always considered these a special treat growing up, and it's sad to see another remnant of my childhood disappear.

They're certainly not the best cookies out there, but there's a certain kind of colorful charm and junk food appeal to them. And you can eat an entire bag without even trying. Really! Go try it while you still can, and make sure you have a big cold glass of milk on hand, too.

We all managed to get through the first week--or rather the first three days--of kindergarten relatively unscathed. I took the whole week off of work, since this is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime event. Everyone we knew made sure to remind us of what a big step this was, and how emotional it was going to be, and of course it was.

We bought a backpack and a few other school supplies, which turned out to be overkill for kindergarten, since all you really need is a lunchbox for your snack.

So yesterday we made the mistake of checking out the new über-mega Safeway that opened up today in Novato (or Ignacio, if you want to get technical and all). It's the anchor tenant for the new Hamilton Plaza shopping center, which seems to be shaping up nicely. Only Safeway is open at this point.

Anyhow, they had a preview on Thursday afternoon and evening, and apparently everyone living within a 50-mile radius of the place decided to show up. Seriously, you had a hard time finding a parking spot, let alone even getting into the store. You'd think people had never seen a Safeway before. It's a Safeway. A SAFEWAY!

As my daughter has gotten older (she's now 2-1/2), she's developed her own unique vocabulary. It's been interesting to watch, as the process seems to be totally different than what I witnessed with my son. She's been speaking in near-complete sentences almost since she started talking, and never had any of those unique made-up "baby words" that her brother did. What she has started, recently, is coming up with colorful names to call people when she's not happy with them. I know I should probably try to get her to stop, but, honestly, it's pretty funny, even when it's directed, as it is often, at me.