The week is my final column for North Potomac-Darnestown Patch. I was the first freelancer with the site when they went live in September of 2010. My humor column, Mom in the Middle,  built up a bit of a following for the year that it ran. Then I got syndicated to three other Patch sites as contributor to the Family Affair column a few months ago. There is a rule of physics which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form. If you are a parent, you've seen this in your kids any time you've tried to stifle their exuberance in any way. It becomes especially …

In case you are a mom and you don't already know this, make a note: mothers are not allowed to get sick. This is especially true if you have kids of a certain age, which are those few years between actually babydom and what I call the "Age Of Reason," which is about eight or nine years old. First let me define the "Age Of Reason." That is the moment in a child's life when you can actually reason with them about things and they understand. They are able to self-regulate a little bit. It's also the age when they can do certain things for themselves, like place used cups in a sink and wash their…

Two years ago, after a series of sneaky tactics put into effect by my husband and children, which included, but was not limited to the forced viewing of Because of Winn Dixie, sudden visits of friends with their own new, cute puppies and full-on begging, I finally gave in to getting a dog. My only stipulation was that I wanted to adopt an adult rescue dog—a for real rescue dog, not the “Sasha and Malia” version of a rescue dog. I wanted a true mixed-breed of unknown origin who needed a home. We went online to Petfinder.com and started showing up at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter every …

About three days into a new school year, as our children's extracurricular activities kick into gear, the fundraising onslaught begins. I am very grateful to the PTA, the boy scouts, the girl scouts, the athletic boosters, the drama club, the Poms, the Lego League, and all of the other worthy groups of people who do fabulous things for our kids and our community. I am more than happy to support those efforts. But I don't want to buy or sell junk in order to do it. It might not make a difference to me if I only had one kid who was involved in only one thing. That's a nice dream that certainly …

Every year, I'm asked to write something about 9/11 and how it has affected me. Usually, the end result comes out kind of down and morose. After all, it was a horrible day that turned the course history for our country and had a big impact on me, too. I was in Manhattan on 9/11/2001. I knew people who lost family members in the towers. I wrote about it at the time, too. But, today, I have a humor column. As I tried to figure out some kind of angle that won't leave everyone crying, I realized that this horrible event also affected my life in a positive way in the end. After ten years, I have…

What happened? What kind of mediocre, cheesy outfit are we running here? We have, not one, but two – count 'em, two! – natural disasters in the capital of the free world and not much happens except some lights going out and a couple of buildings needing a face lift? Where is the drama? Where is the suffering? Where is the angst? There is an accepted American cultural preconceived notion of what a natural disaster is supposed to look like and this wasn't it. First, an earthquake and there is no running and screaming in the streets, no lightning shaped cracks opening the earth along the beltway…

Ah, summer – vacations, camps, beaches, swimming pools, jumping on the trampoline late into the evening and then sleeping late in the morning. Well kids, the party is over. The first day of school is around the corner and we have to get you into gear. The weeks leading up to the first day of school are almost like boot camp at my house. During the summer, my kids wind up looking extremely scruffy. We forgo haircuts. They become tan and freckled. They seem to get much more dirty than during the school year. Their shorts and shoes have the appearance of having been in a war, even though they've…

The Annual Montgomery County Agricultural Fair has been underway since last Friday. Think pigs and cows; funnel cakes and ferris wheels; fruits and vegetables. Every year, we go to the fair. It's one of those events where there is so much going on all over the place that you get upset because you inevitably miss something. Each person has their own purpose for attending and at any given moment, there are about a thousand places to be. I have to admit, I've always been skeptical about County Fairs. I'm a suburban kid and the concept of these huge gatherings all about cows, goats and sheep …

Editor's Note: Garine Isassi, our regular Mom in the Middle columnist, needed a summer break. Sheila Bouley was kind enough to step in as a guest columnist for this week. When my son was little I was so excited when he took his first step. I could hardly wait for him to walk all by himself. Then, it seemed like just a few days went by and he was walking himself into kindergarten. Now at 8 years old, he strides confidently, rarely holding my hand as we cross the street. As mothers, we know our ultimate goal is to raise independent, self-sufficient human beings who will grow into responsible …

There are several levels of summer camp for the suburban child. Even beginning at the earliest preschool ages, some parents won't let their kids out of their sight while others pack them onto a bus for a full day of activities lake-side. I always leaned more toward the “keep them home” end of the spectrum, just sending my elementary kids to half-day, close-by camps. As children get into middle school, however, they need to establish some kind of personal identity away from the family unit. For our family, that seems to be the best time to get them out the door and on the road to real …

Yup, it's hot. Last week saw all-time high temperatures in the Northeast, breaking national records from hundreds of years ago, since we started writing these types of things down. Oppressive heat is not particularly foreign to the people of Maryland. I mean, the normal summer weather is not what most people refer to as “chillin'” anyway. But 109 degrees, which we reached last Thursday, is crazy. I would say that was desert weather, but there is not 80 percent or 90 percent humidity in the desert. The added humidity made the heat index in the Washington area 121 degrees! And as we say, …

There are few things in our overcrowded media world that are as culturally unifying as the Harry Potter series. For the millennial generation, there is struggle to find iconic commonalities with each other in the way that we did as kids. Us “old folks” can crack a joke about a Brady Bunch episode or make some oblique reference to Scooby Snacks and every American baby boomer will get it. No such luck with the kids of today or even some of their parents. They have been fragmented by cable TV and Mp3 music downloads. Then the rise of all things digital created a generation gap that has not been …

Every summer growing up, my family would show up at various sandy coastlines. We somehow managed to always live within a few hours drive of a beach and we'd go on vacations to exotic locales, from Ocean City, Maryland to Cancun, Mexico. We did not take ski vacations or camping trips. We were definitely “beach people.” My memories of the beach had everything to do with shells, chilled fruit and melted oreos. I know, it's an odd mix, but that is what sticks in my mind. I also recall the way the sand would infiltrate the lining of my one-piece bathing suit while I, as a wimpy little kid, was …

As a Marylander, we have to make a decision every July. It's the Independence Day dilemma of anyone who lives in the Washington, D.C., metro area – to go downtown for fireworks or not? I do believe that there are people who have dwelled in Montgomery County their whole lives and have never made that trek to the National Mall for the National Fireworks of the USA inside the borders of our nation's capital. Shame on you! But you're probably very smart. We did it last year. All I can really say about it is that it is a smorgasbord of everything American, including the concept of “excess.” The …

Over the past generation, we have gone from being able to just hang out for a few hours to needing to account for every moment of our day. We've gotten so far away from the relatively healthy act of being quietly relaxed, that we actually wind up paying a yoga studio for a meditation class where we sit for an hour and do nothing. During my childhood, I recall vividly doing that very thing while sitting on my front lawn, contemplating the activity of ants as they climbed up and down a blade of grass. I would clear my mind, sit in one place, and stare at something. Back then, I was called “lazy…

The U.S. Open going on up the road at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda on this past Father's Day weekend brought back memories of just how hard my poor Dad tried at golf. In general, he had become a typical suburban dad by my teen years, but it was a far cry from his roots. Dad was a scrappy guy from the inner city of a New Jersey industrial town. He came from a poor immigrant family, went to college on the G.I. bill after World War II and made good as a public relations manager in a big corporation. His executive aspirations took him very near to the top of the corporate ladder. It …

Some people are wishy-washy. They don't know what they want, but then when they get something, there is always something wrong with it. Choices paralyze them. They simply cannot commit to the tuna salad or the ham sandwich. They think there are going to be regrets involved with the choice of buying the green sweater over the blue one. Those people drive me nuts. The problem is that I am one of them. It's a little disturbing that my 10 year old daughter is more decisive than me. She knows exactly what she wants and what she does not want. She will unabashedly tell you so. And on top if it, she…

I am convinced that once our personalities are fully formed, that is pretty much it. Even if we can learn more factual information or adjust for different situations, we still think in the same way as when we were young. When you get to a certain age and place, you would think that your mind might catch up with your sagging body and worsening eyesight by changing in some way, but there seems to be a disconnect. Your brain keeps trying to get you to act young, agile and full of potential, when your body is begging you to cut it out and just sit down for awhile. This is the source of the …

My house is full of music. One of the main reasons my husband and I got together was because of similar musical taste. In a former life, I was a rocker myself - playing, writing songs and singing in bands. When I tell people this, they do a double take and look me up and down. I don't come across as a person who used to have a dyed red streak in her hair, wore cowboy boots with mini-skirts and a torn black T-shirt while playing the rhythm guitar in a rock band. I don't seem skinny enough, tall enough or mean enough. Some people don't believe that I spent practically every night of my 20's in …

The morning of the Gaithersburg Book Festival went astoundingly well. Authors were telling scary tales of other festivals with no parking, cramped spaces or vast distances to walk between tents. If there is anything the city of Gaithersburg does well, it's throwing a street party. They've got it down to a science after doing it for various public events for decades. Technically, my shift as volunteer in the author's VIP tent was over, but I still hovered near the front flap, waiting for Amy Dickinson to arrive. Since I had been her shepherd into this particular festival and was going to …