But don’t worry.  It’s nothing a little Midol, some chocolate, and a good chick flick can’t solve.

In the meantime, please keep your saucy male canines a good ten paces from our yard.  If you know what I mean.

finished reading this book to my son.

Have you read this book with your kids?  Did  you read it as a kid?

I recently read a review of The Phantom Tollbooth labeling it as “simply the best children’s book ever written.”  I would have to agree.

My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Garing, read this book aloud to our class.  She had short blond hair and big owl glasses and did all the voices with flair and I thought she hung the moon.  The book amazed me, then and now, and reading it with my own child was delicious.

I worried that the book’s legendary wordplay might confuse Ethan, but the wacky characters and their wackier adventures held him in rapture from Page One.  We interrupted our reading often so I could explain the humor, which he understood surprisingly well.  (I think, when I’m not bragging about my children, I’m underestimating them.)

Upon closing the book,  he said  “Mom, what other books did you like when you were little that you think we should read?”  Oh, what a question to ask a mother!  I began excitedly rattling off bazillion titles, and it was soon decided (unanimously) that our next literary adventure would Superfudge.  I love having a boy.

…and this is what it looks like.

On our first dinner out together in months, Derrick thought it would be funny to take this picture without warning, then plaster it all over Facebook.

But don’t worry, my faithfuls.  He’ll pay.  Oh, he’ll pay.

(And the food was fabulous.  I know, because I ate all of it, except for the bread.  Derrick hogged on that big-time.)