This morning, our five year old son asked to go outside at 7:00 am.  As my husband and I sipped our coffee, we looked at each other, nodded, and off he went with his new red ball.

He's pretty obsessed with the new red ball and just can't help but bounce it EVERYWHERE.  We could tell where he was in our front yard by the different sounds the ball would make. Ping on the pavement. Thud on the grass. Then, we heard a bang on the house. Bang. Bang. Bang.  I put my coffee down and went to the door. "Please don't throw the ball at the house", I said.

Then, we heard it again.  Bang!

Suddenly, the front door flew open and in he ran. "I lost my first tooth! I lost my first tooth!".  It had been wiggling around in his mouth for over a month and I'd simply forgotten about it.  "The ball bounced off the house and knocked it right out!" he said.  He couldn't have been more excited and, to our dismay, not at all upset that after I told him not to bounce the ball on the house he did it anyway.  We couldn't help but laugh out loud as he told us over and over exactly how it happened. He thought the whole thing was "really cool".

The loss of his first tooth brings with it another "first" in our household: a visit from the Tooth Fairy.  I've thankfully been collecting brand-spanking-new gold dollar coins for this very occasion (I think I have seven in total).  They put a brand new vending machine in at our office complex and it dispenses the gold coins as change.  Since I don't use the vending machines personally, I "buy" the coins from my coworkers.

Tonight, we'll pack up the tooth in the little bag he decorated himself (a Christmas gift from his Aunt Glitter Pie - Art in a Box), place it under his pillow, and the tooth fairy will bring him something special. Let's just say, he's beyond excited!

We'll have to wait and see, though, if the fact that the Tooth Fairy comes INTO his room (and will not simply lurk around downstairs like Santa or the Easter Bunny) will keep him in his own bed all night long. That's a blog post for another day.

Meet "Piggy". Piggy is part of our family and is helping us teach our young son the importance of giving back.

Piggy was a gift from my friend Kelly at my baby shower. Eight months pregnant at the time, I felt a lot like Piggy. But alas, Piggy was a gift for my son. He's been in our boy's bedroom since before he was born and does his best to blend in with with changes to decor over time.

He's currently half full with silver coins with a few paper dollars mixed in. Our son is saving for gifts that he will donate at Christmas time to the "kids who don't have toys to play with". He's very serious when he talks about Piggy and knows exactly what Piggy stands. Everything inside Piggy is his to give back.

We also teach our son about giving, by doing just that. He's helped me donate clothing items, baked goods, gently used baby gear, books and just about everything else we aren't currently putting to good use. We also talk about the beauty in receiving. For back-to-school, we bought a pair of TOMS shoes together online. I showed him what the purchase of my son's corduroy lace-up shoes means to a boy in Haiti or Cambodia or South Africa. A pair of shoes. "You mean he doesn't have any shoes, mom?", he asked. It's a fact of life I feel compelled to teach our young child. We are very fortunate. Others are less so.

Today he asked to shake Piggy when we added the money he earned at our recent garage sale. "There's a lot of money in there, mom".

Apparently, I'm not the only one hearing this from my four year old (phew!).

Our family went skating this weekend with friends who also have a four year old son. So when my mom friend and I had a minute to catch up between the skating rink and the bouncy-bounce, we discovered we had both heard "you're not my best friend anymore", "you're not my good mommy" and the dreaded "I'm not listening to you. You're a mean mommy" recently. [Insert collective sigh of relief here]

As a mom, words like that make you feel as though a million little heat seeking missiles are piercing your heart. What? You don't think I'm the best thing since sliced bread? No?

Well, that's because I'm not your best friend. I'm your mom.

My friend and I share the same sentiment when it comes to responding to the "you're not my best friend, mommy" kind of kid backtalk. It's simply not our job to be our boys' "best friends". Our collective responsibility as moms is to raise kind, generous, well-mannered young men. Sure they're cute enough (and turns out clever & bold), but that's not enough. These boys will someday (hopefully) be a great boyfriend or the husband of some girl's dream.

For now, our little guys are all ours. But someday, they'll be so much more than that. Teammates, students, roommates, boyfriends, employees, husbands and - dare I say - fathers. Although it's hard to believe, our little "talks" about the importance of manners, respect and kindness may just make a difference. We're counting on it.

We headed out to Gavin Park to meet some friends and their children for a bit of Sunday morning fun. The adults in the group drank coffee and caught up on jobs, kids and current events while the children chased each other up the spider climber, across the monkey bars up the climbing wall and down the slide. It's an activity that seems to reoccur about once every month if schedules allow and both adults and kids agree that it's a pretty good way to start the week. The adults get the lowdown on daycare while the kids blow off steam so the adults can rest during the nap time that follows. Sounds pretty good, right?

Well, mostly. After hours of fun in the sun, my son took a nose dive off the climbing wall and split his lip. Crying then bleeding ensued while the adults ran around (mostly me) collecting paper towels, ice and in the end a Popsicle.

My husband and I (and our friends, for that matter) should be used to this. In fact, our son has endured nine stitches and a second degree burn in the last year. He's a trouper and heals as quickly and easily as one can under the circumstances, but that doesn't change the heart-pumping, nerve-wracking parental turmoil that these accidents bring along with them. He's a very adventurous boy - a real thrill seeker. It sounds funny to describe my not yet four year old that way, but he's just that. In fact, he's most likely genetically predisposed to be that way.

My husband was an extreme sport enthusiast before that term ever existed, I was super sporty as a kid, and we both have a history of climbing, diving, and jumping off high places in search of adventure. We see the twinkle in our son's eyes when he begins the ascent to a new height. Although he's quite agile - as everyone on the playground today pointed out, we still cringe at the recognition of the fearlessness in him knowing that there will be times that stitches, burns, blood and broken bones may follow. We know this because we've been there.

Now both in our mid-forties, we get our kicks from being early adopters of technology (him) and creating rockin' marketing campaigns (me). Our son, on the other hand, is just at the beginning of what will likely be years of thrill-seeking, adrenaline-pumping fun.

I'd like to say that the only thing I'm feeling is fear and concern for my son's well being. But to be perfectly honest, I'm just a little bit jealous.

No, I didn't and no, I wouldn't. However, after a night like last night - I could have.

I've never been a great sleeper. So I can't really blame it on my child not being a good sleeper. Which he's not.

When I hear mothers (or fathers for that matter) talk about their child sleeping through the night at six days, six weeks, six months or SIX YEARS, I want to scream. My son has slept through the night less than a dozen times since his birth.

Last night it took FOREVER to get him to GO to sleep. One last book, one more video, another sip of water, then "I need to pee", "I need my snake", "I want the light on", and so on. As the numbers on the digital clock turned from 8:59 to 9:00 PM, I could (finally) hear the gentle snore of my son's slumber.

Then, at 11:00 o'clock he got into bed with us. At 1:20 he got up to pee and drink some more water. The poor little guy has a head cold and as we all know, it doesn't make for a very restful sleep - whatever your age. At 2:45 he kicked my head so hard it woke me up. Then my back. Then my husband's back. How many legs does this kid have?

I finally fell back asleep after weighing the pros and cons of buying a MUCH bigger bed...

I'm a morning person and always have been. It takes nothing for me to pop up at 5:00 in the morning to greet the day. This morning, however, when the alarm went off at 5:30 I noticed something. I was c-r-a-n-k-y! I showered and went downstairs heading straight for the coffee pot that I was so grateful I'd set up the night before. I NEED COFFEE, I thought. An hour, a few chores and two cups of Joe later I went upstairs. My husband was in the shower and my boy was just waking up.

"Mom, Cousin Vincent is coming to visit this week. Right?" "That's right", I yawned. "I'd like to bring my Tardis (we're fans of Doctor Who) to school today", followed by "I'd like some peanut butter on a granola bar for breakfast" and then "for my birthday this year I'd like to go fishing" and "please don't put your work clothes on cause I want you to stay in your comfy clothes".

My son's NOT a good sleeper and he IS a morning person. It took only a few seconds for the realization to set in: I was on the wrong side of the saying "the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree".

On a recent school day morning, my son and I were enjoying coffee (mine), orange juice (his) and a granola bar (also his) while watching Ni Hao Kai-Lan on television. It's one of our morning rituals when we have time to spare which, as you can imagine, is not often.

A few minutes into the program, I noticed he was searching for something. Adding to the puzzled look on his face, he announced that his granola bar had, as he puts it, "gone missing."

We got up and moved the pillows and cushions around. Nothing. "Why don't you check under the couch"?, I asked. As he bent down to look, I burst out laughing. The granola bar (whole) was stuck to his back.

Laughing like hyenas, we fell on the floor. After finally making it back to the couch, he turned to me with a smile and handed me half of his granola bar. We sat side-by-side eating our respective halves, interupted only by the occassional giggle.

Silly moments like these are precious to me, especially when life gets busy (always) and my mind is racing with work-filled details. Being present in the moment is a wonderful place to be - and FREE - as well as being totally underrated in a world filled with Blackberrys, iPhones (and yes, I have both), Twitter and Facebook. Although I don't think I'll find another granola bar stuck to my son's PJs, I will welcome the reminder to savor the moments that I know will soon be fleeting memories.