Like most working moms, when I was pregnant I anticipated putting my baby into day care after she was born. When the Pumpkin arrived three months early, day care wasn’t an option. I wasn’t allowed to expose her to the potential germs of other children until she reached 15 pounds — a milestone that didn’t come until her first birthday.

I was profoundly blessed to have a wonderful editor, Frank Brill, who knew my diligence and gave me permission to work from home. My most recent editor, Mike Bieger, has also been a supportive and a wonderful mentor. For four years, I’ve worked from home most of the time, covering my beats in business and technology and writing this blog.

While a terrific solution for me, working from home hasn’t been easy. The first year, when I was pumping every two hours, was a blur. Since then, I’ve gotten into a pattern, often getting up at 6 a.m. to write my feature stories while the house is quiet and taking calls well into the evening. I’ve had to say no to my daughter’s pleading for me to play with her more times than I’m happy to remember. But the best part was being around to share her days, to hear the laughter as she played with her grandmother in the other rooms of the house. Crawling, toddling and then running into my home office for hugs, cuddles and to give me “presents” of toys, Cheerios and crayon drawings, she has brightened my life more than any office gossip ever could.

Starting tomorrow, she and I will have a lot more time together. I am one of the 50 employees in the newsroom who has been laid off as our parent company, Gannett, trims expenses to refit the newsroom for the future.

I want to offer my gratitude to my co-workers who have made me feel as connected as I ever did in the office. I want to thank my editors who made my work-life balance a reality. Most of all, I want to thank the readers who have offered me such encouragement over the years. And to the amazing, talented and inspirational parents I’ve met and written about because of this blog, I wish I could give you a big hug. You will not be forgotten by me! If anyone wants to keep in touch, I’m on Twitter (twitter.com/everythingjulie) or you can e-mail me at juliealterio at gmail dot com.

“At work, you think of the children you’ve left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself, your heart is rent.”  — Golda Meir

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.” — Zora Neale Hurston

• Pick a play that’s easy for your child to understand, preferably based on a story or movie that’s familiar. The action is fast and the figures on a stage are more abstract than those on a movie screen, so the younger the child, the more of a head-start he or she needs. We actually watched “The Little Mermaid” the day before the play to refresh my daughter’s memory.

• Make sure you have an aisle seat for your child. We were in the orchestra with an aisle seat, which was helpful because Pumpkin was able to see the stage well.

• Arrive early and ask for a booster seat. By the time I noticed an usher passing out booster seats, all the cushioned seats had been taken. We ended up with a plastic seat. It was fine, but a cushion obviously would have been more comfy.

• Try, if you can, to avoid spending money at the merchandise booth on things you can buy in the wider world for less. I was tempted by the cast recording, but daunted by the $25 price tag. Checking at home later, I found the original cast recording on Amazon.com for $14.99. I also managed to avoid spending $15 on a plastic toy “Dinglehopper.” I did, however, find the cost of a nice keepsake T-shirt for my teenage niece was well worth it. If only the children’s sizes hadn’t sold out, I would have bought one for Pumpkin, too.

• Find out what kind of discounts you can get through your work. As a Gannett employee, I saved $30 each on the four tickets I purchased, a $120 savings.

• Reserve a table at a kid-friendly restaurant. We had a 5:45 reservation at Ruby Foo’s on Broadway, just three blocks away from the theater. Energetic and dramatic but not so uptight that a booster seat and children’s menu were out of place, it was an ideal way to relax before the show. There were even training clips for the chopsticks!

• Wait at the stage door afterwards for autographs on your Playbill. The actors were charmed by the adoration of such a tiny young fan, with “King Triton” calling the Pumpkin “Precious.”

• Consider driving in. I know there are many people who hesitate to drive into Manhattan. But we had a great experience. We had a traffic-free and relaxing drive from Northern Westchester along the Saw Mill and Henry Hudson, turning off onto 50th Street and heading to a parking garage on 48th right near 7th. It took us less than an hour. When we stepped out, we had a short walk to the Build-A-Bear store on 5th and then to the restaurant. After the show, it was a short stroll through the bright lights and excitement of Times Square to our car. We left at 11:30 and were home by 12:20 a.m. I can’t imagine how tedious it would have been to schlep to Grand Central, stand around waiting for the train and then sitting on a 70-minute ride. I also found coupons online that cut the parking rate from $37 to $20 for up to 12 hours.

Please share your own Broadway tips and memories!

Being big movie fans, we’ve since taken the Pumpkin to many kids’ movies. And we haven’t had any more tears. I think it’s mostly due to her greater sophistication in responding to filmed entertainment.  We don’t watch much TV at home and the shows she sees don’t have the heightened intensity of a movie. “Planet Earth” DVDs, “Sesame Street” and “Miffy” aren’t exactly edge-of-your-seat entertainment.

But now that she’s used to movies, we don’t necessarily go by the ratings when we determine whether it’s suitable. For instance, “Bolt” and “Madagascar 2” were both rated PG, but neither seemed too scary or intense. We’ve shunned “G-Force,” perhaps unfairly, because I don’t like the idea of weapon packs on cute little animals.

One place a lot of parents go for advice is Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that rates everything from movies to TV shows to books to music to Web sites. It’s a good site, and I can recommend it. I do think they are way too conservative when it comes to ratings. For instance, “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” and “Up” were both suggested for ages 6 plus. My daughter, who is now 4, loved both of them.

On the opposite end of the age scale, my 17-year-old niece is coming to visit for a few days and we hope to watch a movie with her after the Pumpkin is in bed. We already know we don’t want to watch something with an R rating because we certainly don’t want to confront any sexual scene or foul language. We’ll have to figure out what might be a good compromise on the PG front.

I’d love to hear what other parents do when it comes to ratings. Do you keep your preschoolers away from PG flicks or do you judge each one individually? What’s your strategy for evaluating their worth?

I was speaking mostly in jest, of course. I’ve never shooed away the Pumpkin so harshly, but I have to admit that there are times when she knows that I’m working on the computer and can’t play with her. Given the amount of indulgence and love my daughter gets in general, I’m not worried about her. But Coraline does make you think about children who aren’t so cosseted and whose parents really do tell them they are too busy to make time for them much of the time.

The evil witch who preys on Coraline’s vulnerability isn’t just a fairy tale creation. There are those who prey on young children by offering them the love and companionship they are missing at home. Just as the “other mother” offers Coraline the homecooked meals and cozy surrounding she craves in hopes of stealing the child away, pedophiles and other criminals can weasel their way into youngsters’ hearts by exploiting their need for love. Children are vulnerable when their parents are absent or uninvolved. Even if they don’t encounter a witch who wants to steal their souls and replace their eyes with buttons, they will encounter peers with dubious morals who might offer the approval they aren’t getting at home.

While cast as a fairy tale (that would earn an R rating if it were a live-action picture)‚ “Coraline” teaches its younger audience about the dangers of believing in something that’s too good to be true. And it provides a reminder to the parents watching that if you aren’t there for your child, someone else (someone scary) might be.

And when the kid a month later decides to switch his devotion from “Star Wars” to “Harry Potter,” it’s just more fodder: “My dad nearly killed me when I decided to become a Harry Potter freak. He made me sleep in that bed until I was 17!”

Share your stories of wacky childhood projects!

But tonight, she shined. And I don’t have one photo of it or one minute of videotape. This was a choice made by a parent who has 17,000 photos on my Mac, 99 percent of which were taken since the Pumpkin was born four years ago.

Why did I choose not to record this precious memory? Because I wanted to live it. I didn’t want to see the Pumpkin dance through a viewfinder or a 3-inch LCD screen. I didn’t want to be distracted. I wanted to be present in the moment, enjoying every second. And I was. And I did. I cried. I smiled big. I held her father’s hand. I was there.

As a parent who watched her daughter blow out her birthday candles two years in a row from behind a camera, I can say that being there—truly there in the moment—beats the recorded memories.

I can only look at the pictures of that fourth birthday moment because I don’t have the images in my head to enjoy.

Tonight, I have something better than pixels. I have the afterglow of the feeling that welled up in me. I can only describe it as bliss.

I’m curious about the choices readers of this blog have made in similar circumstances. Have you, like me, been too willing to experience the milestones from behind the lens? What occasions have prompted you to just put down the camera and live? Or, do you derive such joy from rewatching the event that it’s worth it to be distracted by the filming of it?

In conversations with friends and relatives, I’ve come to realize I have a pretty strong sense of what I want my parenting to be. I don’t always meet these aspirations. I can be impatient at times. I have raised my voice rather than reasoned. I have tired of childish games sooner than I would like. In the everyday tumble of life amid work demands and sleep deficits, the gap between our ideals and our realities can widen.

That’s why I had to share with you a wonderful blog post that lays out “7 Secrets to Raising a Happy Child.” It’s as if writer Sean Platt crept into my head and wrote down my thoughts. I have spoken in favor of all of these guidelines to friends and family at one time or another, though I certainly didn’t express my thoughts as well as this writer. Sean has his own blog, Writer Dad, that’s also well worth bookmarking. (He also loves “Lost,” which makes him an automatic kindred spirit.)

Here is the short version of Sean’s post, with some of my addenda. (If you want to read the unexpurgated version, just click on the link above.)

“1. Let your child know you are excited to see them when they enter the room. Let them see the light dance inside your eyes when their gaze drifts into yours. Be mindful of their presence by showing them your smile and greeting them warmly. Say their name out loud. Not only do children love to hear the sound of their name, they also long to feel validation from their loved ones.”
(This is such a simple and joyful thing to do that it’s going to be No. 1 on my list as well. I am pretty sure I do this most of time already, but I’ll try to never forget even on days when everything is going wrong.)

“2. Teach your child it’s okay to be bored. As parents, it’s often our instinct to entertain our children each and every waking hour. When we don’t possess the time or energy, it is all too easy to allow the glowing blue babysitter in the living room to do the heavy lifting. But when we rely on television, or any other form of autopilot attention, we succeed only in limiting our child’s development. Children have vivid imaginations that flourish upon nurturing. But without the opportunity to coax their creativity, it will only whither on the vine.”
(I totally agree with this! I often have said that I think boredom is useful. It forces the mind to wander and who knows where that might lead? I am against DVDs in the car and will never give my child a portable gaming device. Let her be a little bored once in a while! Maybe she’ll daydream herself to a magical place that can only be found in the imagination.)

“3. Limit your child’s media. Related, but not limited to number two. Limiting your child’s exposure to media isn’t only a positive move for promoting their creativity, it is an excellent method to broaden their attention span while grooming their ability to stay calm. Your child will have plenty of exposure to more than you want soon enough.”
(Thanks to Tivo, the Pumpkin has no idea that some people just sit down and channel surf. Whenever I allow very limited TV time, we watch a show recorded specially for her.)

“4. Let your child know they are more important than work by giving them eye contact and attention. Your child doesn’t just need you around, they need you present. Play with your child, interact with them, find out what is important to them by asking questions and listening to their answers.”
(This is the hardest one for working parents, isn’t it? It’s so hard sometimes to pull away from the e-mail or phone messages to just stop and sit on the floor and make time.)

“5. Let your child make a few of the rules. You don’t have to make them the boss to let them feel empowered. Often, power struggles with our children are the direct result of them feeling a loss of control.”
(My strategy is negotiation. We have an elaborate system of working out “deals” in our home. I lay out what I expect, she listens and sometimes makes a counteroffer. Then we both agree on the terms and even shake hands. Obviously, I don’t allow her to have a say when safety is at stake, but if we’re talking about trying a new food or reading a book before or after we brush teeth, I think negotiation is fine.)

“6. Teach your child — don’t assume it’s all happening outside the house. Home schooling is every parent’s job.”
(This is an example I received from my husband’s family. His dad used to give the kids regular assignments. The tradition lives on today with my husband’s two sisters and brother. In our house, the Pumpkin knows that she is attending “home school,” where she is learning everything from the names of creatures in the sea to which island in the South Pacific grows cloves. We have a lot of fun. )

“7. Model appropriate behavior. In my opinion, this is the most important item on the list. Children do as they see, not as they’re told. If you want your child to be mindful of others, you must be mindful of others yourself. If you want your child to by happy, you must smile without hesitation. There is no one more influential to your child than you. At least for now.”
(This is without a doubt my weakest link. I lose my temper too often. I let little things get to me at times. I don’t “go with the flow” as much as I’d like. This is definitely an area I have to emphasize myself as I strive to become a better parent.)

I hope you enjoyed this list as much as I did. The “zenhabits, simple productivity” site has other useful links as well, like this one that lays out “100 Ways to Have Fun with Your Kids for Free or Cheap.” I wonder how my mom would like No. 100: “Prank call their grandparents, using disguised, humorous voices.”

For the wives out there shopping, Junk Food T’s allow you to indulge your husband’s love for “Star Trek,” “Batman” or the Beatles while also giving him a shirt that will make him cool to your teenagers. My pick for dads of little ones has one of the Wild Things from “Where the Wild Things Are.” There is also a shirt with the “Cat in the Hat” that’s cute for dads of toddlers in particular. Some even have a double entendre that’s appropriate for the wife to bestow, like the one with the Lucky Charms leprechaun and the phrase “Magically Delicious.”

A couple of years ago, I gave Pumpkin’s father a shirt that said, “Property of My Little Girl” that I loved to see him wear. (Hint.)

I have to admit: I keep buying Father’s Day stuff that’s the analog of what I’d like to receive on Mother’s Day. Pumpkin has at least two T-shirts that say “Daddy’s Girl,” but none that say anything about mommy. Hmm.

So, dads out there: Would these shirts be a fun gift for you? What do you really crave on your big day?

I’m what an earlier generation liked to call a “worrywart.” I worry about almost everything, but usually succeed in communicating none of that worry to my child. I encourage her to try new things, while taking appropriate care against hazards of course.

Probably most parents are worrywarts to some extent, which is why marketers are so effective at getting us to spend a fortune baby-proofing our homes and buying safety devices.

In my in-box today was a promo for a product called the Snuza. It’s a baby monitor that clips to your infant’s diaper and monitors movement. If the device doesn’t sense a movement in 15 seconds, it stimulates the baby with a “pulsed vibration.” If no movement is sensed after another 5 seconds, an alarm goes off. On the Web site’s frequently-asked-questions page, the maker acknowledges this is not a medical device but is more akin to the heart monitors people wear while they exercise.

As I read all this over, I found myself getting angry at this company for exploiting parents’ fear of sudden infant death syndrome to sell a lifestyle gadget.

You see, my daughter, as readers of this blog know, was a preemie. When she was in the hospital for more than two months, she was hooked up to an actual medical monitor. Learning to interpret the sounds it made took a while. At first, I was worried every time it went off, but the nurses assured me that those weren’t the beeps to be concerned about. Then, one day, I was holding her when it went off with a new sound. Assuming it was one of those unimportant beeps, I ignored it. That was until a nurse quickly came up and started vigorously rubbing my baby’s back to remind her to breath. That wasn’t the only time I had that experience. I, too, learned to rub her back when the monitor went off a certain way.

Then, one day, it was time to take her home, to take her off the monitor where I could watch how fast her heart was beating, how many breaths she took a minute and how much oxygen was in her blood.

It was leap of faith. Faith in the doctors that they wouldn’t send her home before she was ready. Faith that she would be OK. And faith that I would at last get to be her mom in our own home.

I buried my worries and embraced a normal family life. If my daughter had needed a monitor, then the doctors would have sent her home with one. (As, indeed, they did for some preemies.)

What if I had given in to my darker fears and bought a contraption like the Snuza? It’s not a medical device, as the maker clearly states. If your child needed a monitor, wouldn’t you want a medical device that could actually save her life? So who is it for? The parents. To feed their worry. The Web site proclaims: “How did we cope before Snuza? It’s been a great relief to finally get a good night’s sleep.”

What kind of goodnight ritual is it when you attach a monitor to your baby’s diaper? Isn’t that saying, in effect, I don’t trust you to live until morning without this thing? Every new parent has this fear, and every new parent gets over it — except those who are reminded of it daily when they buy products like the Snuza, that is.

I am not minimizing the risk of SIDS. I can easily imagine the agony. But the American SIDS Institute does NOT list devices like the Snuza in its advice for parents, which includes placing infants on their backs to sleep without any soft coverings that can suffocate. New research also shows that having a fan in the room can also lesson the risk of SIDS.

What do you think about devices like the Snuza? More harm than help or a useful addition to the nursery?

The fathers reading this just might want to answer these questions for their own youngsters. They are written in the past tense because I think the idea is for adult children to pose them to their dads, but I think they can just as well be answered by fathers of young children. (I’m talking to you, Michael.)

1. What did you enjoy most about being a dad? Least?

2. Are there things you wish you had done differently as a father?

3. In what ways are we alike and in what ways are we different?

4. Why did you marry my mother?

5. Is there anything you every wanted to tell us (me) but have not?

6. What is the secret to raising good kids?

7. Is there anything you regret not having asked your parents (my grandparents)?

8. Do you think today’s fathers have it harder, easier or just different?

9. What do you want to make sure that my children and grandchildren will remember about you?

I was so incensed after I read about homemaker Sandra Thompson on Salon.com, that I had to share it with you. You can also read another story about the topic on Womanist Musings and at this Alabama news station.

I imagine Thompson wanted to share skills, including how she chooses nutritional meals for her family of three kids, balances the household budget, keeps the house clean and tidy, manages everyone’s schedule, etc. These are complex tasks. (I know because I’m always falling behind in all of them.)  Having stay-at-home parents participate in the event, which was held yesterday, is even encouraged by the organization that sponsors Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work. The Web site has suggested activities like having the kids assist with making lunch and dinner, food shopping and similar tasks.

But the school’s chief told homemaker Sandra Thompson that her job was not “professional” enough. Now, first of all, what about all the parents who work in jobs like Wal-Mart cashier, waitress/waiter, wallpaper hanger, etc. Are they not allowed to participate because they are not “professional” enough?

I personally am angry about this because of the message it sends to Thompson’s children about the value of their mother’s chosen work. The superintendent even had the nerve to say Thompon’s job was important, that he admires it and that his own wife stays home with their children. What a double standard! It’s a great choice, but heaven forbid we should use it as an example to our sons and daughters.

In my life as parent and as a newspaper reporter, I meet lots of people who are former professionals who have given up careers in law, on Wall Street, in business and even medicine to be with their kids full time. I admire stay-at-home parents tremendously. (And, truth be told, often wish I could be one.)

I think we’ve amply seen in the case of Madlyn Primoff of Scarsdale — the mother who ordered her two daughters out of the car for fighting and ended up arrested for child endangerment — that being a lawyer or other “professional” doesn’t mean you are necessarily a great example to your kids.

What do you think? Should stay-at-home parents be encouraged to participate in Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day? If you are a SAHM or SAHD, would you keep your child home for the event to show what you do for your family?

It’s been hard to get Jennifer and Steve out of my mind. I could easily have ended up with a similar box if it weren’t for the life-saving treatment my daughter received at White Plains Hospital Center.

Four years ago on April 20, I went into the hospital showing symptoms of preeclampsia, a disease that affects about 5 percent of pregnancies and poses risk for both mother and baby. I hadn’t read about preeclampsia before and didn’t really know what the doctors were so concerned about. I had been showing the signs of preeclampsia for a couple of weeks and had even spent a weekend on bedrest, but the doctors didn’t use that word yet. Here’s a clue: If your hands are so swollen that you lose sensation, it’s time to worry. Swollen ankles in pregnancy: Not so much.

My first night I was dazed, suffering from a horrible cold, unable to sleep. Over the next few days, the signs were clear that the doctors expected me to deliver my daughter early, but wanted to wait as long as possible. I was given steroid shots to mature my daughter’s lungs, moved to a private room and ordered to rest on my left side. In retrospect, I think I went into a bit of denial. After my cold cleared up by the weekend, I actually felt really great. It was sunny outside and I didn’t feel like staying in bed. It seemed absurd that I would actually have the baby that early, and so I discounted the idea, especially since I felt so healthy. The swelling had gone down and I didn’t have other classic symptoms, like a headache or pain in my abdomen. (I found out later that these are important symptoms of something going wrong. At the time, I just knew that nurses came into my room every four hours to ask me, “Do you have a headache? Any pain in your abdomen?”)

Every day, I rode a wheelchair down to radiology and got a look at my baby, who was healthy but tiny. Things were going so well that after a week and a half, on May 2, my doctor during rounds that morning even talked about maybe letting me go home on bedrest for a while. That was before he got the results of that morning’s blood draw. (Oh yeah, every morning I gave about five vials. Fun stuff.)

Later that afternoon, I had just showered and was sitting up in bed, making phone calls and relaxing when a phalanx of nurses from labor and delivery strode into my room with a gurney and told me I was coming with them to deliver the baby. This was a shock. My own nurse came in behind them and said the doctor had been trying to reach me, but I had been on the phone. My bloodwork showed that I had developed a complication of preeclampsia called HELLP Syndrome, which basically meant that internal organs like my liver weren’t doing so hot. The baby had to come out, or else we both would be in trouble.

After panicked calls to reach my husband to come as quickly as possible and to my sister-in-law for reassurance, I was prepped for a C-section. That evening, my daughter was born at 26 weeks, five days, gestation. She weighed just 1 pound, 13.4 ounces, or 834 grams. I didn’t even get to see her born because I was so swollen the anesthesiologist couldn’t get a needle into my spine. I had general anesthesia. I didn’t get to see her for more than 24 hours because I was stuck in bed in a haze thanks to a magnesium sulfate drip. I didn’t hold her for almost a week because she was so delicate. I just sat by her incubator, lightly touching her with my hand and talking to her. Her entire hand was the size of the tip of my pinky finger. The first days were so scary that it’s hard to even describe what it was like. The first week of a preemie’s life will determine what happens for the rest of it. And for us, the news was all good. She didn’t need a ventilator, and was breathing with just positive air pressure. No bleeding in the brain. Lots of pee. A feisty attitude. (That hasn’t changed.) I got to hold her for the first time six days after she was born. It happened to be Mother’s Day. Part of me is still in that chair, holding my swaddled baby for the first time, oblivious to everything else. One of the neonatologists walked up to me and started to talk to me about how well she was doing, but I ignored him, repeating over and over, “My baby, my baby.”

Today, she weighs about 33 pounds and is as tall as some 5-year-olds. And when she climbs into my lap for snuggles, the world still disappears and my mind repeats, “My baby, my baby.”

On Sunday, for the fourth year, I will be lacing up my sneakers and heading to White Plains to walk with hundreds of other parents who know exactly how I felt in that first moment I held my daughter. Parents of preemies never take a day or a minute for granted. We know how easily we could have come home with nothing but heartbreak. We are thrilled for the chance to help out the March of Dimes, which is committed to making sure that more babies come home with their parents. I pester my family, friends and coworkers for donations because I know that every dollar raised will go to programs to prevent premature birth and to make sure that the ones who are born early, like my Pumpkin, will live.

While I was writing this, my daughter came over to me to give me a hug and show off the blue ponytail holder her grandmother put in her (long and messy) hair today. I have never cut her hair, which is below her waist. I hadn’t realized until this moment why I haven’t, even though I know that it would be nice to have a lock of the baby blond at the tips before the whole head turns darker. I don’t need a keepsake. I have my baby. I’m marching on Sunday so that other moms can say the same.

This is on my mind this morning thanks to my colleague Janie Rosman’s article about a seminar on “stranger danger” held in Scarsdale. It’s well worth a read. I particularly liked the advice about helping children find “safe” strangers if they get lost. Telling your child to go up to a mom with children and ask for help is a great idea.

The Scarsdale mom who organized the workshop was inspired by a scare in a store when she lost track of her 5-year-old for a moment.

I’ve always kept pretty close tabs on the Pumpkin while we shop — which won’t surprise any of my friends and family who know my protective parenting style. But I have to admit that I used to relax some of my vigilance when we shopped in kids’ stores like Baby Gap and Gymboree, letting her wander around a bit while I browsed.

An experience I had in December put an end to that casual attitude.

I was shopping for Christmas gifts at Danbury mall with my daughter one evening just a few days before the holiday. It was a special trip just to buy her daddy’s presents. We first went to Lord & Taylor and spent about 45 minutes at the men’s fragrance counter with a very patient saleswoman who helped us pick out a shower gel and deodorant. Pumpkin must have smelled a dozen scents. Then we stopped at Pottery Barn to pick up two more place settings of our flatware to have enough for an upcoming party. Then we went to Jos. A. Bank to pick out a tie. Because my husband is tall, we asked where the long ties were displayed in the back of the store. I put down my Pottery Barn bag, which had the Lord & Taylor bag tucked inside, and both Pumpkin and I talked with the salesman. They were having a “buy one, get one” promotion, so we picked out two ties. Then we found out there was the same deal for dress shirts, so we picked out two of those as well, moving perhaps a total of eight feet from where the ties were displayed.

So, I go to the register to pay, and I realize I don’t have my bag. I head to the back where I left it, and it’s nowhere to be found. Now, this is a very small store that’s long and narrow. Even just days before Christmas, it had less than a half dozen customers in the store the whole time I was there. I proceeded to hunt for my bag, but it was nowhere to be found. I made the manager call mall security to report the theft. It took them 45 minutes to show up and they didn’t even write anything down. They were completely uninterested. I thought to myself that it was amazing that my bag could disappear in the few minutes that we were picking out ties and dress shirts. Maybe it was a customer who I hadn’t noticed in the very back of the store. But it seems hard to believe that the one or two customers in the vicinity just happened to be a thief. I’ll leave the reader of the blog to come to the other obvious conclusion about who else was in the vicinity, as my husband did when I told him the story.

After I left the store, and after I went back to Lord & Taylor to re-buy the bath stuff (we skipped a return trip to Pottery Barn, too depressing), I realized how lucky I was: Someone stole a bag with maybe $140 in merchandise inside. But holding my hand was my most precious person. If a bag can be stolen in a few minutes, so can a child.