Laurie Nigro

Laurie's secrets to a happy holiday with extended family: Hit the road before dawn and stay away from soul-sucking idiots — even if it means hiding in the bathroom. And your diet? Fuhgeddaboudit.

In the end, though it may be helpful to know from which planet your spouse hails, you ultimately have to live together on this one.

I try to believe that each sunset has followed a day where I have learned something new, that each season waxes and wanes as I search for a deeper happiness, that each revolution around the sun has made me a better person. But then my husband hobbles all over my Zen with an arthritic toe.

I am no artist and I think any makeup that I try to apply would end up making me look much less like a hot mom and much more like I was auditioning for clown school. And I don't ever want anyone to call me Krusty — for any reason.

So what exactly happens to us when we have kids? What part of our brain turns away from our own selves and our wants and needs, only to embrace all the crazy of motherhood?

Things change when you become a mom. No more freaking out over earwigs in the shower, or gagging at vomit, or walking away from diapers that fail. Nope.

These stretchy wünder-pants are our right and reward for many hundreds of years of pain and suffering.

There's no way you're getting through this parenting thing without a few mistakes along the way.

I am often giddy with the possibilities of this me-time. What to do? I could listen to the news. As enticing, if not more so, is the option of listening to music. My music. Just mine.

I left the husband to turn off the television. For some reason, I went back to the family room and quite nearly choked on my chamomile tea when I saw what he had done.