Misery loves company. So it's good to hear others' "I'm raising a Jew in a Christian nation" stories.

Tiny Coconut handled seasonal kindergarten issues well. I think I'll keep that letter on file ...

Julie's son Colter dealt with a similar issue with aplomb.

Our latest incidents:

Emma rode in one of those shopping carts with a huge toy truck attached at the grocery store the other day. When we got to the register, the clerk said, "Too bad that won't fit in Santa's sleigh." My usually talkative daughter just stared at her until I said, "Santa is for people who celebrate Christmas." That Emma got. "Oh, we don't celebrate Christmas. We celebrate Hanukkah. We're Jewish." The clerk hemmed and hawed a minute, and then said, "Well, I guess it won't fit in your mom's car, then." At least the woman understood that Jewish kids don't get gifts from Santa, which is more than some folks around here.

Like someone at work who asked last week, "Do you people get to celebrate Thanksgiving?" Well, the holiday doesn't involve the birth, death or resurrection of Christ, so we're good. And you people?

At least I've got some blogging role models.

At the annual holiday party last night, my boss offered to get Adam and I drunk. So that we'd have sex. Um, yeah. It was that awkward.

He asked the question that I've gotten on a daily basis since Emma was old enough to walk: "When are you having another?" I gave my standard answer, that we're not planning to have another child, but we're not planning to not have another child, either. He protested. I said he couldn't handle for me to be gone for six weeks. "You'll have one during the summer!" It's not that easy to time. "Sure. I'll send you a bottle of champagne next October, you guys can ..."

The funny thing is, this isn't even the worst conversation I've had on the topic. About a year ago, I met a mom at a toddler birthday party. We're comparing notes on our families, and she asks the inevitable question. I gave the oh-so-earnest speech that I don't even bother with now, about how we can't see past Emma, how she deserves all of our love and attention and so on. Her reply, "Oh, you won't be a real family until you have another."

Really? I wanted to run and find her firstborn and point out that she and Mommy and Daddy weren't a family until baby brother came along.

Even before Adam and I started talking about marriage, we discussed having a little girl. We picked names, Adam imagined coaching her soccer team. We always envisioned the family -- yes, the real one -- we have now.

A lot of our parent friends are moving on to their second children. At first, I had false smiles and congratulations for them. "It's finally getting easier!" I'd think. "How could you choose to go through those first six months again?" Holding my best friend's newborn, though, and watching big-brother Jack adore Cora helps me to understand. Tiffany recently told me she'd never been happier. This is the family they wanted, and now they have it.

Adam points out that most couples just picture their two -- or more -- kids. They knew when having the first one that they planned to have another. We didn't. Then, we didn't consciously decide that Emma would be it, but we didn't think about a second pregnancy, a second set of sleepless nights and incoherent days. We just focused on her, as we do now.

I know that when Emma's 5, I'll miss having a 2-year-old. My life is so incredibly rich because of her, and this is a stage I'll hate to not have again. But, unfortunately, you have to have a 2-month-old first, and I don't have much interest in doing that.

My pregnant-for-the-first-time friends probably think I'm full of gloom and doom about life with a newborn. And I don't mean to be, but I do think it's important that someone warns them. Maybe if someone had been more honest with me about how hard those first six months would be, it would've been easier. I'd have known that everyone goes through it and it passes it. That every day, it gets a little simpler.

Even here, I feel like I have to give the standard disclaimer. It's not that we didn't enjoy every minute of Emma as a baby. Of course we did. She was amazing, that time was incredible. We focused on our own tiny little world and made a family. She grew and learned. We loved her and the life we had. But it was hard as hell. And it's better now, every day, then it was then.

And it's not a decision we take lightly. Adam and I talk about growing old, and all of that responsibility on Emma's shoulders alone. Someone actually pointed out, "When you die, she'll have no one." I like to think she'll have a close network of friends and maybe even a family of her own. Of course we don't like to think of her alone. But we're not going to have another baby so that 50 years from now, she has support.

It means no in-house playmate now. But even if we got pregnant today (god forbid), Emma would be 3 1/2 when the baby arrived. She'd be in kindergarten before the kid was really a "playmate." We'd have to move to a new house, because this one wouldn't be big enough. Our budget is stretched to its limits now; how would we afford day care for another child? There are serious issues for us.

Does that mean I'll never get baby fever again? Who knows. It does make me sad to think I'll never have another baby growing inside me. It was an amazing time. I breastfed Em for 15 months, and Adam recently realized Emma had been weaned longer than she nursed. Sigh. That is melancholy. But it's not reason enough.

So my standard answer, "We're not planning to have another child, but we're not planning to not have another child, either," becomes a little less true every day.

A new Emma-centric post is up at DotMoms.

It's really late in the year for me to be hearing this for the first time. But I listen to NPR in the car and rarely turn on the TV ...

Now that I've sung along as loud as possible with the B.C. Clark jingle, the season can begin.

It's been around since 1956. People carol it around here, no joke. It's a state tradition. Oklahoma native Megan Mullally sang it on Jay Leno, for god's sake. And though "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" is mighty catchy (have to admit I always hear it as Arnold crooning it on The Critic ), it's just not the same as this little ditty.

Jewelry is the gift to give
Cause it's the gift that'll live and live
So give the gift you know can't fail
From B.C. Clark's anniversary sale

Most sales are after Christmas
But Clark's is just before
Most everything is marked way down;
Savings you can't ignore
At Oklahoma's oldest jeweler, since 1892

So gift the gift you know can't fail
From B.C. Clark's anniversary sale!

Emma already knows all the words to Boomer Sooner and Oklahoma. Guess I've got some more teachin' to do.

I had to wake early this morning to get in to work for an early meeting. I told Adam not to let me hit snooze (or rather, not to hit it for me, since it's on his side of the bed). And, as always when I know my morning routine will be rushed, I slept poorly.

I'm a little anal on the organization side (shoe mess in my closet notwithstanding). I decide on my outfit (and usually Emma's) the night before, cutting down standing-in-front-of-a-mirror time in the morning. My lunch (and hers, too) are made in advance. All of my stuff is neatly piled, ready to be grabbed on my way out the door.

So this morning's dream was about as horrifying as a dream can be (except those in which I kill all of my family members and wake oddly terrified and happy). I couldn't find the outfit I'd put out to wear, and I kept going through my closet, looking for something else. I'd start ironing a shirt only to realize it didn't go with the pants I was already wearing. I got a skirt ironed and on, then suddenly knew I hadn't shaved. Put on open-toed shoes, but my toenails weren't painted. It was one thing after another, going on seemingly forever. My room was piled with clothes, which stresses me out just to think about. Emma was running around, wanting attention; Adam kept asking, "You're wearing that? Don't you have a meeting?"

Finally, I ended up dressed. When I went into the kitchen for my morning glass of OJ, I discovered thousands and thousands of ants, parading across my floor between the back door and the trash can. The line was about two-inches thick, solid black. (Two of Em's new library books, Crickwing and Little Polar Bear, have marching ant drawings. I'm sure they're to blame.)

I grabbed a can of Raid and started a massacre. But there was one insect, about the size of a June bug, eating the ants. It was covered in black spots and hairy little spines. And when I sprayed it, it blew up like a puffer fish. The more I coated it with poison, the bigger it got, until it started floating off the ground. And then all the black spots grew into insects, too, sort of like crickets. And the bug got bigger and bigger, about the size of a basketball, bobbing about my kitchen. I was trying to bat it with the can of Raid, without it touching my skin.

So, of course, Emma runs in, and I'm terrified that the bug balloon is going to hurt her. She gets on a chair, out of the way of the ants, but this puts her head at the right height for this other monstrosity. And then, here's Chance, our dog, who finds a bowl of rancid milk -- which looked more like yogurt -- under the kitchen table and starts lapping it up.

I've never been so glad for the alarm. Though I did make Adam hit snooze, mostly because I was a little afraid of what I might step on as I got out of bed. I tiptoed gingerly around until the sun was fully up.

Some girls have a thing for shoes. They buy a cute crimson pair of mules to match a particular outfit, stride around confidently in heels and organize their many, many varying pairs by style and color. I borrowed a pair of pumps from a friend once, and she actually gave them to me in the shoebox she bought them in. Her closet is filled, floor to ceiling, with pristine shoes in pristine boxes, all wrapped carefully in the tissue paper they came with.

I'm not one of those girls. My shoes do live in my closet. In the floor. In a haphazard pile. (I do try to keep each one near its mate, but with a 2-year-old and a pair of cats who love to play in there, it doesn't always work. I've spent many a morning digging for a match, only to give up and wear a different pair.) And even if I wanted to be so precise -- and trust me, I'm big on organization -- my house is 50 years old. Adam's clothes don't even live in the closet in the master bedroom; there's barely enough space for one season's worth of mine. I'd have to annex half our bedroom to fit shoeboxes in.

In the fall or winter, my choice is generally, "Black loafers or brown?" In spring or summer, "Black sandals or brown?" Comfort is a high priority for me. If a pair of shoes makes my feet hurt, I won't wear them. Period.

I didn't even learn to walk in heels until my senior year in high school. I've been close to my full height -- nearly 5'10" -- since about eighth grade, so I always towered over all the boys who hadn't finished growing yet. If I was forced into a dress, I wore flats, the flatter the better. But when I got the lead in Neil Simon's Rumors, which is set at a cocktail party, I had no choice. I got to stumble through four hours of rehearsal, every night for six weeks, in pointy heels.

I still don't wear heels often. My dressiest shoes have a heel of 2 inches. I do have a pair with a 3-inch heel, which I've worn exactly once, to the wedding for which I bought them. (And I only bought them because they were the only navy pumps I could find. I was terrified all day I was going to fall. I did get lots of compliments on them, though.)

Adam and I stand forehead to forehead, so if I have much of a heel at all, I'm taller than he is. Luckily, he doesn't mind.

It's a good thing. Because after last night, I might be a whole new girl.

I don't know that I've ever felt sexier than I do today -- 3 inches taller than I was yesterday. I found to-die-for knee-high boots. Soft, soft leather. They cling to my calves. They make me feel feminine and powerful and like I should go ride a horse or something. They look perfect under a skirt, like today, with my jeans or with dress pants (not that I tried them on with every outfit I own. Really). I bought them in black and brown. (And here, despite the fact that I have friends who complain, "I wouldn't have known that sweater cost $3 if you hadn't told me," I have to add that I bought both pairs for less than the cost of one pair at retail. Considerably less. I rock sales.)

And they're comfortable. Or, at the least, they are after wearing them for less than an hour. I'll have to rethink that at the end of the day, I'm sure. And granted, driving with a 3-inch heel is a little more complicated than in my rocker-bottom slides. And walking up stairs with my leg bound from sole to knee takes a different kind of concentration. But they're amazing. Unlike at 18, I like being tall.

I have to admit, I'm not as confident in them as I hope to be. Adam really wanted me to pair them with a teeny little skirt, and I'm not sure yet I can pull that off (particularly since I'm not 100 percent positive I won't fall at some point today. It isn't unheard of). But they peek out of the up-to-there slit in the back of my ankle-length skirt, and he's good with that.

I even rearranged my closet to find space for their giant boxes. The brown pair are now cradled in tissue, lest they get scratched. I may become a shoe girl yet.

Emma's words aren't the only ones I obsess over. I'm going to happily lose hours to World Wide Words. Lots of etymology. Grammar discussions. Reviews of books about language. A weekly newsletter.

And I thought A Word A Day made me happy.

Ah, simple pleasures.

Emma's got quite a way with words. And being the daughter of two writers, I guess that's none too surprising. Her vocabulary constantly astounds folks. (Her daycare provider recently stepped out of the grocery store with her and observed, "Look, Emma, it's raining." Emma scoffed, "No, it's just drizzling.") She loves to drop adverbs like "actually," "quite" and "especially." We're always "supposed to" do something. She says she "clambered" out of the bath, accuses me of being "catty," tells the cats they're "jealous" or "conceited" and says big things are "colossal." She knows the names of all the types of pasta we consume (and beware anyone who gets one wrong).

Sometimes, though, it's hard to keep a straight face at the way she twists a phrase.

"Daddy, can I touch your Skittles?" (She meant his stitches.)

She thinks behave is two words. Like, "I'm being mad have." Or "I'm trying to be happy have." Or just "I'm being so have!" There are other word-order issues, too. She always wants to "catch him up" if we're driving in two cars and Adam's ahead of us.

I gave her a banana the other day in the car. She ate it, then sighed. "I wish I'd had my usual snack."

She tried to put a Q-Tip in an inappropriate place the other day, so I told her not to. "Why? Is it poisonous?"

After sitting in a none-too-clean high chair: "This chair is all crumbly." After being handed a misshapen piece of candy: "This is a squashed-up lemon drop."

At lunch recently, she pulled her sandwich apart to eat the meat and cheese first. "Emma, you should eat your whole sandwich at once," Adam told her. "No, Daddy!" she replied, indignant. "If I ate the whole sandwich at once, I'd choke!"

We still don't know what she was trying to tell us here: "I don't like ... Hmmm. I don't like .... What don't I like?"