Welcome to a new (and way sassier) Sassafrass!

We all have to take a long and honest look in the mirror every once in a while and get real with ourselves that the jeans we wear every day are comfy but a decade past cute (farewell, jeggings), and that the adorable hairstyle we've had since college is no longer adorable (sorry, scrunchies and pink pokey-plastic curlers). 

The time came when I needed to do the same service for Sassafrass. She was looking very pink but no longer had the sass of her younger self. It was time to shed the strange columns and scads of categories and give that bad girl her vim and vigor back. 

Thankfully, the amazingly talented, patient and insightful Schmutzie/Elan Morgan/Ninjamatics stepped in, and not only gently pushed this project along, but also turned my hand-waving, crazy-eyed, supermodel dreams and crafted them into...well, look at this beauty! 

Sassafrass is streamlined and has a search function (hello, year 2000), so it is easier to find the posts you have previously spent hours hunting for here. And if you peek to the right side of your screen (yup, right there ---->), you will see the perfect little spot to enter in your email address to get updates when I've written something new, brilliant or about you (maybe all three)!

Please check out my Sassy Guides to Single Motherhood and Divorce.

Press play on my videos. 

And do peruse the very best posts of all time (or at least that's what my mom says).

Take a step back with me, please, and take in the loveliness. Sassafrass, spin yourself around, darling, and shake that new and gorgeous screen at the world!

4 words that will change your family

My boy has been going through some stuff -- having nights when sleep doesn't come easily and then stressing about the sleep not coming easily and then getting all brain-spinny about anything sleep-preventative in the room. Every little sound from the big-sound-maker T-Rex neighbors downstairs or the dishwasher or a bird outside can send him, in those long moments, into a spiral of worry and exhausted alertness. 

We are working on it. Slowly. 

One way is with this book, recommended to me by another mom who gets it and several others who know how important sleep, particularly restful sleep, is to kids and parents, particularly single parents who handle the terrors and worries and waking night-hours solo. 

One of the most gripping parts of delving into soothing your thoughts and putting worries away for the night so a kid can sleep is talking openly about feelings -- what makes you feel afraid, what makes you feel excited, what makes you feel worried. We've taken turns discussing daily things that stir up feelings for us and E has asked me to share memories of moments when I couldn't sleep or wanted my mom in the room with me when I was a kid. 

I've always known he was a deep processor, a sage child who could understand relationships and situations without much explanation, even from a very early age. That hasn't stopped me from explaining things to him -- we talked autopsies when he was three, and many big topics from gay marriage to drugs to sex to elections have been covered along the way, too. Still, these newer conversations that use a formula for talking about feelings have broken new ground.

For all my own fretting about his sleep stresses and expert advice and guidance on how to handle it from other parents and natural remedies sprayed on his pillow and possible foods that will help slow his spinning thoughts and fidgety body, I heard him use this formula and got that he can be the guide through this. 

Here are the four words he's been challenged to say, and how one conversation using them shifted a lot for our little family. Including who took the trash out.

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Celebrities' favorite children's books: Rediscovering classics with kids

Anne Lamott, the honest, hilarious author of many heartbreaking and hopeful non-fiction and fiction books, recently came to my city. She spoke for a while, and I sat, poised with my phone, tapping away notes on all of the funny and wise words she offered up despite a broken microphone and a venue with poor acoustics. She said she’d keep the reading and commentary brief because she had toured the country and interacted with audiences enough to know that people really come to ask questions, that we all are just seeking opportunities to connect.

And the moment when I felt like she was speaking directly to me came when someone asked which authors she loves, what books have meant the most to her.

Lamott’s answer contained a nod to an author friend in the audience. But her real response was focused on the books she read as a child.

“I was a girl who found literal salvation in chapter books,” she explained and I recorded in my notes. “Pippi Longstocking, Beezus and Ramona, Little Women.”

An audible “ahhh” rose up from the audience. We congregants were not all the same age, had driven to this church to hear Anne Lamott from different parts of the city. But if the reaction told anything it was how many of us had also been lost — and perhaps, found — in those same pages.

As parents, we get the joy of rediscovering the books we loved as kids. I am even more thankful to the late, brilliant Beverly Cleary for the Ramona and Henry Huggins and other series she penned now that I’ve re-read them all with my son. And after writing this piece, which compiles teacher choices for the best middle-school reads, I know I have many more new (to me) bindings to crack.

For some reading — and re-reading — inspiration, here, some of our favorite public figures share their favorite childhood books, too.

See the full list, up now on Babble.com, by clicking here. 

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