I was in the craft store last week, pacing back and forth in front of the Valentine's Day displays and trying to make a decision. Was I going to help my kids produce a selection of lovingly hand-crafted Valentine's cards for their classmates, something perhaps inspired by a clever Pinterest design and featuring a custom font based on their actual handwriting? Or was I going to say fuck it, and buy the crappy pre-made pack of Spider-Man cards?

The thing is, my kids don't care what kind of valentines they hand out. It's my theory that valentines, much like birthday invitations and party decorations and cake designs, are less about the kids—and more about impressing the other parents.

You know what would have made the whole valentine card decision a lot easier? A parental pact, that's what. A legally binding agreement between all interested mothers that levels the playing field. WHO'S WITH ME?

The other day I had a rare hour to myself at the used bookstore, and as I was happily digging through a pile of dusty memoirs, I found myself thinking, "Hey! I should see if they have any of those awful Magic Treehouse books I hate reading to my kid."

(Nothing against the prolific and successful Magic Treehouse author, mind you, it's just that I really dislike those stories. But my 6-year-old loves them, and so almost every night I read him that series. From Buffalo Before Breakfast to Polar Bears Past Bedtime, I dutifully visit the land of Jack and Annie, although I've been thinking of publishing a parody book titled Seriously Stilted Sentence Structures at Sunset.)

That's how things are now: I get a chance to be totally self-indulgent, and I end up doing something for my damn wiener kids. I'm not saying I've become a more generous, selfless person since parenthood—I'm saying parenthood causes chemical alterations to your brain, and not always in a good way.

I've heard of kids being allergic to peanuts, eggs, shellfish, wheat, pollen, pet dander, and perfume. I even recently learned of one young man's heartbreaking allergy to milk that's so severe he's been hospitalized several times just for exposure, since he can't even be in the same room as someone eating a pizza.

I have to say, though, I'd never previously heard of a child being allergic to a temperature—until I read about 11-year-old Grant Schlager's bizarre allergy to the cold. The worst part of his strange and potentially scary situation? The poor kid lives in Minnesota.

One might think that riding high on the wave of success from her movie My Week With Marilyn that Michelle Williams would be more career-driven than ever, ready to scoop up the next big role. Instead, she's decided to take a break from acting.

The reason? To hang out with her 6-year-old daughter, Matilda. She recently told E!: "I just want to go back to being a mom for a while." Last year, she explained to OK! just how difficult it is to leave her daughter, and pretty much summed up the feelings of moms who work outside of the home everywhere:

We were huddled on cramped folding chairs in a frigid room, all of us craning to watch the solemn ceremony we'd been waiting for all morning: the Presenting of the New Belt, Which Is a Lot Like the Old Belt, Except OMFG This One Has a Green Stripe. The karate teacher—excuse me, Sensei—had just handed the much-anticipated new belt to my 6-year-old while I furiously snapped photos, and now he'd turned to the next belt recipient.

"Your daughter's next," my husband told the woman next to us, who was awkwardly balancing a camera and a small pigtailed toddler. "Do you want us to help so you can take pictures?"

There was a small flurry of activity, a bunch of thank yous, and somehow I ended up with the little girl on my own lap while her mom aimed the camera at her big sister.

Last month, 2-year-old Michael Gipson was eating a peppermint candy in his Jonesboro, Georgia home. When he started to choke, his 8-year-old brother, Malik, tried to call his parents for help, but they were outside doing yard work and didn't hear him over the sound of the leaf blower.

Understanding that his brother's life was in jeopardy, Malik took matters into his own hands. He'd seen the Heimlich maneuver on television before, and so he tried it himself as his great grandmother, Elaine Pines, watched in awe. She told CBS Atlanta, "He kept doing it, he kept doing it, and after a while that peppermint went 'choop'!"

It's amazing that Malik was able to think so quickly and knew what to do. What could have happened if he hadn't -- his baby brother choking to death -- is too horrifying to imagine.

When my kids were smaller, it seems like I was always pointing the video camera in their direction. First steps, first words, first deliberate face-plant into a chocolate birthday cake (that would be my older son) ... I tried to get as much footage as possible back then, because I knew how amazing it would be to revisit those early moments when they were older.

I'm so glad I did this, because now I don't have to rely solely on my treacherous memory for some of those milestones. I can watch both my sons learn how to walk, over and over. (And I cry like a giant dork every single time.)

Lately I haven't been using the camera as much. They're moving too fast, for one thing. It seems like we're all too busy to stop and press record (not that that's a bad thing).

So I recently started a new video project, just for fun. I call it the How to Do Everything Series—one which involves, mainly, my kindergartner doing what he likes to do best: tell you the right way to do things.

If there's one thing worse than a child who curses, it's a child who curses poorly. That's why this week I decided to focus on teaching your children how to curse properly ... specifically using the F-word.