"Being a parent has taught me many lessons in my seven short years of experience. Many of my friends have just entered, or are about to enter, this new role in their lives. I try to refrain from bombarding them with too much advice. I figure theyÕre getting enough unsolicited information from their own parents, in-laws, and any other relative whoÕs ever done even a few daysÕ worth of parenting.

But if there is one most important thing I have learned, especially once my boys became toddlers, is to always beware when theyÕre silent..."

And so begins the first of this collection of 64 columns written by Amy Shankland about the sometimes crazy, sometimes scary, and mostly hilarious world of parenting.