What happened to the days when our kids thought we were heroes day in and out? And it didn't take much more than bandaging a scraped knee, mending the seam of a disemboweled beanie baby or allowing an extra half hour of TV on a school night.

We don't ask what stinks about us because we're afraid that whatever we hear is going to HURT our heart.

It's amazing what can happen when we are finally faced with something we've long been anticipating. Sometimes we realize why we yearned for it in the first place, and sometimes it becomes clear it's not actually what we wanted at all.