Many new moms find it pretty exasperating that they don't know what their babies want. It's 3 pm, your baby is sort of crying, sort of moaning, you've been alone with her all afternoon, you've tried feeding and rocking and white noise -- it's pretty common to think, "if only she could talk, I'd understand what is going on here."

Yeah, I'm not sure that talking clears everything up. To wit, one of my kids said to me today:

"They have a thing for -- what's it called? -- our thingy, with a dog on it with one of those things on his head, eating chicken."

Crystal clear.

But don't despair, all those years of knowing the actual kid helps you decode a little. Somehow, I knew that what she meant was, "in the store, earlier, when I was looking at the greeting cards that were mostly for Easter, there was one that was for Passover [a holiday we celebrate] and it had a picture of a dog wearing a yarmulke, holding a shank bone."

P.S. Don't be alone all day if it makes you cray! Come to a new moms' group!