I went to a parenting group meeting on Tuesday night. It's always a little strange for me to head out somewhere when it's dark outside, and the kids are winding down (or winding up, as the case may be) for bedtime. By the time the meeting was done it was 8:45 at night, and I still needed to stop at the grocery store for toilet paper.

So we have a new cousin in the extended SP family, a little boy Isiah who is sweet as sweet can be. Remember me sharing my cousin Jill’s watermelon salsa recipe this summer and mentioning how her pregnancy craving was watermelon? Well, Jill’s own little sweet pea Isiah has arrived…actually he arrived in October, but I was on H1N1 quarantine and I refused to subject Isiah to my germs, so despite being ridiculously excited to meet (and hold) him, I waited until the germ coast was clear.

Once my baby hit the ripe old age of three months, the mysterious and unpredictable malady of teething was all of a sudden a convenient yet viable diagnosis for any abnormal and/or unpleasant behavior. Excessive drooling, refusal to eat, runny nose, first-thing-in-the-morning fussiness, mid-day fussiness, evening fussiness, middle-of-the night fussiness … you get the idea.

So for three months now, we’ve been using this handy, catch-all excuse to visitors or family members whenever she seems the slightest bit undesirable to hang out with. “Oh, she must be teething,” we’ll say as she whines and squirms in Grandpa’s arms. “Poor thing.”

To anyone who doesn't understand why we need newspapers, an article in last Sunday's Washington Post Magazine may make you reconsider. In it, Gene Weingarten looked at some tragic cases of parents forgetting their infant children in the car, with fatal results.