Sometimes in the darkest hour of the night do you panic? Not irrational stranger panic, but the fear that comes from loving a child so deeply that you can see their personal challenges magnified beyond reason. I know every parent experiences some form of this, but for those of us who are parenting kids who are slightly-off-the-grid those nighttime skirmishes may be a familiar feeling.

Some kids seem to be more challenging than others, these kids are often seen as difficult, or as Alyson Schafer puts it “discipline-resistant”. These are kids who seem more highly sensitive to the world around them and can be discombobulated by the smallest incident and they can turn family life on its head in an instant.

As a mother of a somewhat “challenging child”, I can tell you that nature plays an important role (and yes, I realize nurture factors in here too). Our first-born is different temperamentally than his siblings, but also different than other kids. And those differences can make him hard to parent, but more importantly they make it hard to be him.

Friday’s post on my decision not to take my husband’s name elicited over 400 comments. Many people felt that I was too judgmental to those who changed their name, and that distorted my entire post. Women and men weighed in on both sides of the debate – explaining their personal and political reasons for keeping or changing their name. The debate took on a life of it’s own as it got re-posted on other sites and elicited comments from as far as Guyana and Japan.

It is obvious that this topic touches a chord, one that highlights a discomfort with the changes in women’s traditional roles in marriage and how we as a society choose to deal with choices that are often rooted in a sexist past. Some people will disagree, saying that this topic has nothing to do with tradition but only with the future of two people united in marriage.

I have rounded up what I think are the most cogent comments on both side of the debate. These posts drove the discussion onwards, they don’t mince words and they don’t call me or my husband nasty names. To see the whole discussion, check out my original post – I am Not a Mrs.

Keep reading to see what people had to say on both sides of the debate.  (In some cases, comments have been edited for brevity):

"Wow. I was completely accepting of your opinion up until the remark about losing respect for people who take their husband's last name. I understand that you have your beliefs about this matter, but what we do with our lives and our names is our business. If you truly do believe so strongly that our names make us who we are, and belong to us, then you should agree that we have the right to do whatever we choose with them. If we are not as attached to our names, and choose to give them away and become a part of our new husband's family, who are you to tell us that we are wrong in doing so? A name doesn’t make a family. But it doesn't make a person either. We are more than our names. We can be strong, independent women and take the last name of our husband. If you can't, that's your problem."

Emily, and other people who commented to this effect, correctly pointed out that the real issue, when it comes to name changing, is about choice.

I don't have a maiden name nor a married name. I have a name. And my name is Emma Waverman. It is the name I was born with and the name I write under; it’s the name on my birth certificate and degrees, the one the kid's school uses when they call and what I answer to. In short, I did not change my name.

I kept my name because it is who I am. My husband I met when we were young but our marriage is a partnership. Changing my name would have meant that I was subsuming myself to be part of a married unit. Marriage may be about compromise but it’s not about bending to an archaic traditional view of husband and wife.

It wasn’t until I was checking out of the grocery store today that I realized that I was in sweatpants, sweatshirt, my pajama tank top and no undergarments.. Thank goodness for puffy coats and hats.  I have no good excuse for my outfit. It was just a slightly more hectic than usual morning because my hubby was away and I drove all three kids to school and didn’t see the need to get dressed before hopping in the car. The only problem is that once I dropped the kids at school I realized a friend was coming over and I wanted to make a salad for lunch so I dropped in on my neighbourhood store and voila there I was standing at the cash with no bra on (which I realize for some mothers is not an issue but I should not be in public without some harnessing equipment).

I wish I could say that it was a first time event. But I would be lying. Before kids I would not dream of being seen in public without being fully dressed but now those last few minutes of lying horizontal is a worthy trade-off to two minutes in my closet. 

A few years ago the school boards in Toronto decided that the playgrounds were not safe, tore them down and re-built them with child safety regulations in mind -- and injury rates in the new playgrounds decreased by 49%. Obviously a lot of thought went into the new playgrounds but I wonder if they could have also upped the fun quotient along with the safety.

6:00 a.m. the alarm goes off. Phil (Bill Murray) turns, sits up in bed and hears, “It’s Groundhog Day!” for the umpteenth time and then goes on to have the same day over and over and over again in the 1993 comedy classic Groundhog Day.

6:00 a.m. the baby cries, you turn over feed it, realize baby is soaked, get up to find some diapers, realize that the baby is now up for the day, and so are you, just like the day before. Welcome to your own personal version of the movie Groundhog Day.

We just got back form the happiest place on earth, if you are under the age of 15 and live north of the border, that is. Yes, Great Wolf Lodge. For the unintiated Great Wolf Lodge is an indoor waterpark/hotel in Niagara Falls (and 11 other locations in the U.S.).  It is nirvana for the kids.

Waterslides? check

Talking trees and animatronic animals? check

Bunk beds with its own TV? check

Overly nice service by people who use the word wolf in every greeting? check

Kids in pajamas at mealtimes? check

Arcade with tickets and redeemable prizes? check

Junk food? double check

No rules? triple check

A fake log cabin on steroids with terrible food and waterslides would never have been my idea of fun in the pre-kid universe,but it is a great weekend because the kids are so deliriously happy. By the way, Great Wolf did not sponsor my trip and in no way gave me any SWAG.

I can hear hear the screams from the basement. “Don’t touch my stuff!” “You are a crybaby!” “I want my mommy!”

I reluctantly put down my coffee,paper and investigate. And there sits my daughter, grabbing every toy in sight and piling them up around her. Her friend is standing there, hands over her face crying. My daughter gives her the evil eye and calls her a crybaby once more.

This isn’t going as I had envisioned it. Sometimes playdates go so well that I don’t have to be involved, in fact my involvement bursts the bubble of child-centred fantasy that makes playdates so magical. But not today, right now my involvement is necessary but also ineffective as no matter what I do, I am making one child unhappy. And while I stand there I remember what my friend told me about having a girl after two boys. “Don't let her become a brat.”

This advice often makes me anxious when in the middle of a situation where my daughter is obviously in the wrong. Is she becoming a brat? A mean girl? Is she going to be the girl throwing slushies at kids lower than her in the social pecking order? How do I create a positive playdate so she grows up to be a good person?

Here are my choices when a playdate goes wrong:

Choice A: Ignore it

Choice B: End it

Choice C: Be ineffective

Choice D: Be a dictator

Choice E: Turn on TV

I used to joke that my next book was going to be called “Sex After Baby” and it was going to be really easy to write because the first six chapters would be just blank pages.  Come to think of it, the next six chapters would be pretty light too. (If anyone would like to pay me for this book, please let me know.)

At the six-week check-up after having a baby one of the routine questions is: have you thought about birth control? My guess is that over 80 per cent of women answer – Huh? What do I need birth control for? I am never having sex again!

To be honest, the whole timeline is kind of hazy to me. I am pretty sure that my husband and I would disagree when we first started having sex again but I think we would both agree that it really took us almost a year to get back to normal (no, not saying how much is normal) and we went though varying periods of stress over it. (Well, he felt stress, I just felt harassed.)

The first year after a baby is born is incredibly difficult on a marriage. The sleep deprivation, the change in lifestyle, the never-ending demands (I mean the baby), the third body in the bed (again, the baby) and the change in focus from being a couple to a family.