A few years ago the World Health Organization calculated that sexual intercourse takes place 42 billion times each year or 1,300 times per second. I would hate to hazard a guess to what percentage of those active couples are using birth control.

I am one of those hyper-vigilant birth control types. Every pregnancy has been planned and the children are spaced according to my calculation of lesser-sibling rivalry (and in case you were wondering; no, that didn’t work.) And so I continue to be shocked by some of my mommy friend’s lackadaisical attitude towards birth control.

A friend of mine on discovering she was pregnant for the third time said to me: "we were just two tired people having sex, who knew I could get pregnant?" I knew and so did she, exhaustion is not a good method of birth control if you still have enough energy to do the deed.

The first time I opened up my first-grader’s report card, I was shocked. He had letter grades and they weren’t all A’s. It seemed downright mean to be grading a six-year old who had jumped from majoring in playdough to reading in a different language.

But such is the harsh reality of school. Kids get graded and it isn’t always what we parents expect. The other thing I had to get used to is that talking about report cards is like asking people how much money they make or who they vote for. They will dance around the topic, making vague statements to give you a rosy picture of the situation. Or they will downright lie.

Last week a friend form high school came over with his three kids under three. He lives in New York now and our interaction has been intermitten over the past 20 years. I was so happy to give him a view of our crazy life. As it turns out, the house was more chaotic than usual – there were kids running in and out, the puppy was zooming around and then a neighbour’s kid brought over his dog. So all in all there were nine kids, two dogs and two adults causing a happy havoc.

And I was so proud of what I have created – a laid back and beautiful home, kids running in and out stopping only to put their hands in the cookie jar filled with my homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, a puppy bouncing all over. I served up homemade mac and cheese with a fabulous salad for dinner and everyone was out the door by 7. I am a paragon of easygoing, non-perfectionist, hip, inclusive parenting. Yey me!

And then I wondered. Maybe my friend didn’t see it the way I saw it. He lives in ultra-cool Tribeca, NY and brings up his brood in a no-sugar, no-TV enclave of hipness. Maybe he saw me as a chubby, boring stay-at-home mom reveling in my homemade mainstream treats and barely holding on to an intellectual life. Maybe I'm both of these.

“My daughter is into bag lady chic,” bemoans my friend Chuck about her 10-year old. “I cannot fully explain the horror of today’s outfit: an open silver men’s shirt on top of a tiny Pucci-inspired blouse she found in the hidden give-away bag, track pants and mismatched socks.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad!” I say, Chuck’s daughter is the size of a teenager and infamous for her kooky outfits.

“Did I mention that that the silver shirt was from the men’s section of Value Village? Her dad took her there and allowed her to wander through the store and pick whatever she wanted, so she came home with men’s disco clothes. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the bright orange wool scarf that some amateur knitted it in the 70s. And to top it off, she often goes out with socks on her hands instead of mittens.”

"OK…” says me, stifling a laugh.

“And she went to my cousin’s party in that get-up!”

Once in a while you read an article in a parenting magazine that scares the &*% out of you. Last month’s Today’s Parent had an articleby William Sears that discussed NDD, nutritional deficit disorder. He essentially said that if your child is not getting enough Omega 3, they could have difficulties in school and show signs of ADD.

He went on to say that Omega 3 from flax is probably not good enough, it should be from either fish oil or wild salmon. Now, I love the Sears familythey have popularized a loving and thoughtful approach to parenting. But hello? Trying to get kids to take fish oil is a close-to-impossible task without some major tears and/or promises of video games daily. I still have the bottle of lemon-flavoured fish oil in the cupboard from years ago, I couldn’t force it down either. And I like fish.

You know what feels bad? When your kid comes home from school with a paper bag full of beautiful homemade Valentine’s cards. And then it hits you; that all the other kids arrived at their home with a bag full of homemade Valentine’s cards, except one – the one from your kid. Note to self: good mommies sit patiently and make beautiful Valentine’s cards with their children.

Flash forward one year, and suddenly this week I realize that Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and we have 60 cards to make. But that’s doable, right?

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.

Sleep is the currency of parenthood. I don’t know who said that first but it is true. From the first night when that baby is awake 24 hours in a row; sleep turns into a much-discussed, missed symbol of life before parenthood.

After three kids I wish I could tell you the magic formula that creates a sleeping baby. But I can’t because despite the books, the old wive’s tale and what your neighbours are telling you. There is no one formula. There are good suggestions but no one perfect answer.

Our first child was a terrible sleeper, our second was pretty good and we celebrated our success and entered our third period of parenthood with the smug knowledge that we had it all figured it out. We were wrong, our third is not a great sleeper either. But we didn’t care as much. By then we had gotten over that crazy primal need for a good night’s sleep.

If you want answers pick up a book, call the sleep doula. Because I don’t know how to make that transition easier. But here are the things that I do know:

When the earthquake first happened I didn't know if I should shield my kids from the news or address it outright, and for the first day I didn’t do either. Eventually, it it became obvious that I could not protect my anxiety-prone 9-year old nor my innocent seven-year old from the news. I tried to be casually serious, or seriously casual, I didn’t want to scare them but I also wanted to be clear about the extent of the tragedy. It wasn't until my four-year old ran in with an envelope from school with shreds of red and blue string in it and grabbed some change explaining it was for the kids whose houses fell down, that I realized that it would be virtually impossible to protect any child from the news of the earthquake.  

It is hard to know how to talk to your kids about tragedy. They are not immune to the constant talk of Haiti, the graphic photos on the cover of the newspapers and the push at schools to donate. So how do we balance the need to make the world seem like a safe and secure place with the reality of a global tragedy?