Chapter One

Real Me

When my daughter was born eighteen years ago, my brother Fred and his wife sent her a stuffed brown bear with a white nose and tummy and a manufacturer's name tag which told us its name was "Snuffles." Snuffles joined the piles of plush bears, dogs, cats, frogs, and clowns in her room; she was my first child and my parents' first granddaughter, two facts which seemed to provoke stuffed animal buying orgies on the part of otherwise sensible people. But slowly, as she grew and learned to grab, cuddle, and express preferences, she gravitated toward Snuffles. As soon as she could gesture, she let us know that Snuffles needed to be in her crib at night. She began regularly falling asleep with her tiny hands nestling in the bear's soft fur. Like all first-time mothers, I had read every baby book from Dr. Spock and Penelope Leach to Margaret Mahler, and I knew that the bear was my daughter's transitional object. I was proud of everything she did, and settling on such an appealing transitional object seemed further evidence of her exceptional intelligence.

Of course she didn't call the bear S ... read full excerpt from: As Good as I Could Be: A Memoir of Raising Wonderful Children in an Imperfect World ebook