Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?” Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night.” - Charles M. Schultz

On that note, let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time [yesterday] there was a lovely not-so-young mother [moi] with an apparently critical lack of parenting skills. She had a healthy, smart, handsome young son who made her laugh from the first day they found each other in the far away land of Ukraine. She loved her new baby dearly and looked forward to raising him and living happily ever after.

One evening – at the age of 10 – the young prince showed his mother a new garment he had designed. “I want to wear this at school tomorrow so I can show it to my teachers and classmates. May I, Mother?” he asked. She admired his creation. “What a talented young man you are! Of course you may.”

The next morning, while organizing her son’s backpack, Mom came upon a crumpled note from one of her son’s instructors. It was not the first. Nor the second. Frankly, she had lost count of the calls, notes and emails from the local elementary school concerning her son’s behavior.

Taking her therapist’s advice, she took a deep breath, counted to 10 and slowly exhaled. Then she called out sweetly. “Son. Please come see me.”

“Yeah, yeah – in a minute, Mom. I’m watchin’ something.”

“RYAN!”

“I’M COMING!” he yelled from his room, and clumped loudly down the stairs wearing his personally-designed shirt. Rounding the corner to where his mother waited, he stopped, stared and said “Hey, Mom – have you seen your face? I didn’t know your favorite color was purple, too.”