Promotion: My kid doesn’t hate school the way I did. Which feels like a huge achievement.

A Visit to Vanity Fair: My glamorous sister dresses me for a night on the town. Just like when Meg goes to visit the Gardiners in Little Women. But without the remorse.

How to Hem Your Jeans (so they won’t look dorky): a step by step guide.

So You Want to Build a Sukkah: Despite my lack of crafty cred, I become strangely obsessed with building a festive harvest hut in the backyard.

The Motel of Lost Companions: No one needs a friend quite like an overwhelmed, exhausted new mother. Allison and I were the only two on the block. I thought we’d be pals forever.

Plus, hitchhiking with kids; thoughts on revisiting Narnia; a double-spread of book recommendations; my family meets a bear, a Moroccan encounter at the grocery store, and the best hamentashen recipe.

Note: Miranda will cost $3 beginning with issue #21. Back issues are still $2.

Michelle Au is a mother and a doctor. Her memoir, This Won’t Hurt a Bit, tells the story of her education in medicine and motherhood. I reviewed it recently for Literary Mama.

A few weeks into my first pregnancy, my mother mailed me a box of maternity clothes. Her old maternity clothes.  Salon’s got the story of what happened when those dowdy, thirty-five-year-old dresses arrived.

I read essays occasionally with the talented and very funny women of the Time Out Comedy Troupe , a bunch dedicated to putting a hilarious spin on parenting. We’ll have a booth at Wordstock this year and will be performing there Sunday, October 10 at 5pm. I’ll be reading a recent essay. Come find out which one…

A Little Stranger – A tale of medical drama. But not the kind you’d expect after hearing the word “tumor.”

Sweet Chebakia – Sure, Ramadan’s tough, what with all that dawn-to-dusk fasting. But Moroccans have this delectable treat to anticipate – and I’m still yearning for it.

What is Cool? – Good question, son. Mama circumvents her unhip past in an attempt to impart the mysteries of style to a ten-year-old (For him, at least, it won’t be velour.)

At the Tracks –Travel back in time to a shocking era when suburban parents allowed their kids to play unsupervised…at the railroad tracks!

Under the Knife – In which years of reading medical memoirs and watching doctor shows on TV turn out to be less than adequate preparation for real, live surgery.

Plus, another batch of book recommendations; a simple recipe for strawberry cake; the Motel of Lost Companions revisits a candlelit Moroccan night; and Mama’s Stray Thoughts, including the ultimate fate of Lego men, the triumph of getting small boys hooked on A Little Princess, and why middle school girls wear those tight jeans.