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There are a lot of things to like about the summer. Even though the professional obligations are still there, the pace seems slower at home. Dinner doesn’t need to be on the table by 7 p.m. and the kids’ schedules aren’t quite as crazy.

And then there’s the experience I only get to have in the summer. Call me crazy, but I live for “So You Think You Can Dance.” Honestly. I just can’t get enough of it. As a former aspiring dancer, I love watching these super-talented kids doing feats extraordinaire.

Hubby and I are kid-less this week for the first time in a long time. Son is at Scout camp and daughter is at the beach with a friend.

I spend a lot of time in grocery stores. It’s part of my job as a recipe developer/food writer. I’ll often run into readers of my cooking column or viewers of Channel 6 and almost always the person will ask me what I’m cooking. (They usually ask this while they’re doing a little secret agent work trying to see what I have in my shopping cart.) One of the funniest questions I get when I’m out in public is, “Did you bring us something to eat?” Sure…I walk around with fresh-baked lasagna in my pocketbook...would you like some?

It's been nearly a month since I've shared anything here about my adventures in parenting, but they haven't stopped. Our Evan is five months old now and has started teething. No one believes that our happy, smiling baby can be cranky. HA HA HA! We'll send him to your house next time the whole teething episode flares up! Teething puts Evan in a mood that we've never seen.

We've discovered that Evan loves a crowd. I took him on stage with me at a concert the station hosted last week, and he loved it. He didn't cry. There wasn't even a whimper from him. He was leaning forward, checking out the audience while they were checking out him.

Evan is learning how to drive. No, not behind the wheel of a real car. I'm giving him lessons on his Vtech Learn and Discover Driver. It's made for 6 months and up, but we're getting an early start at 4 months. He's a pro at handling the gear shift. He can accelerate and stop better than some licensed drivers I've seen on Augusta's roads. He hasn't quite figured out how to turn the steering wheel, but give him time. He knows how to honk the horn, which I think is the most important feature of any car.

The “What’s for Dinner?” question plagues most mothers. With 365 days in a year, each with the opportunity to decide what to feed your family for dinner, it is no wonder many a mother is frustrated by the dinner dilemma. Even though a major part of my professional employment comes from developing recipes, I too will have weeks when making the dinner decision is difficult. I’ll ask the kids, “What are you hungry for?” You’d think with the “cooking lady” as their mother, a long list of meal ideas would roll off their tongues. But, no.

Amy decided to take advantage of the free child seat inspection at Babies R Us yesterday. It proved to be very helpful in making sure Evan's car seat was correctly installed (and of course, it wasn't). Are any of them? I mean it takes a genius to figure out how to get the bubble into the middle of the indicator.

Evan has picked up his first "daycare cold" after only being there a couple of weeks. Everyone warned us that he'll be much more prone to pick up bugs in that environment. The doctor says there's nothing he can do for him right now, but for us to keep him upright and put him in a bathroom full of steam every so often. I've never felt so helpless in all of my life. When I get sick, there's all sorts of remedies that I can use to feel better, but not so for a 3 month old.

Lately, Evan has been finding his voice. He's so cute with his cooing, but now he's learning to chuckle. While I was changing his outfit this week, I kissed and blew on his belly to see if he would react. It was then that I heard my 3 month old son laugh for the first time. I've been waiting for that moment and it was so precious. This was no ordinary laugh - it was a hearty chuckle along with that million-dollar smile!

There's something about the laugh of a baby that is comforting. No matter what kind of day you've had, the sound of that sweet baby just seems to make everything better.