I was looking around at different news articles this morning while the kids watched the Rose parade, and I found this little gem on CNN.com.

http://www.cnn.com/...

It's about parents who have a change of heart after naming their children. Days, weeks, months, even years later, they wish they had named their kids something different and seek to change the child's name.

I have shared with you all before the plight of the Kambo family -- Sam and Hanaan, immigrants from Sierra Leone, who, after living in the US for 14 years were told that Sam was dangerous and could not be allowed admission to this country. They followed the rules and did everything that we ask immigrants to do, including Sam earning two degrees from the University of Texas. They are neighbors of mine, with twin daughters in the same grade and school as my twins. Sam has been in jail, detained by immigration and homeland security, since last October.

Okay, here it is, 2:00 in the afternoon and suddenly, as if this has never happened before, I am wondering what to fix for dinner. You would think with two 10 year olds in the house, I would have figured this out a long time ago. Surely it's not that hard? Dinner comes around every day, so it certainly shouldn't be a surprise to me that it's here again, and that as the SAHM I am the one responsible for preparing something.

And, yet, here I am again.

Interesting story! I must confess, that I too have a difficult time letting go of my children calling me Mommy. In fact, when my soon to be 13 year old daughter called me "mom", I said that I wouldn't respond until she said "Mommy". She rolled her eyes and complied...-Gloria

When is it time for a child, boy or girl, to say goodbye to "mommy" and start saying "mother" or "mom"?

I have noticed in the last six months or so, most of my 10 year old son's friends have abandoned "mama" and "mommy" for "mom." Girls, I have observed, haven't made the changeover, at least not wholesale. But I rarely hear one of my son's friends use "mommy" anymore.

I am quite anxious about writing this, because I am not a political writer. I'm a mom, with some training in writing, who knows a family that is being torn apart by the Homeland Security Department.

Let me tell you about the Kambos. They are a family who live two streets over in our neighborhood. Sam and Hanaan Kambo came to the U.S. more than ten years ago from their war torn homeland of Sierra Leone. Sam came through a UN scholarship program and received bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Texas in Austin. He came to the U.S. with the government's approval and blessing, and he's lived here peacefully ever since. He and Hanaan have had four children born in the U.S. They attend school events, encourage their children's education, and live out their American dream.

I'm scared today. On Sunday, a friend of mine was hospitalized with a possible heart attack. Our daughters are close friends, 4th graders together. All day Sunday and Monday, this friend was on life support. Her liver and kidneys failed and they could not get them to kick in and work again. She died Monday night.

My twins, Grace Virginia and Michael Lane, turned 10 on Wednesday. And, much to my surprise, they still believe in Santa Claus.

Michael asked questions last year when we were on or way to visit Santa. "I wonder what would happen if you didn't believe in Santa?" he said. I used the tried and true mom method " what do YOU think would happen?" "Well," he said, "I don't think you'd get as many presents."

I thought I knew where this was going. I was sure he was testing the waters to see if it was okay to say he didn't believe. "Oh, I don't know, I think you'd still get just as many presents, just not from Santa," I said.

That was it. End of discussion, and it hasn't been brought up since. I figured he was afraid to take a chance so close to Christmas, and it would come back up later. Nope. This year I asked them, "do you want to go see Santa?"  Both did, and both worried and fretted all the way there about what they were going to ask him for.

I was quite surprised to learn that many of their peers still believe, too. One mom told me that her son recently told her that the Easter Bunny was not real but if Santa wasn't real "it would be the biggest lie ever!"  So, I wondered about kids elsewhere. Are our kids more sheltered somehow? We live in an upper middle class neighborhood but the kids' school is fairly diverse.

So, what do you say? Do your kids still believe, or when did they stop believing?

I've been commenting for a few weeks but I am just now getting around to introducing myself. I suppose you already know that I am Lisa and I am in Austin - the Live Music Capital of the World, but more importantly to me, a blue oasis in a red state. Here's the other low-down on me.