When your children are really little, you worry about them pulling boiling water onto themselves or running out in front of a car. You worry about kidnapping and terrible childhood diseases. These are the secret concerns that haunt - primal fears that pop up in your dreams when you least expect them.

As they become teenagers, you start to worry about different things. It's a shift that happens without any conscious recognition -- your dreams just change. I have an eighth grade son now, and my dreams are changing.

Last night I had a terrible dream for hours in which my son -- who is, in actuality, a great kid who has good sense, nice friends and has never gotten into any trouble to speak of -- was arrested after being with a group of boys who accidentally killed another kid during a fistfight.

The dream was highly specific; I was hiring him a lawyer and dealing with the juvenile court system and watching my baby boy be led away from me in handcuffs to be locked up where I couldn't get near him. It was horrible and I am still really shaken up by it today.

P.S.: I have an essay about becoming the mother of a teenage son in this new book