The hardest work I have ever done and the greatest fun I will ever have. Since the birth of my only son, more than seventeen years ago this has been, and remains my description of parenting.

Blessed with an "easy" baby who slept as much as five hours at a stretch at the young age of six weeks and whose cries were generally easily remedied with a warm bottle or a clean diaper, I found that the fun of those early days far outweighed the work.

The ready smiles and the hilarious faces my son made whenever I introduced new flavors of baby food were well worth the efforts I put in to making formula or cleaning up the sippy cup mishaps that inevitably occurred.

The thrill of witnessing the look of surprise and then unadulterated pride that crossed my son's small face as he took his first unassisted steps sustained me through the horrendous shriek that resulted from a tumble down the stairs that followed not long after those historic first steps.

The adorable photograph of my baby boy grinning widely with a small, lone tooth peeking through was well worth the feverish and cranky days and nights that resulted when that lone tooth was gradually joined by others.

Rocky periods, like potty-training, which I had to undertake shortly after my son's father and I divorced and which, I thought would surely be the death of me were eventually overcome. And my excitement at hearing my child begin to speak in words and sentences was not dampened, even years later as I had to endure my seven-year-old's seemingly endless repertoire of knock-knock jokes.

Spending twelve years as a single parent was daunting at times but the burden of being both mother and father to a growing boy was tempered greatly by my son's love of learning, zest for life and pleasant disposition which was far sunnier than my own at times.

It has only been in more recent years that the work has sadly started to overshadow the fun. At fourteen, my happy-go-lucky son seemed to sink into a major depression, alternating between snarling at me and his new step-father and sleeping about eighteen hours per day.

I thought at first that he was simply suffering from normal teenaged angst, perhaps made a bit worse by a combination of significant life changes, including the start of high school, a move from Michigan to Illinois, and my recent marriage. When both his grades and personal hygiene continued spiraling downward I suspected drugs, relieved and yet even more perplexed when two

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