I’m going to.

Please don’t wear that to school.

I’m going to.

Your father doesn’t want you wearing that to school.

I don’t care.

Does anyone else in your grade wear that kind of thing to school?

No. Older grades, yes.

Don’t you think you’ll stick out, then?

I don’t care.

Last week you were teased for jump roping “incorrectly” and then for being too pale for a certain shirt and you got very upset. Are you sure you want to wear that to school?

Yes.

Positive?

Yes.

You might get teased.

And that’s when my daughter told me how it is. Why they wouldn’t tease her about this, about her wearing *gasp* neckgear. Voluntarily.

“They’ll ask me what it is, and I’ll just tell them it’s part of my treatment plan. Fixing my over-jet.”

Damned if she wasn’t right. Some kids asked her what the contraption was, and she told them. They then asked what an over-jet was, and she drew a diagram of one.

Her teacher sent me an email asking if my daughter had to wear the neckgear all day, even during recess. I replied, “She doesn’t ‘have’ to wear it anytime during the day. She’s been wearing it at night only and was getting impatient with the results. She decided, on her own, to accelerate her treatment by wearing it—to her dad’s and my horror—to school.”

Hopefully her over-jet will improve more quickly now. Her Dad and I are impressed by (and just a little scared of) her determination to take control of her treatment. And we’re relieved that our concerns about teasing have thus far apparently proved unfounded. Unless she’s just stubbornly not sharing any incidents with us…

And so over the years it’s gone this way, with her off the charts for height and near the bottom percentile for weight. Her dad and I have been careful never to call her “skinny” because we don’t want to make her self-conscious.  But she knows the deal because of how she has to tighten the waist bands of all her jeans.

This weekend, she jumped rope and then raced outside around the house a few times. It was a sudden burst of energy to go with the sudden warm weather.  She then ran upstairs only to quickly return to me in the kitchen to ask, “Know what?”

“What?”

“With all that exercise, I lost a pound.”

Looking at her carefully, I tried to tell what she was feeling. Excitement?  Resolve? She gave nothing away, but I was alarmed none-the-less that my healthy nine-year-old daughter opted to weigh herself after a brief bout of exercise to see if she’d lost weight. Maybe it was just a physics experiment.

I tried to be calm in my response. I told her there was no way she has lost a pound from jumping rope and running around the house; that our weight fluctuates throughout the day and from one day to the next. And then I reminded her of something I’ve told her and her brother a few times before: that until they stop growing up and filling out, the only direction that scale better go is forward.

But truthfully, she and her friends are bombarded with the opposite message about weight via commercials, on the news, in magazines and sometimes, at least with our daughter, even in our home as her dad and I talk about combating our winter gain.

The National Eating Disorders Association recently reported that 42 percent of first- through third-grade girls (ages seven – nine) said that they wanted to be thinner.  And 40 percent of nine and 10-year-old girls reportedly have dieted to lose weight. This despite the fact that only 16 percent of children in this age group (boys and girls) are clinically overweight. (And even so, losing weight isn’t the way to go, necessarily; slowing the rate of weight gain is.)

But it’s no wonder that so many girls are focused on their caloric intake,  given society’s obsession with it. How do we reconcile our desire to address our collective weight (but only as in having to lose it—that’s the only lens society seems to see through, though being underweight carries its own health risks) with over-saturating a vulnerable audience with a dangerous message?

Until society gets its act together, this mom has to get hers. I need to pay much closer attention to what my daughter says about food and her weight, and what she hears. And I need to do all that I can to make sure that she knows that she is perfectly healthy as she is.

Forty-two percent. For shame.

Last night, perhaps prompted by previews for The Bachelor finale, she was bemoaning the sad state of affairs of her classmates and I listened with caution, holding my breath just a bit.

It seems one close friend had broken up with her boyfriend but had recovered quickly, “becoming involved with” another boy. Another close friend was now “dating” the cast-off boyfriend. When the former boyfriend and girlfriend sat next to each other at lunch, the new girlfriend got very upset, and later argued with my daughter’s friend for allegedly trying to steal him back.

To which my daughter responded with exasperation,

“We’re in THIRD GRADE. Can’t this drama wait till we’re, like, 14 or something?”

And then they both got mad at her.

She tells me she just doesn’t get the boy-craziness that goes on all around her. Some of her friends steal kisses behind the bookshelves at the school library; meanwhile, my daughter just looks for the Judy Moody selection.  At lunch, some whisper about which boy is the cutest; she whispers about which Webkinz she really wants next.

Having had my fair share of crushes growing up, part of me looks forward to having my daughter confide in me about some boy she semi-secretly likes—her first puppy love. But after hearing the extent of the drama involved, and the arguing between girls, I welcome my daughter’s absence from the fray, and her weariness of its level. I don’t recall fighting over anyone’s attention (well, not until college), and as far as I know, I only had one stolen kiss on the playground. (It probably helped that my parents sent me to a single-sex school from fifth grade-on.)

Alas, my daughter will only face co-ed schooling. I hope she retains her innocence for, well, ever—though I guess that’s impractical. But at this point I’m ready to say screw the fond memories of puppy love and hope that her wish comes true for drama-free living “till, like, 14 or something.”

Standing in the laundry supply aisle at Target, looking for yet another large hamper bag in which to store my daughter’s stuffed animals (yes, it’s gotten that bad), I was interrupted with pleas from my kids to leave.

No, it wasn’t because they were suddenly bored with my mundane errands. They were annoyed by a very mild tantrum of a toddler one aisle over.

“Why doesn’t that mom just make him be quiet already?!”

Seriously, kids?

Perhaps this is why most humans are only given the gift of memory starting at around the age of four or five. Sure, there may be flashes of truly historic personal moments from an earlier age—a trip to the circus where you see your first elephant, or an unfortunate induction of vomiting for you and your two siblings in a house with only two toilets (I got the backyard). But for the most part, by age five, the slate’s been wiped clean.

I think it’s a mom’s job to remind smart-assed tweens from whence they came. So as we walked through Target, I recounted a few of their momentous public tantrums that left me embarrassed beyond words. My daughter’s best was the one at a grocery store in Alabama that got so bad, I had to abandon my cart—full of our week’s groceries—at the check-out line before the woman behind me started “spanking some sense into her” (seriously, she offered. For my part, I drove home in silence and then deposited my now water-logged-from-tears-daughter in her crib and closed her door, all the while counting to about a million and fifty to myself so I wouldn’t completely lose it.).

My children refused to believe they could ever have been so thoroughly obnoxious. I told them thankfully they only did it a handful of times; but when they did, it was–to use their favorite word du jour–epic.

That caused them to stop muttering about the tantruming tot. A while later, the Target sound system played a song that I like. I started moving to the rhythm just a bit—cause I am a dancing fool. My kids begged, “Mom, don’t embarrass us.”

What’s that?

I started dancing even more energetically. Payback’s a bitch.

Now perhaps if I were to look beyond its title, I might find articles worth reading. But I stop at the “housekeeping.” Sorry, I’m shallow like that.

Still, it got me thinking. Maybe some of us still do look for guidance with mundane tasks—ways to simplify or improve our households so we can enjoy what really counts in life? Don’t come to me for ideas of things to do. Martha Stewart I’m not. I fly by the seat of my pants, learning by experimentation with often crappy results. I see an opportunity for public service here, helping steer others clear of some “been there, don’t try that.” (Most are from the past few months; a few are oldies but goodies)

My Bad Housekeeping Tips:

1. Microwaving boxer-briefs you left in the washer overnight will not dry them; it will only yield steaming-hot, wet boxer-briefs.
2. Do not spray furniture polish directly onto the kitchen table if you have linoleum floors; otherwise you and your kids will slide into breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.
3. No matter how neat you think you’ll be, don’t try to re-pot that plant at the kitchen table.
4. Don’t use the vacuum attachment to try to suck up a bunch of spilled potting soil (that may or may not be on and around your kitchen table). It WILL clog the tubing and create a bigger mess.
5. Never clean when angry. Things. Will. Break.
6. When placing dough in gently warmed oven to encourage quick rising, remember to remove before preheating the oven to 500 degrees for that pizza.
7. Don’t substitute olive oil for vegetable oil in recipes; you’ll end up with brownies that taste like salad.
8. When a recipe calls for a 9” square baking pan, you really shouldn’t use an 8” pan instead.
9. If you have a bad electric coil in your oven that catches fire and won’t go out even after you turn the oven off, try flipping the circuit breaker BEFORE calling the fire department. Once they’ve been summoned, they come, even if you’ve solved the problem and try to cancel them. And they track mud. And scare your daughter. And the dogs.
10. Try the circuit breaker BEFORE emptying a fire extinguisher into the oven and on your over-flowing cheese cake (see #s 8 & 9); a fire extinguisher is messy and really won’t work on a continuously fed electrical fire.

The first time I played it, the version was “Just Dance 3” and it was Christmastime; despite hitting our ceiling fan and tripping into the coffee table, I squeaked out a win.

I’ve since added “Just Dance 4” to our collection and modified my efforts, staying in one place, away from all floor and ceiling obstacles.  My kids, however, dance all around the room like they’re contestants on DWTS (not that they even know that’s a show). My husband, if he’s even home, just watches from a far. He can’t compete in our league.

My son couldn’t get me to play any of the other Wii games, and I was getting weary of all the gun-wielding in some of them. The dancing? That’s something I can embrace. Enthusiastically. Too much so, they might say.

Here’s a typical evening: I’ll dance two songs with my daughter, and then two songs with my son, then repeat the pattern. I’m a dancing fool—my kids would emphasize the “fool,” but hey, this fool owns bragging rights to all of the high scores (well, except for one Britney Spears’ song my daughter’s friend aced–but she’s a coordinated gymnast, dammit.)

The other night, as he tried desperately to beat me, my son glanced my way as he was shuffling his feet and flapping his arms wildly. He saw me just moving my torso and arms. In rhythm, I’ll add. My son cried foul.

“You’re not moving your feet! How can you keep scoring “perfect” when you’re not even moving your feet?!”

“Oh, the Wii rewards fantastic rhythm.”

“You’re CHEATING.”

Well, according to Lance Armstrong, cheating only really takes place if my unscrupulous methods give me an unfair advantage over my competition. So I tell my son he’s welcome to try to beat me with MY way of dancing, keeping his feet firmly in place and moving only from the waist up.

Alas, the spirit calls for him to move all limbs. And he loses. Again. But I coach him on the finer points of his motions. His sister is a better student—her scores creep up, but still she falls a bit short of mine.

There’s probably some parenting code of ethics that states I should take it down a notch and deliberately let my kids win just once.  But I think I’m doing them a favor, preparing them for the future. Maybe if I’d spent years trying to beat my mom at “Just Dance” I wouldn’t have embarrassed myself in front of several middle schools at my first mixer as I—among the very first on the dance floor—tried and failed to move to the beat of “Heaven on the 7^th Floor.”

Maybe that song is on “Just Dance 2.”

For my first four or five years of motherhood, my bathroom trips were rushed with the door always open. If I showered, my daughter would be in the bathroom near me, strapped into her infant carrier at first, and later placed in her bouncie seat; my son would be in the bedroom, watching television, and made to call out to me every couple of minutes.

I’ve worked from home since my daughter was two. In those early years, I scheduled my interviews for nap time, and then most of my writing and editing for the wee hours of the morning before the kids awakened, and at night, after they went to bed.

It got tougher when the naps went away. A few years ago, on one of my daughter’s “off” preschool mornings, I had an interview with a psychologist about the importance of bonding with our kids—of always “being there for them.”  Unbeknownst to him, I conducted that phone interview fully clothed from my bathtub; it was the only place where I could escape from my daughter, who was knocking loudly at the locked door wanting to bond with me, despite having promised me she’d quietly watch Sponge Bob for the 15 minutes the interview would take.

The kids have gotten better about letting me conduct my work when it spills into their at-home time. But if I’m in the bathroom, neon arrows must appear magically, leading the kids to my door. There they’ll stand, peppering me with questions. If I can’t hear them because I’m in the shower, they’ll just yell more loudly.

Last week, after four interruptions during my five-minute shower, I set down a new rule: unless the house is on fire or someone is bleeding profusely, do NOT speak to me, call for me, knock for me, or in any other way disturb me when I’m in the bathroom. It is my refuge, my one place for peace, and any favors sought from me while I am in my sanctuary will automatically be denied.

Thus far they’ve heeded my warning. And I’m now eying a pillow, comforter and reading light for my soaking tub.

It’s Valentine’s Day.  The kids went off to school in exceptionally good moods. My son, needing something to cart his anticipated Valentine’s Day cards home in, grabbed a paper grocery bag. I said, “That’s really big.” He said the cards might spill out of something smaller.

Unlike three years ago.

Their school’s policy has been that kids may deliver cards to their classmates only if they have one for every member of the class. The teachers often make it easier on the students by providing a class list.  When my son was in second grade, his teacher sent one home, and my son wrote out all of his cards.

That Valentine’s Day, I picked my kids up from school, rather than them taking the bus.  When I greeted them in the front office, my son seemed quieter than usual. I asked him how his class party was, and he said meekly, “Okay.” I asked him what was wrong.

He said that he spent the party watching all of his classmates—18 of them—get and open 18 cards. He, however, only received six.

I thought a bunch must have been misplaced. He, his little sister and I all walked back to his classroom to find his teacher still there. After I told her his experience, she was horrified and tried to figure out what had happened. She pulled out the list she had distributed to the class; my son’s name was not on it. He hadn’t noticed the omission when he used the list to address his cards.

Suddenly feeling better about himself, my son was happy to realize that some students remembered him on their own, not needing a prompt from the list. The teacher—a wonderful woman whom my son adored, as did my daughter when she had her two years later—apologized profusely, and then reached into her canvas bag to get the leftovers from the candy she’d brought in for her class. She gave it all—and there was a lot of it—to my son. A rotten afternoon suddenly became a cause for celebration.

Until I had kids, I’d never liked Valentine’s Day much. A contrived Hallmark holiday, I’d say, forcing perhaps insincere declarations of love and devotion. Now that I’m a mom, I’ve slowly embraced the day for the joy it brings to children. Their dad and I give them cards, make them extra-nice breakfasts and dinners, and give them little gifts.

Today, when they get off the bus, I’ll hold my breath, hoping that their bags are filled with cards. But no matter what happens in the classroom, here at home we do all that we can to make sure they never,  for even one moment, forget just how much they are cherished.

Twelve years ago, it was also the Year of the Snake, though then it was a “Metal Snake.” I’m unfamiliar with this breed. And back in 2001, I wasn’t aware that it was the Year of any Snake. I probably assumed it was the Year of the Rabbit, as I was focused on procreating. Maybe I’m not supposed to be so literal.

That year, the last time it was the Year of the Snake, was a very good year. The procreation efforts proved successful and before the year’s end, my husband and I had our new baby boy in our arms. We also had nice changes on our house and work fronts.  All was right with the world.

This latest Year of the Snake had me on edge yesterday. I don’t like snakes, especially water snakes. I recall episodes from my childhood where I’d be swimming in our stream and then what I thought was a stick would start sashaying side to side, darting through the water in a decidedly nonstick-like fashion.

Encountering “land” snakes was nearly as bad. I think I was five or six when I learned snakes can climb stairs. Maybe only carpeted stairs; I’m not sure. All I know is that one night a snake, “obviously” from our 200-year-old, decrepit basement, according to my father, had climbed his way to the second floor.

When I was in second grade, my parents took us on a grand adventure to Colombia, South America. At our first stop—Santa Marta—we stayed in what my memory assures me was a grass hut. One morning we awakened to the sound of much commotion outside. The resort’s employees—armed with long sticks—were yelling toward the field just beyond our “compound.”  Later I was told they were driving off a “big” snake.  I think there was talk about it being big enough to carry off a second grader. I could be wrong.

One evening a few decades later, I was returning from walking two dogs (a friend’s, not ours) with my then-three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter. As we headed back down our driveway, there was a snake blocking our path. I grabbed a shovel and whacked it about two dozen times as if my kids’ and the dogs’ lives depended on it.  That’s when I learned that snakes will continue slithering despite not having their heads.

This morning, I decided to research this so-called Year of the Water Snake.  I learned that a year “ruled by the Water element” benefits those born under my sign—the Dragon. Supposedly the Water Snake’s “meandering energy” will sooth me and help me to rest, relax and rejuvenate.

Really? Maybe I’ll put down this shovel.

She’s all of eight years old.

Last night, after giving her a Motrin, I sat down beside her and massaged the area above her right eye, and said, “I’m sorry.”

While she gets her gorgeous blue eyes, and any athletic ability she may possess, from her dad, from me she has inherited migraines.

I remember getting my first really bad headaches in third grade—the grade she’s in now. By the time I was 10 my mom was taking me to the doctor’s office fairly regularly, trying to figure out “the cause.” Migraines in kids weren’t so understood back then. Basically the doctor would look in my eyes to make sure there were no obvious signs of something drastically wrong, and would then sent me for a vision exam.

I had lots of those. All the way till I was 25 and the ophthalmologist finally said, “You have perfect vision.  You have always had perfect vision. Come back to me at 40 for reading glasses. For now, see a migraine doctor.”

And so I did, with very limited success.

Ever since I’ve been in my mid-20s, and finally learned much about migraines, I’ve feared passing the “gene” along to my future kids. (Thankfully my partner back then, who oh-so-briefly became Husband Number One, left our marriage before we could even think of having kids; he suffered from cluster migraines. Shudder.)

Anyway, through the years I hoped someone would find a “cure” for headaches and migraines before I brought new life into this world.

Eh.

At least the medical profession is more aware of their existence, and ways to help manage them.

But still I feel guilty. And so I looked at my daughter last night, as I massaged her head and thought about my wicked genes, and asked, “Have I given you nothing but bad?”

She said, “Well, there are the headaches. And the aching legs.  And my overbite.”

“Yes, all of those things. But the braces, at least, have already made your smile even more gorgeous.”

She grinned, and pondered a bit. And then said,

“Mom, you gave me something absolutely perfect.”

“What’s that?”

“Life.  You gave me life. What could be better than that?”

And just like that, my eight year old swept away my guilt, and once again, my heart.