Back-to-school Jitters

Tomorrow is the first day of school. But not for the kids. For me.
The university's fall semester starts tomorrow, and come 8 a.m. I'll have a roomful of students waiting for me. And then another.

I've dusted off the old syllabus, tweaked it, updated it. Honed the materials list down to minimalist perfection (read: sensitive to a college student's budget). And now all I have to do is show up. And somehow wow them into sticking it out for a semester. With me.

I love the fall energy, the newness, the pregnant anticipation of learning and growth and creativity. I love working with a diverse group of students who share one thing in common: An eagerness to learn. I love seeing the light come on and the amazing art they create once it does.

So why exactly do I feel the back-to-school jitters? I think it must be hard-wired into my system, part of the DNA. My dad (who was a beloved professor for over 30 years) confessed that he still sometimes has nightmares about waking up late and missing a final. (That is some serious stress.) My recurring school nightmares are usually about finding out at the end of the semester that I was registered for some random class I never attended. Funny that that stuff remains in our sub-conscious after all these years.

There's something else making me feel a little jitterish about going back to school. Blogging. I started this blog on a whim a few months ago, at the end of Spring Semester. And I've been blogging away all summer long to my heart's content. Loving it far more than I thought I would. Meeting people I never imagined, forming friendships that run pretty deep for being so short-lived. So now what?

I'm not sure how much time for this my school schedule will allow. I might have to post less frequently. I might even disappear for awhile. But not entirely. I'm too attached to you now.

Speaking of becoming attached, my friend Heather of the EO (see? I think of you as my friend, and we've never even met and probably never will) handed me a little award yesterday. Heather is a great writer and an even better thinker, and her blog is one of my favorites. So that's an honor coming from her. (Thank you, Heather!) I think the rule is you're supposed to pass it on to seven others. But here's the deal: I only read about seven blogs. :) So if you're one of the lucky few I read and comment on, consider yourself awarded. Really. You can even put up the little button if it makes you happy. :)



And then there's the Blogger's Annex, where they're putting up one of my recent posts...another honor. The Annex has become another daily addiction, perusing the best of bloglandia. I even love the people who comment there!

So I'm not saying goodbye. Not at all. Just maybe slowing down for awhile.
--Or maybe I won't be able to stand it and I'll be back here tomorrow. Who knows?

Leaving Normal

This piece was written for the Group Writing Project, under the August theme, "The New Normal". I couldn't resist.

A couple of months after my mom died, we saw a small, independent film called “Leaving Normal”. Surreal. Little did we know how leaving normal we really were. We were in our car, heading east out of Century City toward our little house in the ‘hood, when we heard the news: All Four Officers Acquitted in the Rodney King Beating. We joked, “Hope our house is still there.” Surreal. Little did we know how not there our home would soon be.

We walked in the door, fired up the computers, put the baby in the swing. And assumed all was normal. Until the phone rang. It was one of our clients.

Are you guys okay?

Yeah, sure. Why?

Haven’t you seen the news?

No. We hardly ever watch t.v. What’s going on?

They’re rioting. In your neighborhood.
Some guy just got pulled out of a truck and nearly beaten to death. Turn on the news. You’ll see. Let me know if you need a place to go.

Okay, thanks.

We turned on the t.v. There was our neighborhood. The small, family-owned grocery store where we shopped. The dry-cleaner. The bank. All broken, looted, going up in flames. We could smell the smoke. Looters were running up and down the street with shopping carts balancing cases of liquor, television sets, shoes, clocks, anything they could get their hands on. It was as bad looking out the window as it was on the news.

We hung blankets in all the windows, like the London blackouts. As the only caucasians on our street, we were like sitting ducks, and we didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to find us there.

We called our parents to let them know we were okay. They hadn’t seen the news yet. Jeff’s mom turned on the t.v. and when she saw all the burning and looting and rioting she started to cry.

Suddenly Jeff -- still on the phone -- started speaking in hushed tones. “We have to be quiet now, there’s a group of them coming up our driveway,” he told his mom. We waited in silence, terrified. Fearing for our lives, I tiptoed into the bedroom. I prayed out loud, pleading: Heavenly Father, I really miss my mom, but I’m not ready to see her yet. Not like this. Please help us. Save us. Please...

I have no idea how long I was on my knees. But when I went back out to the dining room where Jeff was, he said, “The strangest thing happened. That group of rioters was about halfway down the driveway, making their way toward our house, and then all of the sudden they just turned around and left.”

I have no idea what God sent to deter them, but it must have been pretty ferocious. Because fearlessness and lawlessness and heartlessness were all running rampant that night. But we were protected. We woke up the next morning to an inch of soot and ash on our cars that looked strangely like snowfall. We were able to escape to Orange County for a few days (in an urgent but clandestine trip that felt like The Sound Of Music), and when we got back, it was like coming home to Beirut. There was rubble from burned-down buildings everywhere. National Guard army tanks maintained some semblance of order in the streets day and night.

Lawlessness, fearlessness, and heartlessness became “the new normal” in that area for quite awhile. Jeff’s car was egged and run off the road a couple of times. I used to hold my breath at red lights, hoping they’d turn green before I had to stop, making me an easy target. We received violent death threats from an intoxicated neighbor. And 911 failed to respond without us filing a complete police report. It was so frightening to think THIS had become the new normal.

Then, three months later, we poured out our lives’ savings and moved to Pasadena. There we were introduced to a completely NEW kind of normal. We lived without the constant roar of the police helicopter overhead. We lived where it was safe enough to play and eat outside without dodging gunfire. We had no drug-dealing ice cream truck that roamed the streets playing Strangers In The Night after dark. Here the streets were lined with gracious, older homes and a canopy of full-grown trees. Children walked safely to and from school. The collective focus of the community was one of restoration, of building up rather than tearing down. And this new Normal felt for all the world like Paradise.


. . . . . . .

To read the other Writer's Group submissions, visit MamaBlogga.com or follow the links to the sites on this list:

• School Dazed! by Ursula
• The Times, They Are A Changin’ by The Diaper Diaries
• Two kids - a new normal by christy
• You learn something new every day by Lindsey
• The New Normal by Shannon (a.k.a. Believer in Balance)
• Give me your worst by Juggling Frogs
• Our New Normal by Candace Escobar
• A ‘new’ day in the life… by Deb - Mom of 3 Girls
• The New Normal by Misi
• Normality by tiff
• Am I the PB or the J? by Daisy
• Change: a constant of motherhood by Jordan (MamaBlogga)

The Kiss That Could Stop Traffic

More Soap Opera Sunday excitement hosted by the inimitable Brillig. To read the rest of this week's posts, click here.

He’d been away for months. But I knew he was coming to town. Soon. Maybe yesterday. The waiting was killing me.

I drove to my grandma’s house after work. First thing, she asked me if I’d heard from Jeff. (She was a great conspirator. Like my best girlfriend, only with wrinkles and gray hair.) I explained wistfully that I expected to hear from him any day now, and she fed me lots of sugar, which seemed like a reasonable substitute.

The phone rang. A raspy voice that sounded for all the world like the old woman from On Golden Pond was on the other line. “Katherine Hepburn wants to talk to you, Grandma,” I quipped. She got off the phone and we laughed. “That was my friend Phyllis,” she said. “But she TOTALLY sounds like Katherine Hepburn, doesn’t she?” Grandpa thought it was funnier than anybody. I got the slightest impression that he wasn’t too fond of Grandma’s friend Phyllis.

The phone rang again. I decided to let Grandma pick it up this time. “There's Katherine, calling you back...”

“Hello?” She said sweetly. (She did EVERYTHING sweetly). Grandpa and I wiggled the skin in front of our vocal chords, impersonating an aging Katherine Hepburn from the other room. Grandma came into the kitchen and shushed us: “It’s for CHARRETTE” she said, with a conspiratorial gleam in her eye.

“No way,” I said. “I am NOT talking to your friend Phyllis.”

“But it’s not Phyllis,” she protested. “It’s HIM.”

Oh my gosh! It was Jeff? Calling me here? How in the world did he track me down at my Grandma’s house? The guy must be psychic! Or better yet, determined. I ran to the phone. He was in town (!) and wanted to meet me at my house in fifteen minutes. Grandma squealed with joy. I gave her a big squishy hug and jumped in my car.

All this emotion and anticipation welled up in me as I drove across town. I stopped at the light on Seventh East and spontaneously burst into applause -- literally clapped my hands for joy at the thought of seeing him again.

At last I was nearly home. As I rounded the corner and the Celica sped toward Princeton Avenue, I saw Jeff’s beloved white Subaru, headed East on Princeton. We literally got to the intersection at EXACTLY the same time. We both stopped, right there in the middle of the intersection (okay, I'll admit it was NOT too busy) and jumped out of our cars and ran to each other and threw our arms around each other and kissed -- right there in the middle of the street!

I may not have the kind of femme fatale looks that could stop traffic, but that first kiss on our home turf definitely did!

You like me, You really like me! (Or at least somebody does.)

When Sally Field (quite perfectly type-cast as both Gidget and The Flying Nun) accepted her Oscar for Places In the Heart in 1985, this was her speech: "You like me, you really like me!" Or at least that's how it's remembered. She acknowledged an unorthodox career path, suddenly stepping into these serious, grown-up roles, after a long line of chirpy teenage shenanigans. She seemed genuinely amazed that anyone appreciated her work, or even took it seriously. But there was something so vulnerable and personal about her response as well. That speech endeared her to us by revealing her insecurity, some vulnerability, and quite possibly genuine humility. At the height of her acting career.

I'm not at the height of ANY of my careers right now. And I certainly haven't won an Oscar. But I feel a little like Sally Field right now, standing at a podium receiving an award for something very-not-Gidget that it turns out she could do. I guess even Gidget has to grow up.

This week I received some modest fanfare in Bloglandia. And I am a little bit surprised. Don't get me wrong. These are not REMOTELY the Academy Awards of the blogosphere. But they are validations. They say, in short, that somebody likes me. Because they like my work. In a world I entered on a whim. And now after serendipitous turns and rich acquaintances, I find myself rather enamored with this newly-discovered cyber-world, Bloglandia. So maybe the blogiverse is feeling my love, and sending it back to me.

A few days ago, a blogger extraordinaire, my friend in life and online, Brillig, handed me this award, specifically for this post. Thank you, Brillig! I was speechless. I'm not quite sure how this works, but I think I'm supposed to pass it along to someone ELSE I think is brilliant. So I'm handing it off to Jessica at One Wild and Precious Life for this beautiful post that my friend Heather at the EO discovered for me. Thanks, Heather, and Congratulations, Jessica. I'm a fan.


And today, the Blogger's Annex published this post (slightly shortened and reworked) among their showcase of the best-of-the-best in Bloglandia. I was happy — and truly, honored — to share the spotlight with so many great writers there, many of whom probably don't even know they are my mentors and idols. If you haven't visited the Bloggers Annex yet, you must. Here's the link again, in case you missed it the first three times around. (I'm sure you've been dying to know what that chic button in my sidebar was all about....)


And finally, a wonderful new friend, Mrs4444, stopped by my blog today after catching said post on said site, and commented on every post she could scroll down and read here at Divergent Pathways. I was able to track her down on her on own site, here, and this is what I found:

"Recommendation: I want to share a powerful post, This Hate Cycle, written by Brillig, whose blog is one in my Top Favorites list. This post was featured on a new site called BloggersAnnex, which has the goal of posting one excellent post each day, Monday through Friday, chosen from contributors like you and me. Looks to me like they definitely reached that goal with Brillig's post. I also found my latest favorite blog there, Divergent Pathways. I LOVE it!"

Who knew?!? Thank you, Mrs4444! Fun to discover we have so much in common.

Now, I'm going to be away for the next several days on vacation (the highlight of which just may be visiting my friend Brillig in real life in her new house in Denver! I might even call her by her real name...because it turns out nobody actually christened her Brillig. Haha! ). So I apologize in advance for not reading and commenting on your wonderful posts for a few days. I'll be taking a little break from my life in the cyberworld to enjoy life in the REAL world, making real connections with my very real husband (you can read about him here, here, here, and here.)

So you might not see me for a week or so. But I'll stop by when I get home. And we'll catch up. In the meantime, just try to remember how much you like me. :)

First kiss, California style.

When and where I met him, most touching was forbidden. Let alone kissing. This was not Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. And we were not oppressed. We WANTED to live this way. And we were happy – perhaps happier than we’d ever been in our whole lives. We were Mormon missionaries. In Southern California. I had a boyfriend waiting for me back home. And he had a girlfriend waiting for him. So? Nothing. Other than seeds of friendship, in soil we didn't know was so fertile.

By the time we actually got around to dating (which was also against the rules for missionaries) we’d finished our respective missions and ended our respective relationships. We were instant best friends, finishing each other’s sentences, laughing out loud, sharing intimate hopes and dreams, values and struggles. --And that was only the FIRST date.

On our second date he told me I looked beautiful. I took it as a huge sign. I can still remember grinning my guts out as I went to get my coat.

But a week or so later he got a letter.
USC wanted him. Film school beckoned. And so he left, with hardly a word, and no forwarding address.

I was finishing my art degree, and I already had a dream job (and a new sports car) practically dropped into my lap a year before graduation. Life was looking good, but not looking like an intersection.

Then I got a phone call, and decided to fly down and visit some friends in Los Angeles. I bought my first plane ticket, rented my first car. Was feeling so very chic and independent.

On a whim, I called his mom. A very scary prospect. But I really wanted to see him. And she was entirely encouraging: “I know he’d just LOVE to hear from you, dear!” She gave me every possible contact method available. I was fully equipped.

As soon as I landed in L.A. I called him. This was not phone-phobic me. This was some other confident, assertive young woman I barely know. Thank heaven she took over just then.

Here’s the line from him I remember like it was yesterday (that he still vehemently denies): “You’re in L.A..?! Well, what are you doing today and tomorrow and the next day?” He had me right then and there. We returned my rental car and ended up spending the rest of the weekend together, laughing hysterically, and breaking every possible mission rule...but no commandments. :) Those three days could easily be an entire post all by themselves!

(Fast-forward to next trip)

Another phone call. Three months later. Different friends. We’d seen each other a few times, on each other’s turf. I didn’t even bother renting a car. We already knew we’d be spending most of our time together. He picked me up at the airport and drove straight to the ocean. My heart skipped a beat as the water came into view. We walked barefoot in the sand accompanied by crashing waves until long after the sun had set.

We decided to spend Easter (after dinner) at the cemetery. This is not nearly as warped and macabre as it sounds. Forest Lawn is more like a museum, with miles of beautiful grounds. They have an enormous Last Supper stained glass window in an old stone church at the top of a hill. So we planned on taking a romantic stroll through the grounds, looking at lovely Easter-themed art. Not trick-or-treating.

But somehow we lost track of time. (Who? US?) All of a sudden we noticed it was getting dark. And then the sprinklers came on. There we were, holding hands, running down the hills, slipping and sliding on the wet lawns in not-very-functional dress shoes, laughing ourselves silly, and making our way to the big, iron gates.

Only it turns out they were locked.

It must have been a LOT later than we thought. The whole cemetery was closed. And we hadn’t even noticed. We’d been oblivious to everything but each other. We tried to remember if there was another entrance. There must be. We started heading back up the hill, across more sprinkler-wet lawns, like we were dodging land mines. Still no luck. We were beginning to think we’d have to spend the night in the cemetery together. Which suddenly didn’t sound half bad! :)

Then a guardian angel disguised as a grounds-keeper spotted us and drove us in his truck to a lesser-known side entrance. He got out his key and swung open the big, creaky gates. And we were free.

Jeff took me back to the friends’ house where I was staying. I didn’t want him to leave. We stood there by the door for the longest time. And suddenly the two people who never run out of deep things to talk about started stammering, barely rating above jibberish on a scale of eloquence.

We were standing there dripping wet, and I couldn’t care less if my hair was wet and frizzy or my dress was rumpled or my shoes sloshed or my make-up was smeared -- or even if I had any make-up left at all. The only thing I was aware of was this amazing connection between us. This magnetic force pulling us closer, closer.

We shifted weight. We hemmed and hawed. We changed the subject too many times. We looked into each other’s eyes, then awkwardly looked away. He asked me another inane question. And then he puckered up, and I melted. It was just a little kiss, really. But loaded with emotion. With all the comical adventures of the day. With the waves crashing on the beach. With all the goals and dreams we shared. With so much hope for the future. With all the build-up that comes from months and months of waiting. I melted. And he looked back at me and cocked his eyebrows and smiled. With that same smile he gives me even now—that smile he gives me when he knows he's just made my day, in a way no one else possibly could!

When he left, I wanted to throw my arms into the air and shout, like Liesl in The Sound of Music. But my friends were asleep in the next room. So I just crawled into bed with a smile I couldn’t wipe off my face, and relived the kiss a thousand or so times in my head until I finally fell asleep...still smiling.

(To Be Continued....)

This post is a part of Soap Opera Sunday, hosted by Brillig and Kateastrophe. This month's theme is First Kiss.

Magic Kisses

For Rowan, who just crossed over to the firmament, and was Marian's knight in shining armor and a true romantic.

. . . . . . . .

There was a moment when I didn’t think I was going to make it. And yet my mom was the one who was dying. Literally. Of cancer. Every few hours she had to leave her post at my side, where she was the self-designated brow-mopper, ice giver, and comfort-whisperer, to step into the hallway and give herself another morphine shot. I was so exhausted I felt like one more push did not exist. But somehow, from somewhere, came another -- and another. It had been 23 hours of hard labor. The doctor -- a good coach -- kept saying, “Yes, Yes, YES! I can see his head!” and then, “You can have this baby with the next contraction.” One more bearing down with all the strength I could muster, and out came the shoulders -- and then the whole baby, turning, slipping, sliding easily into Dr. Growdon’s capable hands.

He cleaned up the baby and clamped the umbilical cord, and handed Jeff the scissors to make the official cut. Then he laid him in his mother’s arms. My arms. “First kiss” he said. [Oh, is THAT what I’m supposed to do now? Good thing he told me, because I was already halfway to another planet.] But then it became real to me. I looked at him, how perfect he was (too perfect to be MINE), and held him swaddled next to me. I marveled at his eyes. But when my lips touched his forehead something magic happened. I felt this exhilarating connection that brought me back to life, and I knew he was mine. Forever.

This baby -- hers, mine, ours, all of ours -- was the firstborn. My mom felt a unique bond with him because throughout the pregnancy they shared something few people ever experience -- a closeness to the veil. She was approaching it in departure; he was on the other side approaching his arrival. Their bond seemed somehow intimate, holy. She wrote in her journal that day “What an incredible experience to get this little boy from safe inside his mother’s womb to being a part of the human beings struggling with the pains and joys of this world.” I like to think she saw herself mirroring that sometime soon...leaving the pains and the joys of this world to find herself safe and at peace in the firmament.

A few months later I got the call. She was in the hospital, two states away, and her days were numbered. Baby Josh and I boarded the next flight out, and rode straight from the airport to the hospital. Mom was still alive, but she couldn’t eat or talk, and practically couldn’t see. Most of the time she just lay there, unresponsive. I carried Joshua over to her bedside and told her who was there to see her. Then I held him up to give her a kiss. I think it took all the energy she had just to pull her lips into a pucker, but then his lips touched hers, and she smiled! That first kiss from her first grandson had suddenly brought her visible joy!

That first kiss was also the last. She passed away the next day. (Another amazing story, which I’ll save for another post.) But we continued to tell little Joshy the story about how his kisses were magic, and how he brought his grandmother so much happiness before she died.

Three years later we had a baby girl, Jordan. She came from heaven like a ray of hope and graced our home with her presence. (Still does.) One day she seemed to be crying inconsolably and I had my hands full in the kitchen. Josh said, “I can help her Mommy. My kisses are magic!” And earnestly, he went over and kissed his baby sister. Magically, she stopped crying and smiled up at him. His kisses really were magic! It didn’t always work, but more often than not he had this spell on her. “Joshy,” we’d say, “Baby Jordan’s getting fussy. Can you give her some magic kisses?” And off he’d go, with healing and happiness trailing in his wake.

Josh is now 16. He’s just on the threshold of adulthood, entering the dangerous world of dating and driving and derring-do. I know that someday soon some lucky girl will be the recipient of his official "first kiss". (Maybe it’s already happened.) This young man already has a kissing history that’s unparalleled. Yet so innocent. Whoever the lucky girl is, I hope that first kiss is a symbol of genuine affection. And I hope she can sense the absolute magic in it. Because it’s for real.

. . . . . . . .

This post is also an entry in Scribbit's Write-Away contest for August: "First Kiss". Welcome, Scribbit readers.

Lifetime Vigils

expecting

waiting

watching

delivering

our boy is finally here!

nighttime vigils, sleeping world
listening to subtle protests
deciphering cryptic needs
trying to change him...and us
teaching to love and to trust
noticing alarming signs
grasping to understand
praying that all will be well
whispering comforting words
rubbing his blanketed back
nodding as eyelashes fall
watching the hours pass away
listening for deepening breaths
hearing the hushed sounds of sleep
pulling the door softly shut
hoping he will not wake
tip-toeing carefully away
brimming with worries and love

clueless parents
sleepless nights
anxious
exhausted
bleary-eyed
sleep-deprived
listening
always
listening

16 years later
and the cycle
repeats itself–

expecting

waiting

watching

delivering

our boy is finally home!

nighttime vigils, sleeping world
listening to small protests
deciphering cryptic needs
trying to change him...and us
teaching to love and to trust
noticing alarming signs
grasping to understand
praying that all will be well
whispering comforting words
rubbing his blanketed back
nodding as eyelashes fall
watching the hours pass away
listening for deepening breaths
hearing the hushed sounds of sleep
pulling the door softly shut
hoping he will not wake
tip-toeing carefully away
brimming with worries and love

clueless parents
sleepless nights
anxious
exhausted
bleary-eyed
sleep-deprived
listening
always
listening

could it be
our teenager
needs me as much now
as he did
when he was born?

Could it be I'm doing something RIGHT?

When our youngest, Mr. Cool, was four, he told me in no uncertain terms, (in a bizarre toddleresque/Bronx-sounding accent I only WISH I could imitate) "You're the meanest mudder in the weeold. Every day you're doing somepzing wrong." Holy cow. Okay–I'll take that one straight to my therapist. Thanks.Scariest part? Is I probably DO do something wrong every day.

Example: Last night he called for permission to have a "late night" at his friend A's house. I said, "Okay, but only till 9:30 or 10." So a couple of hours rolled by. We went to a lovely wedding reception, came home, got in our jammies, and at 10:24 we were headed downstairs to watch an old Hitchcock movie when it dawned on me: We forgot to pick up Mr. Cool. Completely forgot.

I slip on the nearest pair of shoes (which DO NOT MATCH my pink-cotton cropped pajamas!) and grab my car keys, trying fruitlessly to convince hubby to go in my stead. (Please? I'm in my jammies. And look at my shoes.... Never mind -- don't.) And I get in the car. I drive to the friend's house. Fast. (But not fast enough to get pulled over, because that would be WAY too embarrassing.)

I pull up in front of the house. The lights are out. My heart sinks. Then I see a light come on in the front window, and Mr. Cool's silhouette -- holding a phone to his ear -- moves into the light. I am feeling so, so low at this point. I'm relieved that Mr. Cool sees me and comes out before I have to ring the doorbell. We say our thank yous and goodbyes and are just about to leave when he reminds me he rode his bike. "Come with me to the back of the house to get it," he pleads. I take one look at the dark driveway to the dark back yard and envision prancing across their lawn in my pink pajamas and navy blue slip-on shoes. "Just leave it there, Honey. We'll come back and get it in the morning." (I'm laughing at myself even as I'm writing this.)

So we get in the car, and he seems a bit shaken. Says he got scared. I'm thinking it's my fault. Then the REAL story comes out. Just a few minutes before I got there, they were downstairs watching a movie and all of the sudden they hear this infernal pounding. It scared the Dickens out of them, including the oldest sister, who was babysitting. Apparently another friend came over for the "late night" and forgot to tell his parents where he was going. This kid's dad came and knocked on the door, then started pounding harder and harder when no one answered, and came barging into the house, yelling at the top of his lungs. He was (understandably) furious at his kid for taking off. But reduced him to tears in front of his friends, and gave him such a high-volume tongue lashing that it frightened the other kids too.

Mr. Cool couldn't stop talking about it: "That was really scary, Mom. You should have heard how loud that pounding was. I don't think that was really right for M's dad to just barge into A's house like that. And he shouldn't have yelled at everybody like that. He was really mad. I wonder what he's going to do to M when they get home." I paused, stunned. "Do you think he's going to hurt him?" "No...(I can almost hear the wheels turning inside his 9-year-old head)...but he might give him a hard spank." Sigh.

Then he continued: "I mean, you might get mad if I took off without asking, but you don't ever do stuff like that. You might call up on the phone and be a little bit stern. And you would take me into another room to talk so I don't get in trouble in front of all my friends. But you would do it in a calm voice."

Okay, so never mind the late pick-up, the mis-matched shoes and the pink pajamas. According to Mr. Cool, in spite of it all, I'm actually doing something right. And that's a huge parental paycheck.