The Captain turned 13 a week or so ago, and it was kind of no big deal, despite the official Dawn Of Teenhood in this house. He didn’t want a party – which I was grateful for, I am OVER parties – and just had a buddy over to play video games all afternoon, then went to a Scout event after dinner. It was very low key and although we made lots of jokes about how he was supposed to turn, like a werewolf, into a cranky, eye-rolling monster the minute the clock struck midnight on his birthday, he’s still pretty much the same old guy.

A few days later it occurred to me while we were out and about that he’s now allowed to sit in the front seat. Actually, I don’t really know the official rules – I never did quite sort out the car seat thing, I admit here (come and get me, cops!) that we kind of winged the whole thing. But isn’t it a rule or something that 13 means front seat? So one day, coming home from an errand, I let him join me up front.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I am very, very unused to having someone else in the front seat. Someone else to handle all the radio requests from the back seat was so awesome, although not having full control over the volume was not as awesome. Someone to chat with was kind of cool, but also kind of distracting. Having a nice opening in the middle of the back seat for a change, for maximum rear-window viewing, was nice. Having someone able to fiddle with all the heating and cooling settings created an interesting power struggle. We’ll have to work on that.

It was odd, but cool, but weird, but nice. More than anything it marked him as being One Of Us now, instead of One Of The Children. It’s a good reminder that other things will be changing soon, more power struggles over things much more important than the heat level in the car.

On the other hand, it turns out he doesn’t actually weigh enough to trigger the air bag in the front passenger seat. I’m not sure what the minimum weight is, but with him in the seat there’s a constant blinking light warning us that the detected weight is not enough. So for my own peace of mind, it’s back to the back seat for him until he manages to eat a few more pies, at least most of the time. But soon, he’ll be ready for the front half of the car, and the next phase of life.

(Discussing potential jobs for tweens…)

Me: You could deliver newspapers.

Gal Smiley: Hm, I’m not sure I want to do that.

Captain Jelly Belly: Me neither. You can’t even ride by on your bike and throw them, you have to walk them up to the door!

Gal Smiley: REALLY?

Captain Jelly Belly: It’s true! The movies lied to us.

I am a fan of Jeopardy – just one more step on my journey to the old folks’ home – and lately I’ve started following the Cool Jeopardy Stories Twitter feed. The guy who runs it takes a screen shot of the three contestants each night, then boils down their little “chat with Alex” interviews into single liners. It’s sometimes sad, sometimes weird, sometimes hilarious when you put them all together like that.

This morning I was dreaming about being on Jeopardy (AS ONE DOES) and wondering what I’d pick for my Alex Interview Moment. It’s meant to be something light, and positive, and unique, and maybe funny or quirky. I don’t think I have That Story, you know, the one you get asked to tell at parties. My husband and I don’t have a Meet Cute, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a famous person (although perhaps Alex would enjoy hearing about that time I met Lucy Vanoldenbarneveld?). I’ve never been on a major journey or a crazy, impulsive trip; I don’t have a collection of anything; I don’t think I’ve ever been mistaken for someone I’m not. I think the best I have to offer is a) I like pie, which really, who doesn’t, and b) I once barged in on a Taylor Swift concert, which, as a firmly middle-aged woman, I’m not too keen to see as my summary sentence on that Twitter feed.

Maybe this is a call to action. Maybe now is the time to think about what I DO want that Twitter feed to say about me, and then make it happen. Cool things might include:

• I’m an international yo-yo champion.
• I hold the world record for most popcorn eaten at a sitting.
• I’ve been to the moon.
• I invented chocolate-flavoured cotton candy.
• I’m an Oscar-winning screenwriter.
• I once jammed with Green Day at their farewell concert in Buenos Aires.
• I’m featured in a mural in Grand Central Station.
• I’m a Lauren Graham impersonator.
• My DNA has been encoded with all of human knowledge so my descendants can preserve it for the future.
• I’m in Taylor Swift’s squad.

Time to get cracking!

My kids have a lot of food allergies, but it doesn’t come up that often here. We’ve been living with it so long that it’s just part of our everyday lives, part of our ongoing family background. We’re in the allergy groove, so to speak.

In fact, we’re so used to living with it that I often forget that not everyone has to deal with this kind of stuff on a daily basis. The meds check before you leave the house, the epipen training runs, the warnings to kids as they leave the house to check all ingredients, wash their hands often, and alert an adult immediately if they have any symptoms. The massive bag of food you have to carry with you everywhere, the super short list of approved fast foods in your pocket based on hours of reading the ingredients on every website of every restaurant in town. You know, the usual drill.

The other day I was skiing and on the lift I had an unfortunate conversation with the lady next to me. We had been chatting about packed lunches and what our kids like to eat, and she had a story about how her kids loved egg salad sandwiches, and that’s all they would eat for two years. And then, a letter came home from the school asking if they would stop sending eggs because they had an egg-allergic child in the class.

And of course, I understand her being upset and inconvenienced. For us personally, we feel strongly that our kids need to learn to live in a dangerous world and protect themselves and we can’t ask other families to accommodate us, so we do not ask our kids’ school to limit or ban foods, although we do appreciate all the great things the staff there does to keep our particular children safe.

But it went beyond complaining about having to change her kids’ lunches when she said that she went and consulted with both a doctor and a nutritionist, and they both said (she claims) that an egg allergy is not possible. She said that both told her that if someone CLAIMS to be egg-allergic, they PERHAPS have a sensitivity, but that a true allergy to eggs is NOT POSSIBLE.

And so then I very gently told her that actually, we have an egg-allergic kid, and we’ve seen his reactions first hand and they are no mere sensitivities. And she said that maybe our son was an extremely rare case, because she had been assured by medical professionals that it was not possible.

I’m not mad about it at all – I know people who don’t live with allergies sometimes don’t have a full understanding of what’s going on. And I know it’s a bother and a pain to try to eat around us and I feel terribly about it, and so grateful to parents who go out of their way to learn about this kind of thing so they can help take care of my kids. It’s lovely, but not expected.

But this conversation has made me very thoughtful about two things: one, that I should possibly stop taking it for granted that everyone at least understands that allergies do exist, and possibly be a stronger advocate and educator on the topic of this thing that affects my kids’ lives. To make sure that people at least know that allergies are a proven medical fact, and that people aren’t out there spreading totally false information to complete strangers on chairlifts. How to do that, I’m not sure, but I’m giving it some thought.

And two, that perhaps there are other diseases and conditions out there in which I have been that woman, the one who thinks that it can’t possibly be that serious, the one who thinks maybe the symptoms are all in someone’s head, the one who thinks that working around someone else’s limitations would be too much of a bother. I can’t put my finger on any such circumstances at the moment but that’s just it – you might be being wildly insensitive without even realizing it. So I’m going to try to be a little more open minded, and a little more understanding, of physical situations that are foreign to me in the future.

I like to say that I have no regrets in life, because I’m happy with my life right now, and I never would have got to this point without all those twists and turns along the way. But of course that can never be absolutely true, for anyone, because there’s always little moments when you weren’t at your best. Times you said mean things you can’t take back, times you let a friend down. Times you acted like a self-centred child and should have known better, times you yelled at your kids for the smallest of infractions. I’d go back and change a few little things, if I could, if I knew it wouldn’t be a butterfly flapping its wings and changing my entire future.

This morning in the kitchen I was thinking, yet again, of one small thing from 20 years ago that I continue to regret, and regret often. Sir Monkeypants and I were newlyweds – I think we’d literally been married only a month or two – when some relatives of his came to visit us from England. They were technically his cousins, but the parents were much older than us and had two teenage daughters. They came to stay for a few days, sightseeing in the capital, and they were incredibly lovely people and I continue to think of them with great fondness even though we haven’t seen them since. (And…just realized those daughters are probably married with children themselves, and OH MY WORD.)

Anyway, the mother from this family had an injury to her right hand – her thumb and a couple of fingers were deformed due to a bad burn she had received as a child. As a result, it was sometimes hard for her to find good kitchen tools that worked with her hand. We had one knife – a Wiltshire Staysharp knife in a little white case – that fit her hand perfectly. This particular knife had been a gift to me from Sir Monkeypants, on Valentine’s Day a year or two before.

The mom liked the knife so much that she went out and tried to buy one just like it, but when she got home she found the design of the handle had been subtly changed, and it didn’t work with her hand as well. I felt genuinely sad that it didn’t work out better and we moved on, saying goodbye a day or so later.

Then, literally YEARS later – probably close to a decade later – it came to me one morning out of the blue that I should have offered her my own knife. Sure, it was a gift, but part of the awesomeness of the gift was not the knife itself, but being able to joke that while other girlfriends were getting flowers and chocolate, I was getting kitchen gadgets from my super-practical boyfriend, and that was fab. And sure, it was a very nice knife, but they had just bought one almost exactly the same and we could have swapped them and no one would have been the wiser.

It was so obvious. And yet, at the time, I just didn’t see it.

By then, so much time had passed that I fretted and fretted about what to do about it. I worried they thought I was an idiot, or maybe just a mean person. Mostly I just wanted her to have the knife. It was meant for her! She should have it! And I really, really like her! I want her to have it!

But in the end it just felt too weird to send it. Too much time had passed and I didn’t know if she even remembered the whole thing and ugh, it was just too much social strain. So I did nothing.

But a few times a year, it just pops into my head when I least expect it: I should have given her that knife. And every time I think about it, I get this close to bundling it up and sending it to her, even though we haven’t spoken now in almost 20 years. But it’s become almost painful to use it myself, due to the guilt; it mostly sits in a drawer unless one of the kids gets it out for some reason.

I know, I should get over it. Or just send it to her, weird or not. Or, just sit on my regrets and own them. That’s how it goes, I guess.

I drove my middle daughter, Gal Smiley, and two of her friends to Guides last night. They’re all 11 years old which is definitely in the “just drive, don’t interact” range of life. You might think that’s a bad thing but I actually like it – if you are really, really quiet they kind of forget you’re there and you get this totally amazing window into their world for a brief moment. It’s like being a fly on the wall at recess at school.

Insights into the 11 year old mind:

On The Subject of Taylor Swift: Shake It Off is now cool again, making a return to acceptability after losing its street cred for a few months due to overplaying. However, other Taylor Swift songs are not cool at all, and please put the radio on, thanks.

On The Subject Of Boys: Sad to say, what was once considered gross is now, apparently, hilarious, and what was once considered kind and gentle behaviour is now “no fun.” One boy who is known for eating really gross stuff in really gross ways was, previously, considered Mega Gross, but now is considered Totes Hilarious and Kind Of Cute, even though he still does have a very tiny head. Another boy who was once well-respected for his responsibility and diligence in any group project has now been labelled as lame, because he does not enjoy it when people throw pencils at him while he is working.

I would love to point out that Pencil Boy would make a MUCH better boyfriend than Gross Eater Boy but sadly, these are the kind of things girls need to learn for themselves. Taylor Swift could tell you all about that.

On The Subject Of Their Future Children: I know I wrote a post about this, but I can’t find it in my archives, but it was about how names tend to skip two generations in popularity, so the names of your grandchildren will be similar to the names of your parents. For example, popular names today (Emma, Charlotte, Harrison) are names that were possibly previously associated with our grandparents; our kids will choose names like Barbara and Patty. This theory was well proven in the car when the girls agreed that “nice names for a girl” include Valerie and Gail, both of which are names of my aunts, and “nice names for a boy” are Cliff and Kingston, and Cliff at least is the name of a friend of my parents.

I’m already practicing my “That’s a LOVELY name, Dear!” fake face.

On The Subject Of Dating: Not to share too much private information, but one girl and one boy in their grade (grade 6) have been coupled up now for a few months, and it’s both Big News and Whatever News. There was a lot of talk about holding hands, and What That Means, and a lot of talk about who likes who and might be coupling up next, although all three of them aren’t quite ready for anything like that yet. Alarming and sweet at the same time.

On The Subject Of Travel: A brief competition was had to see who had been on the most planes. A point of pride was to have travelled the most, but also the least. I guess being at either extreme of something makes you special.

I took the girls to see Disney On Ice today. Sitting behind us was a young family – a dad, mom, and their daughter who I’d guess was about 2.

(Enter Belle and the Beast to do a number.)

Dad: Aw, Beauty and the Beast! Remember when this movie came out?

Mom: No, I was too young when it came out to go see it.

And scene.

Remind me to book an appointment for hearing aids and to pick up a walker tomorrow.

Recently my youngest daughter, Little Miss Sunshine, has become obsessed with Taylor Swift, and I know, I know, I have no one to blame but myself. She gets an hour of screen time a day and she often uses it to just sit with the iPad tuned to YouTube, watching Taylor’s entire oeuvre over and over.

Taylor has an older song (that you probably all already know, because unlike me you haven’t been living under a rock for a decade), called Love Story:

It’s about Romeo and Juliet. Taylor played this song at the concert this past summer (first time I’d ever heard it) and explained that she was disappointed with the sad ending to the actual play, so wrote this song so she could imagine a happy ending for the famous star-crossed lovers. OMG TAYLOR IS THE NICEST PERSON EVER SQUEE.

(Sorry about that.)

Anyway, this song on mega-repeat has led to lots of discussions around here about Romeo and Juliet, and the “real” version of the story, and Little Miss Sunshine is VERY interested. So a few days ago I picked up Baz Luhrman’s version, Romeo + Juliet, from the library, and we watched it together (with, of course, ongoing commentary from me while I explained everything they were saying). And she loved it, of course, because that kind of High Drama is in her blood.

And yes, as an aside, I will mention that at age 8 she’s a little young for this movie, which features plenty of violence and gunplay and suggested sex and, of course, suicide, but such is the way with the third child, is it not? I remember when the Captain was 8 and how he begged to watch Star Wars because all his friends had already seen it and we were none too sure about it. Now at at age 8 the Little Miss has already seen all the Star Wars movies, including the newest one, plus all the Harry Potter films and now Romeo + Juliet. It’s a slippery slope, people.

So coming around to the point of this post – in addition to really loving the movie the Little Miss was, as all red-blooded females seem to be, quite taken with the young Leonardo DiCaprio, and was not at all pleased when he died at the end, even though I totally warned her many times that that was going to happen, and all I have to say to her now is, just wait until we watch Titantic. Sir Monkeypants and I were dazzled at his youth in this film – it turns 20 years old this year and Leo was only 22 at the time, and seriously shiny and new, a marked contrast to today, where he’s still handsome but in a more mature kind of way. (Claire Danes, by the way, looked amazing then and amazing now – she’s hardly changed at all, just gotten that kind of lean look that really fit 40-something women get, but still totally rocking it on all fronts).

ANYWAY, my point here is that Leo looks quite different now, in an OLDER kind of way, and when he shows up at the Oscars on Sunday the Little Miss is going to be QUITE surprised that her little Leo is like, a totally gross man now. It’s similar to the way she loves old Backstreet Boys videos, but when she saw Nick on Dancing with the Stars this past season it was as if he’d passed through some sort of time portal and aged 20 years in a minute, and it was both shocking and alarming. With today’s access to all past pop culture at all times, no crush is safe.

It’s kind of a weird thing, and I hope she isn’t scarred or anything. Then again, I always did find Fred Astaire to be totally dreamy and he was possibly even dead by the time he caught my fancy, so I guess when it comes to the silver screen, true love never dies. Well, except for Romeo and everything.

Next week in our ongoing Taylor-inspired Classical Education: West Side Story! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Gal Smiley read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton a couple of weeks ago – maybe a little old for her but she’s a fussy reader, only caring for things that a) aren’t fantasy or sci-fi or mystery, b) don’t involve teens fighting to the death, and c) have tons of action, and Big Action right on the first page. It’s a challenge.

Luckily The Outsiders passed the test (I’m sure I would have been crushed if not) and so of course, I immediately ordered the BluRay DVD online for us to watch together. We watched it last night with Captain Jelly Belly, and Gal Smiley loved it.

Captain Jelly Belly, however, was really confused. His comment: “But at the end, nothing is resolved. Everyone is still on their side of town and they still hate each other and the boys are still poor and it’s all the same.”

I tried to explain that there is hope, because Ponyboy is different and has learned something and his skills at school and support from his brothers means he might get out someday. But “someday” wasn’t enough – the Captain wanted CONCLUSION, he wanted ANSWERS.

It’s funny, I guess he has only really watched action films and comedy films that come to a nice tidy ending so far, and he just did not understand the point of telling a story that was open-ended. He didn’t like the fact that the ending was, for the most part, sad. It was kind of like when I read Bridge to Terabithia to Gal Smiley and the main girl dies at the end, and Gal Smiley was all, “JESUS MOM, what’d you read me this stupid book for?” I think The Outsiders was Captain Jelly Belly’s moment like that – an introduction to the idea that not all stories are tied up in a happy little bow at the end.

And he did not like that.

So we talked about how stories like this are still worth telling because they share an experience, and let us see a different kind of life. They give us a window to other worlds and help us think about our values and what it means to live in society. And maybe it will colour our views and decisions in the future, to think about other points of view, and it will bring about change. Slowly, eventually.

Not fast enough for the Captain, I’m afraid – but hopefully he’ll learn.

It’s report card day, rapidly becoming my least favourite day of the school year. I’ve ranted before about the comments on them – so very, very much work for the poor teachers, and in the end, almost complete gibberish, due to the strict regulations they are under and the inability to BOLD THE ADJECTIVES which are the most important part (“he OCCASIONALLY cleans up!”).

This year an exciting new trend in commenting features the phrases “learning to” and “beginning to”, as in “she is learning to manage her time wisely and hand in assignments on schedule” which sounds so positive, I think, like, my kid is learning! She is growing and getting better! But my experience with report cards has me jadedly thinking this is actually probably supposed to indicate that she is behind the curve on this particular milestone. Sigh.

But what I really wanted to complain about is the fact that I have two Lisa Simpsons and one Bart Simpson and that’s what really makes report card day so tough. Two of my kids brought home mostly A’s and universally positive comments (I THINK). One kid brought home the usual smattering of B-‘s and C+’s, and it’s always that kid who looks up at me with big brown eyes and says sadly, “Is it a good report card?”

My poor baby.

So I do my best to downplay report cards as a whole, to tell everyone they did a good job and set them aside to look at them more closely when the kids are asleep. I whisper to my two Lisas that they have done well and I am proud of them but that they shouldn’t talk about it around the house. I gently tell the Bart at bedtime that there are a few things to work on, but that they are loved just the way they are and there are lots of important things to be besides good at taking tests.

But either way I feel like I am taking sides, belittling one team or the other. It’s not a problem to celebrate the achievements of one kid when it’s something the others don’t do – say, cheering on our Brownie for earning a good badge or our Piano Player for rocking that recital. It’s a problem to praise some, but not all, when they all have the same list of marks in front of them for direct comparison purposes. How do you find the balance?