Every parent's worst nightmare.

We all know the pit we get in our stomachs when we pick up our phones and the first words we hear is "Hello, this is the school nurse." Usually the few minutes it takes me to get to school to pick up my son because he has a fever or has thrown up are the longest on record.

I'm fortunate that I've gotten very few of those calls and none of them have ever been for anything worse than a minor illness.

Imagine being out of the country and receiving a phone call that your 17 year-old son, who is a counselor at a sleep away camp, has been admitted to a hospital having collapsed and has not regained consciousness.

Imagine the stress of trying to book two flights, which don't leave until the following morning, and the unbearable frustration at every unexpected delay while your son lays in a medically induced coma as the hospital staff tries to figure out why a teenage boy seems to have suffered a heart attack.

It is unimaginable, but that was the nightmare my friend suffered through last week. By Wednesday they had warmed his body up out of the hypothermic state they had induced to protect him against any further damage, but still no answers. He came to on Thursday and I was there to watch as he opened his eyes and saw his mother leaning over him telling him everything was going to be ok.

With a tube down his throat I saw his forehead furrow with fear and tears roll down his cheeks. He looked scared and confused, but he was awake and we all thanked God for that. I have no idea how my friend has had the strength to go through this ordeal.

Friends and family have descended upon this small hospital in support of all of them. We have hugged and cried and laughed. We have toasted to her son's health and disappeared when they have needed their space.

When I saw my friend lean over and whisper, "Tell Mommy you love her," and he did, though it was nearly imperceptible through the oxygen mask he had over his mouth, I collapsed into tears.

I love this kid more than words can say. I have known him nearly all his life. He is one of those rare teenagers who is sweet and kind and lacks the typical tell-tale attitude of most kids his age.

If the tests are right it may turn out that he has a condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, which is when the heart has an extra electric circuit that can, in rare cases, cause a 17-year-old boy to have a heart attack.

You've probably heard a story or two on the news about a kid dropping dead while on the football field for "no good reason," only to be revealed that WPW was the "no good reason."

My friend's son was not playing sports, he was hanging out with friends who luckily reacted quickly and got him the help he needed immediately. If they hadn't things could have turned out very differently.

WPW Syndrome can be picked up by a routine EKG and corrected with a simple surgical procedure. You can be sure that we will be insisting on that at my son's next annual check up, because the alternative is that this condition goes undetected until you get a phone call "Hello, this is the camp nurse."

Please join me in praying for his rapid recovery.

"Only Child Syndrome"--It's not just for children anymore

Can I blame it on "only child syndrome?"

Is that what makes sending him off on playdates so nerve-racking for me? Why, even at his age, I have to wonder if there will be irreconcilable differences that will bring the playdate to a screeching halt?

Is it that he lacks the skills that those with siblings know so well?

Like how to take a mean joke?

Or a punch?

Do those with brothers and sisters just naturally know how roll with things easier?

Or cope with the frustration of when things don't go the way they had hoped?

It's sort of a Catch 22--I think he should have more playdates so he gets better at having playdates, but because they don't seem to go very smoothly he tends not to have them.

Since I am not routinely exposed to bickering kids, screaming squabbles or hurt feelings, maybe I view the behavior completely differently than parents who accept it as normal.

And maybe it is normal.

Maybe my expectations are completely unrealistic.

Maybe playing with LEGOs and building forts will never trump devising dangerous triple-dog-dares or torturing younger siblings.

Maybe the obnoxious exchanges and wildness is just kids being kids (or boys being boys).

So maybe it's really my problem.

I think that maybe "Only Child Syndrome" doesn't just refer to the way the kids turn out, but also the parents.

He's ready for sleep-away, but am I?

This time of year many parents are engaging in the age-old ritual of labeling their kid's clothes for camp.

So am I. Except this year there's something different.

This year I’m writing his name in his pajamas.

As in, for sleep away camp.

As is, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Ok, it’s only for one week. Not even. I’m leaving him on Monday and I’ll be back on Friday to spend the rest of the weekend at a guest house at the camp.

Which, as sleep away camp goes, is really only one step removed from hiding in the rafters of his bunk making sure he brushes his teeth and remembers to change his underwear.

I’m comfortable with the camp, I went there for 5 summers when I was a kid, and that was back when parents felt no compunction about sending their 7-year-olds away for 8 weeks. I guarantee you my mother was not getting all verklempt as she attached my name tags to every item of clothing I owned.

He’s excited about going.

So if anyone is having separation anxiety it’s me.

I’m worried how he’ll do on his own.
I’m worried how I’ll do on my own.

Will he be nice to the other kids?
Will they be nice to him?
Is there enough valium in the world to get me through that week?

Will he be too cold?
Will he be too hot?
Will I sob for 96 hours straight?


Will the themed pajamas he wears be considered “dorky?”

Oh God, what if he has an accident!

Will he find something to eat?

Given his very, very limited repertoire of food he may live on a steady diet of bread, but it will be interesting to see how he handles not having a mother around with a granola bar in her bag at all times.

And please, please, please don’t give me the old “maybe he’ll cave into peer pressure and eat what all the other kids are eating,” he won’t. But I’m sure he won’t starve either.

As parents we like to cling to the fallacy that we have control over our kids' lives, I know I cling to that belief like a sloth on a branch. Only now there will be an empty bed taunting me for 96 hours straight, “YOU HAVE NO CONTROL!”

I can’t comfort him at the end of the day if it’s been a rotten one and I don’t get to see the excitement on his face when he completes the obstacle course.

But I know how much I loved being at sleep away camp.

How self-reliant I became and the life long friendships that I made.

I want all that for him.

But honestly, I’m dreading it.

Not because I don't believe he's going to have an awesome time while he's away from me, but because I know he is.

I've read that our kids don't really belong to us, but rather that we get to borrow them for a short while. The Kahlil Gibran poem "On Children" expresses it best of all.

Still, it doesn't make labeling his pajamas any easier.

Let's NOT talk about sex, Baby.

So this kid asks his mom, "Where did I come from?"

And she launches into the "When a man and a woman love each other very much" speech complete with all the proper nomenclature like intercourse, testicles, and fallopian tubes. She draws diagrams and even gives him a leave behind brochure in case he has any further questions.

The kid replies, "Oh, because my friend Sam said he came from Chicago."

When do you talk to your kids about sex?

At nine my son has shown no curiosity or interest in knowing anything about sex. This seems appropriate to me.

He's never asked "where do babies come from?" but understands the general concept that men and women make them and they grow in a woman's stomach. We haven't ever discussed the exit route.

However, I'm discovering that some parents have already had "the talk" with their kids.

Some parents don't want their kids to "learn it on the playground," and others may have had at least one unfortunate incident when their child failed to knock before entering their bedroom.

What? Mommy and Daddy were just wrestling...

Whatever the reason since he's not askin' I'm not telling.

Which isn't to say that I haven't given a lot of thought to what I will say when it seems like he's ready to hear it.

Of course my guess is that having that conversation with his mom will so far exceed his maximum mortification threshold that his head my literally explode. But having that talk with his dad may lead to some confusion since there have been times that I'm not sure my husband has all the facts straight himself.

Yes Honey, I get my period every month and it lasts about 5 days, sorry.

But I really don't understand what the rush to tell them about sex is. They're innocent for only so long and once you open that door there's no turning back. I think it's cute that he giggles when he sees BOOBS and doesn't have to think of them as lactating feeding devices.

Or that he thinks "third base" only exists on the baseball field.

Here's my unscientific guideline: If your kid still believes in Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy they are not ready to hear about sex.

And if they don't believe in those things it's probably because they heard that they don't exist on the playground.

I love the smell of larceny in the morning.

So, I go into Panera, as I do most mornings after drop off, to grab coffee, a bagel and find a table near an outlet so that I plug in my laptop and write for a while.

Today I grabbed a table and tucked my laptop on the floor next to the wall. I put my notebook on the table so that people would know the spot was taken.

When I returned with my food my notebook was gone, but my laptop was still sitting there.

I looked around and sitting one table over was a couple having breakfast with my notebook sitting next to them.

"Um, sorry, but that's my notebook," I said.

"Well, it was just sittin' there," the guy growled.

"Did that make it more yours?" I asked.

He mumbled something under his breath and I thought better of prolonging the conversation.

Of course that didn't stop me from spending the next hour imagining all the things I could have said. Like:

"Good point. Well, I also left my computer over there, you must have missed it, let me go get it for you."

or

"Oh Man, the "finders keepers" defense, clearly I've only got myself to blame."

or

"So when I go to the diner and there's cash on the table I'm allowed to take it? I totally did not realize that. Thanks, man."

or

"I'm sorry, I must have misheard you, for a minute I thought you said that you took it because it was just sitting there."

or

"I'm sorry sir, I just dropped my child off at school, I'm not due for another round of inane excuses for at least another 8 hours."

or

"I'll be going up for a refill on my coffee in a bit and I'll probably leave my bagel on the table...are you a butter or cream cheese kinda guy?"


I'm sure more will come to me throughout the day, but I'm wondering if you have any good ones.

I may just start leaving my notebook on the table every time I go there so that I have an arsenal of retorts at the ready should someone decide to steal it...and then sit next to me with it.

Choose your words carefully...especially in an email

Sometimes is hard to write things on my blog, because it is read by people who know me.

But sometimes this is the only place I can truly express how I feel so that I can get it out of my system, hence the tag line: If it's on my mind, it's on my blog.

I was just involved in an email "skirmish" that really upset me. It's far too long and boring a story to go into, but the turning point, the point where it really got ugly, was that I took offense at something that had been sent back to me through a "reply all" so I wrote back to that person privately to address the comment.

The next thing I knew he had taken my reply and replied all to that so that everyone would be able to see what I had written--I suppose in an attempt to embarrass me--although ironically I had sent it privately so as not to embarrass him by pointing out the gross hypocrisy of his remarks.

Email is generally the best, fastest and most convenient way to communicate with people, but there are obvious pitfalls that I'm sure we've all fallen prey to:

The inadvertent "reply all" where you make a snarky comment about your boss and he's on the email list.

Mistakingly sending an email meant for one person to another, because you meant for the results of your pap smear to go to your doctor, Kate Messeng, not your son's classroom aide, Kate Minnow.

Somehow we forget, because there is a electronic buffer, that we are still involved in a dialogue and fail to remember that if you wouldn't say it you shouldn't write it. Unfortunately I don't edit a lot of what I say either, so there's often not much difference.

Perhaps the biggest problem is the common misinterpretation of "tone" which, regardless of how many ":0)'s" you use, can't always help distinguish a joke from a terse response. I have literally had friendships end over what seemed to be a benign email exchange.

Then there's always the inherent danger of putting something in writing that it can be forwarded to a gazillion people if someone is assy enough to do that.

I have to say this situation left a really bad taste in my mouth. I'm probably more upset than I need to be, but I will certainly think twice before using email to deal issues beyond setting up playdates and doing my work from now on.

In a world where it's hard enough to make friends, I've discovered that with email, it's far too easy to make enemies.

Emoticon for the day: >:0 {

Have a :0) weekend.

Is this how Batman's wife feels?

I stand, alone, in the bike cave. A dark, dank room off the laundry room where the burner has gone into hibernation.

Rough brown ropes hang across the space under lowslung pipes, coated in a layer of dust from the laundry lint that vents out the window nearby.

I grab a handful of cycling clothes and begin to hang them, with old fashioned clothes pins, so that they can air dry.

Until my husband started bicycling a few years ago I didn't realize that people used clothes pins for anything other than turning them into butterflies for school projects. One would imagine the main piece of equipment for cycling is the bicycle, but for those who approach it as a sport, rather than a leisure activity, this is not the case.

It seems like there is not a single body part for which a corresponding item of clothing has not been designed, starting with vented underwear with a reinforced padded section that runs from crotch to butt.

There are unitard bike shorts which are challenging to hang because the mesh straps are far more delicate than the spandex shorts they keep in place. They look a lot like 1920's men's swimwear actually. Every time I put them up to dry I thank God that I've never seen him wearing them without a shirt or it would probably be the end of our sex life.

Of course there are the many, many brightly colored bike shirts, wicking socks, knee warmers, thigh warmers, toe warmers and, in the really cold months, even ear booties. In fact, during the dead of the winter it can take me 10-15 minutes to hang up all the additional clothing.

I began to wonder, "Is this how Mrs. Batman feels?"

I imagine her hanging her husbands kevlar reinforced boxer briefs down in the laundry room off the Batcave. Spreading out his cape, so that it doesn't look a mess when he goes to fight crime and gingerly clamping the bat ears of his mask so that they stay upright and intimidating.

And I wonder if, as did happened in our home once, Batman ever came to his wife in full regalia, but wearing only one sock, wanting to know what happened to its mate. And I wonder if she looks up at him, with a look that would strike fear even in heart of a superhero and says,

"Well, have you checked behind the drier?
I mean Jesus Christ there's 7 billion little pieces of clothing to hang up,
maybe it slipped back there while I was busy tending to your nose tip padding.

And where the hell is Albert? How did this get to be my job?

You have a button that can harness the energy from the center of the earth,
but I'm still hanging up your Bat skivvies like I live on a farm in Iowa in 1947?"

And there stands Batman, realizing that, although he's late to kick the Green Goblin's ass, he must stand there and take it, or next time he'll be fighting crime in damp underwear.

Just wondering.