Today started with my 14 year old daughter making herself a peanut butter sandwich to take to school for lunch. As she reached into the cabinet to get a container, she asked her little brother to grab her a bottle of water.

Do you remember in The Sixth Sense when Haley Joel Osmet’s mom walks out of the kitchen, then returns a moment later to find all of the cabinets and drawers open? That’s what it sounded like this morning when my daughter turned back to her sandwich and found a water bottle stuck firmly into the middle of the bread.

My son just turned 11, and he is smart, so you’d think he would know better, but let’s keep in mind that this is the child who has secretly been taking pictures of people’s double-chins with my phone. I go to make a phone call and instead find 64 photos of fat necks; my own included. You don’t even want to see the search history on our iPad.

Sometimes his behavior is downright bizarre, so that’s why it was such a relief when my husband and I sat in a classroom at, what we hope will be, our son’s new school. Though I will admit, before the class started we were concerned the day would be filled with  nothing but chaos.

There was the student with personal space issues (BEEN THERE) and the other one who ran around the room only to stop and pet my husband’s jacket (BEEN THERE, TOO), one child was sleeping, and one child was rolling around in his teacher’s chair. My husband and I looked at each other with that same what are we going to do now look that we’ve given each other many times before.

But, then the class started. Though the behaviors didn’t come to a complete halt, these kids were learning and they were learning stuff that my husband and I were clueless about. No offense to Canadian geography, or anything. I couldn’t believe the difficulty of the work and I couldn’t believe how smart these kids were.

The teacher, who knew exactly what to do to get through to each individual child, had them focused, challenging themselves, taking a quiz without audible groaning, and speaking clearly as they read aloud. It was amazing to watch and I was flat-out honored for the opportunity. I wish everyone could do it. Ignorance is bliss, after all, but knowledge is power.

At one point a student raised her hand and started a sentence to her teacher by saying, “No offense, but maybe you should have…” Yeah, that whole “no-offense” thing? BEEN THERE, TOO. My son used to start most of his sentences with, “I’m sorry to say this, but…”

That’s when my husband and I looked at each other and silently thought, these are our people. And that’s a place where we’ve never really been before.

I can’t wait to see where we go next.

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One of my favorite people on the internet is dying. Like right now. Dawn is in her final stages of a battle with melanoma and all I can think about are her husband and children and, selfishly, that I will never see her face in my Twitter stream again.

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We heard last night that another friend is undergoing chemo, and we added him to the long list of people we know who have fought or are currently fighting this terrible disease. It’s getting old. Really.

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I went to the dentist today. I’m one of those people who loves lying in the dental chair and getting her teeth scraped, but the scrubbing with the thick paste? BLECH. That makes me want to vomit. I have a love/hate thing with the dentist. I would probably love it more if I got laughing gas.

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The dentist said she could tell that I’ve been grinding my teeth again. I’m sure this is a direct result of my weaning off Zoloft. A custom mouth guard would cost me almost $700 out of pocket, so that’s not happening and the thought of upping my meds again to avoid jaw problems makes me sad. Anxiety is a beast.

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I’m crafting a post about how smart my daughter is, but there is a fine line between pride and disbelief at her accomplishments (considering she came into this world as a 2 lb. preemie), and bragging and annoying people. But, wow…am I proud. That post is coming later this week. If I act obnoxious, give me a blog-slap.

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Although my son is almost 11 years old, he’s still just as literal and honest as when he was 5 and told an elderly woman at Target that she needed to buy moisturizer. Lent provided us with ample opportunity for honest conversations and these were a few that I posted on Facebook.

Me: “You need to do some reading.”
My son: “I gave it up for Lent.”

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At church yesterday, my son looked at the wooden plaque labeled, “Hymns” and asked, “Mom, what’s a hymen?”

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Me: “Did you eat a Peep?”
My son: “Yes…actually, I ate five.”

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In addition to the post about my genius-daughter (too much?), later this week there will be a fun (and pretty) giveaway from Kyky’s Treasures! Stay tuned…and if you’ve never had a skin cancer screening, please schedule one. Now.

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Here’s what I could tell you; that my job entails the reading of hundreds of blog posts and articles online every day, and all day Monday I read about the Steubenville rape case. All day. By Monday night I felt like my brain weighed a million pounds and I considered never going online again. Then I remembered that this story would have never been told if it weren’t for a blogger who fell into the roll of investigative journalist. Bloggers rule. I think I’ll stick around.

I could tell you that we spent hours worrying about our nephew yesterday when we found out his Marine unit was involved in a deadly accident in Nevada. We were not one of the families devastated by news that their Marine was killed. Ours is alive, but he will have to deal with the pain of losing his good friends.

Shamelessly stolen from his Facebook photos. I don’t care. I only care that he is alive.

Of course, if I told you about all of that, I’d have to mention that the torture of not knowing whether he was okay took me back to August, 2005 when we waited for word on another nephew who was stationed in Iraq. He, too, is still alive, but he lost even more friends.

I could tell you how I feel guilty for not being a better aunt to them. I should have sent letters and care packages, and I should tell them that we pray for them every day, that we love them, and that I understand what has happened to them means they will never be the same again. Ever. It makes my heart hurt.

I might say that I’ve been worried about my cancer-surviving sister doing well as she reenters the workforce, that I have no idea how we’re going to pay for private school tuition, and that I fell HARD off the juice-fast wagon. I blame the leprechaun.

I could mention that the first day of spring is really just another day of winter, that my husband has lost his ever-loving mind because he’s considering the purchase of a puppy, and that I don’t want to live in my house right now because it’s such a mess.

Or, I could just show you this magazine insert that my son was using as a bookmark until he told me it was “distracting” him.

Clearly, he still like arms.

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My son will be 11 in May. He is the oldest kid in his class and he still believes in Santa Claus.

Half of the reason for that is because he had a pretty lousy start to life, so giving him a little extra magic is the least we can do. The other half is because he is brutally honest and we don’t want him to ruin it for the kids in his class who are many months behind him in age. Trust me, if he knows, he’ll make sure everyone else knows too.

Because he’s been lying so much, I felt the need to play the Santa card. I mean, if your child still thinks a jolly elf slides down the chimney and eats a bunch of cookies then you might as well use it for your benefit. Another advantage is that you get to eat a plate of cookies and pretend you didn’t.

So the other day I said, “This lying has to stop. It’s ridiculous. Plus, Santa is coming soon and I know you want to be on the nice list.”

Then I realized that he’s probably just going to go ahead and eat the cookies himself on Christmas Eve, because he replied, “But, I was naughty last year and I still got presents!”

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