I’m not a health nut. Let me start by saying that. I’ve always been somewhat concerned about what I put into my body and now that I’m a mom, that concern has only multiplied. But after a casual lunch conversation about four years ago, I have waged my own personal war against high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

During said lunch, I was drinking a bottle of Lipton Brisk Iced Tea and somehow my co-worker and I got into a discussion about the label’s list of ingredients. (I’m quite the riveting lunch conversationalist.) One of the many polysyllabic ingredients was HFCS and my co-worker pointed out that it’s everywhere, in practically everything we consume. I thought he was exaggerating. However, after raiding my pantry later that day and reading labels, I realized that his statement held a lot of truth. Uncovering the HFCS soon became a game for us. We came into work each day naming new products that contained it. Cereals! Bread! Fruit drinks! Ketchup! Wait – ketchup?!? Yes, ketchup! The game continued on and on, sadly, as the list was seemingly endless.

This game was turning into something much more serious for me. I wanted to know more about high fructose corn syrup and what harm it could cause. A little research explained that HFCS is a sweetener created by processing cornstarch into fructose with the help of enzymes. A cheaper alternative to sugar, HFCS extends the shelf life of processed foods and drinks, so it’s hardly a surprise that it’s included in so many items we eat.

The problem though is that processed foods made with HFCS are high in calories and low in nutritional value. Consuming these items on a regular basis – and considering how ubiquitous HFCS is, that’s not very hard to do – can contribute to weight problems, which in turn can promote conditions like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary artery disease. Couple this information with the fact that obesity rates in America grow higher each year and it starts to make a gal wonder.

So when I saw recent commercials from the Corn Refiners Association claiming that HFCS is essentially the same as sugar, I was surprised, not to mention annoyed. Considering that HFCS is processed, it can’t compare to the intrinsically natural quality of sugar. How could it? Although the commercials would have consumers believe that it can, it’s interesting to note that funding for the Corn Refiners Association’s research came from companies like Pepsi Co. and the American Beverage Association, who would stand to benefit from the consumption of products made with HFCS. That’s not what I would consider credible research.

The fact that most of these commercials are targeted at moms makes me even more enraged. What’s a mom to do? For the past several years, few items with HFCS, if any, make it onto my weekly shopping list. It’s certainly challenging to find items without HFCS, but it can be done. For example, I’ve learned which brands of bread are HFCS-free (Vermont Bread Company and pretty much any brand from Trader Joe’s are quality choices), which granola bars (Quaker Simple Harvest is a winner), and which cereals (good old Cheerios is a tried and true option). Plus, I’ve been buying more whole foods – fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains, which are better choices for my family anyway. This mom won’t blindly drink the Kool-Aid, nor will I fail to be able to articulate why HFCS is tough to swallow.

I got the coolest tampon case for my birthday. (See pic below.) I really love this thing: the cover design is fresh and dreamy and it opens up to hold two jumbo tampons or three slender ones. This is so much better than that plastic Ziploc bag I had been carrying around.

Tampon Case

The only bad thing about this case is that it would only get me about 2 hours of time away from the house. With my heavy periods, I can bust through a super tampon in an hour. So I’d need three of four of these puppies for an entire day away from home. Plus, where would I put the pads? I always double up: pads and tampons. Because leakage occurs, girlfriends.

Still, it’s a really cool little case. Thanks, mom!

(You can buy them at ClassicHardware.com)

It’s November 1st, the day after Halloween. It’s 10:21 a.m. and I’ve just dipped into my son’s candy haul and gobbled down 3 Snickers and 2 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The wrappers litter the table around me as the sugar hits my veins and pumps through my body. I close my eyes and think about all the things I have always liked about Halloween: the candy, the dressing up as someone else and going out after dark to collect candy, the candy, the candy, the candy.

Sure, other holidays have candy. Christmas, yes: homemade fudge, Hershey’s Kisses in my stocking, and desserts galore. Easter, for sure: chocolate bunnies and candy-coated chocolate eggs. But Halloween is unencumbered by all the religious gobbledy-gook that are attached to those two holidays. On Halloween, I’m not eating the flesh of Christ or an egg symbolizing the tomb that gave Jesus a rebirth. On Halloween, candy is just candy.

Even better, the whole point of Halloween is—you guessed it—the candy. Why do we get dressed up in scary costumes to go Trick-or-Treating? It’s not for fruits and vegetables, it’s for CANDY! Sure, Halloween started out as a pagan festival, scheduled for the last harvest days and start of the long winter which brought deaths to old and young. A day when the line between living and dead was blurred and spirits walked the earth. But that was a long time ago. Today, any kid will tell you that Halloween is all about the candy.

In fact, my son just made that clear last night. As my husband walked him around the neighborhood, collecting treats from indulgent neighbors, my son repeatedly exclaimed, “I LIKE Halloween. I mean I REALLY like Halloween. Even I like the CANDY. I can’t wait for NEXT Halloween.”

I used to have this unbridled enthusiasm for Halloween myself. It’s always been one of my favorite holidays. (Have I mentioned the candy?) But the older I get, the more it just seems another chore to struggle through. Pull out the storage boxes from the crawl space; clutter the house with bizarre and frightening creatures; locate, buy, and carve pumpkins; find candles for same; buy candy at the last minute to minimize overall exposure to its seductive force; dress the kid and take him around begging for food; pass out candy to other people’s greedy little kids; eat large quantities of candy over the next few weeks; walk around feeling permanently light-headed and sick to the stomach. Well, okay, the eating part I can handle.

This year, sick with a cold, recovering from a crappy day waiting in line at the DMV, tired and headachy, I found very little to like about Halloween (except, of course, the candy). The doorbell starting ringing while I was cleaning up the dishes. Someone in my immediate vicinity was actually heard to mutter, “F—ing kids!” I don’t know who said it, but I hightailed it to the door, plastered on a fake smile, and said, “Happy Halloween!” while holding out a large basket of assorted candy.

It’s always interesting to watch the kids make their choices. Some kids just plunge in a hand and come up with about eight pieces. To these I caution, “Only take two.” Most of the little brats ignore me and scamper off with their haul. The youngest children, whose parents hover nearby, can stand and stare at the basket for minutes, trying to decide on the best choice. Usually a parent will just grab a piece and hand it to the kid, then usher them away, eager to get the whole thing over with so they can go home and watch TV. I guess I would probably fall into this camp, but luckily my husband is a sweet and patient man and is willing to be the Trick-or-Treat leader for our son.

After several aborted attempts to wash the last cooking pan because of doorbell interruptions, I give it up and decide to fortify myself with a glass of wine. Luckily, my husband and son come home soon after and they take over the passing out candy duties. My son actually likes doing this. He carefully chooses one piece of candy and hands it delicately to each child. Mercifully, we run out of candy sooner than expected. Our last batch of kids were almost as tall as me and came in a posse of at least thirteen. Now that’s scary.

My son is hyped up on sugar and a Halloween High so it takes him a long time to fall asleep. But no sooner do we shut his door, my husband and I are inspecting the contents of his pumpkin bag. He’s still small enough to not notice missing candy so we delve in with impunity. Hershey’s Miniatures in my left hand and another glass of wine in my right, I mellow and start to remember again all the things I like about Halloween: the costumes, the candy, the pumpkins, the candy, the kids, and the candy.

Monsters eat everything.
Everything is not safe from a monster.
Monsters do not have an enemy.
They are the worst enemy on the planet.
Even the rock monster is the biggest monster on the planet.

My son dictated those lines to me last week. In case you can’t tell, he is obsessed with monsters. Not the hide-under-the-bed, go-bump-in-the-night kind of monster, but land monsters, sea monsters, rock monsters, and random everyday monsters. He talks about them, draws them, and acts like them. He makes up new ones and assigns habitats and personality traits to them. He writes books about monsters and illustrates the text that I write down for him. Here’s one that he did recently:

Some things that I am particularly proud of are the page numbers and the names of the monsters, Mantitalia and Jaligon. I also am impressed by the fact that he is writing little books with stories that (sort of) have a plot.

Now, if I could just get these published…

Call me crazy but if it’s late October with a daytime high of 50 degrees and you own a swim shop, wouldn’t you eagerly greet and cater to every customer who walked in your door? Well, not at my local swim shop.

My son and I are coming from his weekly YMCA swim lesson where I noticed that his swim shirt is completely stretched out and his swim trunks are melting into two distinct shades of blue. Normally I would head to Target to buy such items but I know that they are not on the racks at this time of year. So I decide to try the swim shop. I’d never been there before, but it’s in a nearby strip mall.

We walk in with a young woman hot on our heels. When I stop just inside the door to orient myself and locate the boys’ section, the woman stops behind us and put on that fake I’m-being-patient-but-you-are-totally-in-my way expression that people use when they don’t want to be overtly rude but still want you to know that you are holding them up. I move out of her way and she heads over to the counter where she GOES BEHIND IT and puts her stuff down. So she actually works there and didn’t even bother to greet me when I came in! Not my idea of customer service. But it gets worse.

I move farther into the store, scanning for boy stuff. I find boy stuff but don’t see any shirts. Now this next part is just classic. I stand in the middle of the aisle and wait for someone to notice me and come help me. There are three people working in the small store: the won’t-say-hello salesperson up front, a young woman hanging up clothing an aisle over, and someone else in the back, unpacking stock. I turn in a circle and try to make eye contact with someone, anyone. All three ignore me. I say loudly to my son, “Do you see any swim shirts?” I don’t even listen for his response, I just wait to see if someone hears my query and rushes to my rescue. Nothing. Finally I go over to the woman an aisle away and say, “I need a swim shirt.” No “excuse me, do you have any swim shirts?” I’m too annoyed for that.

The young woman gets up and goes back to the rack I had just inspected and she pulls out a tiny swim shirt, sized for a toddler. Clearly this woman is an idiot and has no children.

“I think that’s a little small,” I say, politely.

She puts it back with no comment and searches for another. Finding nothing, she says, “I know there are some up front on the sale rack.” I say okay and head up there to check it out. I see many swim shirts but they all have girl bottoms attached to the hangers. I search the rack thoroughly and come up with nothing. So I go back and ask the same woman for help finding the shirts. She pulls out the ones with the girl bottoms.

“Here they are,” she says.

I just look at her like she’s an idiot. Can’t she see that these are for girls? I remind myself that she is an idiot and has no children. “Those are for girls,” I point out.

She looks at them again. “Just take the pants off,” she suggests.

Again I look at her as if she’s an idiot. The shirts have flowers on them. Now I’m all for gender-neutral clothing and play, but my son is getting to the age where boys start to be very sensitive about their gender. A little boy we had over for a playdate recently refused to eat banana slices out of a plastic cereal bowl because it was colored pink. Then he made fun of my son because my son has two babydolls. So I’m thinking that these swim shirts are not for us.

“I don’t think those will work,” I say.

“Well, that’s all we have,” she says, not sounding particularly sorry.

At this point I’ve had it with her and the store and I’m too annoyed to buy anything even if there were something for me to buy so I mumble a thanks and blow that joint. I drive home fast and honk at several people just because. Then I get more annoyed because I’m just passing around all that bad karma. When we get home I decide to fix my day with chocolate chip cookies. Bad customer service can always be fixed with chocolate chip cookies.

I don’t care much about my birthday anymore. Maybe because I’ve had so many of them they are no longer special. I remember my 16th was a big event. My father took me and about ten friends out to dinner at a family restaurant and paid for it without blinking an eye. Inside, though, he must have been crying at the several hundred dollar bill. He grew up in the Depression and the war years and was the most frugal man I’ve ever known.

My 21st must have been an exciting birthday. I can’t remember how I celebrated, but I’m sure it involved large quantities of alcohol. My 30th was the next big milestone. Again, I have no recollection of how I spent it, but it also probably involved heavy drinking. I do know I wasn’t bothered by turning 30. I still looked good, felt great, and didn’t mind entering a new decade. In fact, I took great delight in getting carded at a liquor store or bar. “But, I’m 30 years old!!!” I would exclaim in fake indignation. Later I found out that these places carded anyone who looked under 30 by way of general policy. And here I thought I was special.

One birthday I remember fondly was one in my 30’s just after I started dating my future husband. He arranged a dinner at my favorite restaurant with all our friends. I looked hot that night and I was riding high with my new love of my life and promising future. Later we went dancing. I had so much fun that night that I almost didn’t even mind that my girlfriend screwed up and ordered a chocolate cake with coconut in it. I’m a purist when it comes to chocolate and I don’t suffer any unauthorized ingredients.

40 is usually a big birthday for people. 40 signals that your youth is over and it’s all downhill from there. On my 40th, we had parents and siblings over and ate pizza and chocolate cake (no coconut). Turning 40 didn’t really feel any different from being in my late 30’s. And once I had my son, it was really all about him. My birthdays were no longer the event of the year.

Last week’s birthday was nothing special. Which was fine by me because I didn’t want to do anything much. I don’t care about birthdays, remember?

Strangely, more members of my extended family remembered my birthday than my immediate family. My cousin sent an email telling me to go outside and get some fresh air (how does she know I’m glued to the computer all day?). My aunt called to inform me that my parents are the only ones she knows of who had sex in January as I’m the only October birthday on her list. Okaaaaayyyyy. My husband’s brother called to tell my husband to expect a cooking magazine for himself and a gardening magazine for me. Wa??? It’s not my husband’s birthday, why does he get a magazine, too? Another in-law sent a box full of antiques scrounged up at a local store. I do like antiques, but I am replete with stuff, and ceramic candlesticks in a delicate floral pattern are not really my style. Even my dentist remembered me with an email. Ditto my Honda salesman, whose cards always arrive on my EXACT birthday – how does he do that?

Immediate family was hit-or-miss. My husband came through with a cool pair of boots that I had circled in a catalog. He even had them there by the day, which is unusual. Typically, he’ll be holed away in the computer room the night before my birthday, frantically ordering items online. Then he’ll have them delivered at outrageous cost using next-day air. I find this really irritating and it takes away from the pleasure of the gift. My mom, of course, never forgets my birthday and always is prepared with gifts. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, was MIA this year. She never even sent a card or acknowledged me in any way. Ditto my dad. That one could be my fault since I may have forgotten to enter my birthday in the pocket calendar I buy him for Christmas every year. I mean, I can’t really expect him to remember the birth of his only daughter independently, now can I?

All these slights would bother me, but I don’t care about my birthday. Really.

I Am Woman. Watch Me Shop. These are the words I repeat to myself every Monday morning after I drop my son off at preschool and head to the grocery store. I’m off to do what thousands–nay millions–of women do every day: procure food for the household. I should feel confident in this role; after all, women have been responsible for finding food since our hunter-gatherer days. But it happens that I’m new to the Chore-of-the-Store.

I took over the grocery shopping duties a month or so ago in early September when my teacher husband returned to school. He had taken over the cooking when I was pregnant and didn’t feel like eating, let alone cooking. And then somehow that morphed into his taking over the shopping, too. I’m a little fuzzy on the details because I was busy recovering from Cesarian surgery and learning how to breast-feed our voracious infant with uncooperative flat nipples and oversized but milk-challenged breasts. All I know is food appeared in the refrigerator and on the table on a regular basis. I ate what was served and never complained about it, just grateful that it wasn’t me who had to put it there. (I still follow this precept).

I offered to become the Grocery Queen because the chore just ate up too much of my husband’s Saturday. After his morning martial arts class, he’d come home and have lunch, then make up the Feeding Chart for the week and then do the shopping, finishing up by around 4 or 5. Too late for me to ask him to do household chores. On Sunday mornings he has a Daddy Day with a friend where they take the kids fishing in the summer and go out to breakfast and a family fun center in the winter. On Sunday afternoons, he works on lesson plans for school and homework for his Master’s class in Reading. Again, no time in there to do chores. So all the household fix-ups that I didn’t feel qualified or energetic enough to take care of myself got pushed back into one huge lump of choredom to be done in the summer. And, I’m not exactly sure how this happens, but my husband is capable of frittering away an entire summer without completing anything on his To Do List.

My first 3 or 4 weeks of grocery shopping were pure hell. I resented taking the time away from my day and I couldn’t find a darn thing in that store. It had been completely changed around from the time I used to shop several years ago. I also wasn’t sure about quantities or brands so I just picked stuff randomly. There were many instances when we didn’t have the right ingredients for dinner. But by October, I had gotten into a groove. I revised our master shopping list on the computer, so that it matched the new layout of the store (because I’m anal that way). I also learned a lot about food:

• Horseradish is in the refrigerated aisle, not with the A-1 steak sauce.
• Bok Choy is a Chinese vegetable that has a large white bottom and leaves like cabbage.
• Shallots are nothing more than green onions.
• Store brand spaghetti sauce tastes just the same as the more expensive brand name sauces.
• Raisins are in the produce aisle, not the baking aisle, snack aisle, or canned fruit aisle.
• Lemon juice is not kept with the lemons.
• Orange juice is fabulously expensive ($6.99 for a large jug).
• Ditto honeydew melon ($6 a piece).
• Meat must be put into a plastic bag or it will leak all over your hands, purse, and tampon box.
• Ditto bleach.

All this new knowledge didn’t come easily. I programmed the store’s phone number into my cell phone and if I couldn’t find something, I’d stand in the aisle and call the customer service department to ask where it was. Usually with an annoyed tone in my voice. I snagged countless store attendants to ask the location of things. Most followed up with, “Would you like me to show it to you?” Why yes, that would be lovely. Or perhaps you could just fetch it and bring it back here to me along with all the rest of the crap on this list. Just kidding. Actually, customer service is one thing this store does right. They always ask if I need help out to the car. Which is really kind of bizarre because if I was able to load my cart with 2 huge containers of kitty litter, milk, oj, and bottled juice, why would I not be able to get it out to the car? Where I really need help is when I get the stuff home and have to lug it all into the house and put it away. That’s a real pain in the keister.

After a while, I got so confident that I decided to take the next step and brave the butcher. Now you have to understand that my husband is kind of a meat snob who grew up in a wealthy household where his mother purchased meat from the neighborhood butcher twice a week and never blinked at the prices. They were always eating steak, lamb, and prime rib. So he likes to buy meat from the butcher because he maintains that it’s better quality. I think he was pretty unhappy during the 6 weeks I insisted on buying meat from the grocery store. Really, what’s the diff? Those guys in the white coats in the back of the grocery store look like butchers to me. But Saturday night’s dinner called for hamburgers and my husband will only eat the gourmet hamburgers from the butcher. And I’m the one who needs to pick them up.

So off I go, to enter the male-dominated world of slaughtered meat. Just as pre-historic women had long collected herbs, grains, and fruits to make up the bulk of the family’s meals, early men had been charged with bringing home the bacon. I guess this explains man’s affinity for meat even today. No women work in the butcher shop I go to, nor do any work in the butcher section of my grocery store. But women abound on the buying side of the counter so I feel okay going in there.

My list says 1-2 lbs ham thin sliced, gourmet hamburgers, and Kaiser rolls. My attendant is an old man and I ask him for the ham. This seems like a lot of ham for my husband to make into lunch sandwiches, and I know I just bought ham earlier in the week, so I’m not sure why this is on the list but I get it anyway. The list is a sacred cow and I do not deviate from it. (Except sometimes to buy Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Lover’s Ultimates.) Later I find out that my husband wanted a real ham, like in a big chunk, rather than lunchmeat-type ham. Oops. While the old guy is slicing up all that ham, a younger guy asks if I need anything else. Yes, I say, I need some gourmet hamburgers. He wants to know what kind. I look at my list, as if the answer will magically appear there. “Uh, what kind is there?” I ask, trying frantically to remember what kind we usually eat. He reels off a list and I pick the bacon cheddar type. “We don’t have fresh, only frozen. Is that okay?” he wants to know. I’m stumped again. I try to remember if my husband buys fresh or frozen. I have no idea. I look at him quizzically. “Hamburgers aren’t in season,” he informs me. Huh? Hamburgers have a season? I must say this out loud because he looks at me like I’m an idiot and says, “People don’t grill outside much in winter.” Well, of course they don’t! Everyone knows that. “Frozen will be fine,” I say in my most authoritative voice. He goes to get them and I pick out some rolls that I know aren’t Kaisers and I know aren’t the ones my husband gets but they look good and I’m pissed at him for not telling me that bacon-cheddar hamburgers are not in season. Screw the list.

If I’m going to be the Gatherer, I’ll gather what I damn well please.

I think I’m becoming obsessed with Angelina Jolie. First off, she snagged the man I was supposed to marry: Brad Pitt. I settled on Brad after John F. Kennedy, Jr., died in a tragic plane accident. My second choice was George Clooney but then he turned into a misogynist kid-hater. So that’s how I ended up with Brad. Unfortunately, that little minx Angelina got her claws in him before I could act.

I suppose the first thing I’ll need to do is change my name. You do know that Jolie in French means pretty, right? I think I’ll one-up her and make my name Belle, which means beautiful. Beautiful definitely rates higher than pretty on the good-looking scale, I would say. Then when I’m too old for Belle, I’ll switch to une femme d’une certaine age which is a euphemistic French expression meaning a woman of a certain age, typically used for older, glamorous women. That’s a little long for a last name, but I think I can make it work. I bet Angie (that’s what her good friends call her) hasn’t thought that far ahead.

Brad seems to like the fit, lean types. I used to be quite fit and I have a lot of lean buried under my not-so-lean. Brad says Angie doesn’t have a lot of time to eat, what with all her kids and her volunteer work. Angie says that she got really thin last year because she was mourning her mother’s death (my sympathies, Angie – did you get those flowers I sent?) and couldn’t eat. I don’t quite understand this as I’ve steadily eaten my way through every life crisis I’ve ever suffered. But I think Brad will be relieved to be with a woman he can still see when she turns sideways.

The next thing I’ll need to upgrade for Brad is my breasts. Have you seen Angie’s lately? Even when she’s stick thin, she still has bountiful, bouncing boobs. Mine are more like National Geographic breasts than anything Brad has seen on Angie or in Playboy. Then again, Brad does have a tendency to adopt all those children from third-world countries, so maybe he’s okay with third-world breasts.

One thing I’m a little worried about when I marry Brad is that he likes to have lots of children. I’m hoping he’ll be satisfied with the six he already has, plus the one I have, because I’ve been having trouble getting pregnant lately. Although, I do feel like my eggs and uterus might perk up a bit if they see some of Brad’s DNA coming their way. If not, we could always adopt. I hear there are lots of children in third-world countries who need homes.

Now I just need to find someone else for Angie. Hey, I know! She could have George Clooney. If anyone can transform him from his anti-marriage, anti-kid, pro-pig Weltanschauung, it’s my good friend Angie.

It’s that time of year again, when parents take their kids for haircuts and dress them in their finest. No, I don’t mean Christmas, I’m talking about School Pictures.

Actually, my son isn’t even in real school yet. He still goes to preschool. So it was something of a shock to learn about school pictures for the first time a few years ago when he was in the two-year-old class. That year I did manage to dress him in a cute outfit, with a blue and yellow stripy sweater, navy corduroys, and brown dress shoes. They perched him on a bright yellow stool against a blue background – how fortuitous that the props were the same colors as his clothing! Unfortunately, it was in the middle of winter and he was fresh from a cold and an ear infection so he had dark circles under his eyes and a ring of chapped skin around the lower part of his mouth. Luckily, when the final pictures came, the photographer had done some Photoshop magic and the clown mouth was gone.

Last year, in the three-year-old class, I managed to sweet-talk my son into wearing a nice sweater and pants but he got stubborn with the shoes and insisted on sneakers. They posed him with a 3-foot yellow crayon against a blue backdrop, again, the perfect complementary colors for the outfit we settled on. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to cut his hair and it was a shaggy mess.

This year I am determined to ace the entire photographic experience. The week before pictures are scheduled, I take my son to get his hair cut. We wait while the mom with four kids and another on the way gets her smallest, screaming at the top of his lungs child finished up and then my son climbs onto the giraffe seat and has the vinyl cape fastened around his neck.

“How do you want it?” the young woman hair cutter person asks me.

“Uh, just like it is but shorter,” I reply. I’m not really sure of the terminology here as this is only the second time I have ever taken my son for a hair cut. My mother had been taking him monthly for the past year.

“What size clippers does he take?”

“Huh?” First off, I didn’t know there were sizes and second, I have no freaking idea!

“Whatever you think,” I say lamely. She looks at me kind of strangely, no doubt wondering what kind of lousy mother I am who doesn’t even know what size clippers her son takes. I use the opportunity to make her my friend and confess that I’m not usually in charge of this aspect of my son’s life. She laughs then and says okay, I’ll start with the smaller ones. I sit back in relief and dive back into the People magazine I picked up from the shelf. I’ve really got to find out about Brad and Angelina’s new set of twins. I’m so absorbed in this I don’t even watch my son’s haircut. He doesn’t pay any attention either; his face is glued to the cartoons playing on the TV. I guess we are both taking a little escape from reality here.

His haircut comes out great and I happily pay the $14 bucks and $3 tip. I mentally check “get haircut” off my list of Things To Do For Picture Day.

I almost screw up by forgetting to return my sign-up form and check by the deadline but I pull out a victory at the last moment and deliver it to the program head with a flourish. I also nail the old towel drive for needy doggies, the decorated letter-of-the-week, the frozen pizza and chocolate chip cookie dough fundraiser, and the bottle of honey for the “Buck a Bottle” booth at the fall fair. (Hmm, okay so maybe I’m feeling a little guilty about not signing up for any parent volunteer jobs at the beginning of the year.)

When picture day comes, I lay out a cute outfit on my son’s bed. I say, “I put out a cute outfit for you.”

Right away he starts arguing. “That’s not a cute outfit.”

“It is cute and you are cute, too.”

“I’m not cute and that’s not a cute outfit. Actually, I’m cute but that outfit is not cute.”

This conversation goes on for a while. We’ve got five minutes left before we have to leave and I’m starting to feel grumpy. “Please, please, please, just put this on,” I beg.

“No.”

I weigh my options: 1) Physically restrain him while putting on the cute outfit and then take a screaming angry kid to the camera man to have this moment immortalized for all time. 2) Cave in and let him wear whatever he wants, take him to school happy, avoid getting a headache, and roll my eyes and say, “What are you gonna do?” whenever anyone comments on the picture. I pick Option 2. As soon as I’ve made this decision, I’m galvanized into action. I spy his favorite shirt with a strange prehistoric looking fish on it sticking out of the laundry basket. I grab it and dance it in front of him. “How would you like to wear this shirt?” I say in my best Come get in my car and I’ll give you some candy voice.

His face lights up and he says, “YEAH!”

Score one for me! He puts on the cute outfit and I slip the ugly shirt over it. I don’t even ask him to wear his nice brown dress shoes. I just slip on the bad spiderman sneaks and off we go.

We nose into a parking space and watch the bajillion other children spilling out of their mini-vans and SUV’s. All dressed to the nines. The little boy exiting the van beside us even has his hair slicked back and is wearing a collared shirt. ALL the little girls are dressed in fairy-pink puffy concoctions with white tights and Mary Jane’s. I see the other moms sizing up my son’s outfit and I hear their internal dialogue: “What an idiot. Did she forget today is Picture Day?” “How could she bring her kid to school dressed like that on Picture Day?” “She must be poor. Look at the way she’s dressed.” “That kid needs a haircut.” This last because I’ve forgotten to mash my son’s hair down after he went to bed with it damp last night after a shower. (Yes, I do occasionally wash my child. Well, at least wet him down.)

My Son's Crazy Hair

I muscle my way down the crowded hallway, hug and kiss my baby goodbye, wish him a good day at school, but don’t tell him to smile for the camera because, with the way he’s dressed and that spiky hair, what difference could a smile make? Then I hustle on outta there, avoiding eye contact with the other moms.

After all, it’s just a picture.

My son had his 5-year-old wellness visit today (they aren’t called check-ups anymore!). A nurse called yesterday to confirm the appointment and inform me that I’d be charged a $40 fee if I did not show up. “And bring a first morning urine sample,” she added before hanging up.

Huh? A first morning urine sample? I’m pretty sure my son is not pregnant or ovulating. Those are the only reasons I know of to test first morning urine. I figure she must have us confused with the knocked-up teenager down the street. I decide to just ignore it. But then I start worrying about it. What if she really does need us to bring in some urine? What could she need it for? And how am I going to get it? I decide to call.

“It’s just to test blood sugar levels and…” She rattles off a list of other things I don’t catch. “But it’s completely optional,” she says. “So if you don’t want to do it you don’t have to.”

I hesitate. Of course I don’t want to collect my son’s pee. What would I put it in? A sippy cup? But then I think, what if I don’t get this test and something turns out to be horribly wrong with him. And he gets really sick and the situation turns grave and it could have been prevented if I had just sucked it up and nabbed some pee. So I say, “Well, what would I put it in?” She says any container will do: yogurt, plastic cup, even a plastic sandwich bag.

That night, we have fajitas and we just happen to finish off the container of sour cream. Perfect! It even has a lid. I wash it out and put it in the bathroom. I tell my son, “Tomorrow morning when you wake up, I want you to pee in this cup.” He thinks this is hilarious. “Pee in a cup?” he says, with an incredulous look in his face. “That’s right, babycakes,” I respond.

The next morning he wakes up and stumbles into the bathroom and cuts loose with a gush of pee into the toilet. I race down the hall and grab the sour cream container and hold it in the stream. “Oh no,” he says. “Not this.” I gather about an inch of pee and then pop the top on. “Good peeing,” I say.

At the doctor’s we hand over the pee to the nurse, who is impressed that I got a urine sample from a 5-year-old boy. But before I can question this, she rushes my son onto the scale to check his weight, measures his height, and gives an eye test. Then she ushers us into an exam room where she checks blood pressure and hearing. He passes everything with flying colors. Then she bustles off, telling my son to strip down to his underwear. I try to get him to sit on my lap and snuggle with me so I could warm him up like I used to do when he was smaller, but no go. He stays on the exam table.

We wait for the doctor. And wait. And wait. My son passes the time playing with his penis. He pulls it out the front opening of his Shrek underwear, so that his penis is coming out of Shrek’s face. He waves it at me and then pokes it back in and pulls it out the top of his underwear. “See,” he says, “I can pull it out here or here.” I roll my eyes. “Why don’t we talk about school?” I suggest. He likes this idea so we talk about his music class and then we sing all the songs he is currently learning. This takes up about 5 or 10 more minutes and still no doctor. Finally, we tire of singing and lapse into silence. He asks for his new Leapster and starts messing around with that and I root in my purse for my To-Do List du jour. That’s when the doctor comes in, probably thinking that I should be interacting with my child instead of sitting like a lump. Oh well, at least she didn’t come in when he had his penis sticking out of Shrek’s nose.

I really like this doctor. She’s been seeing my son since he was a baby and she is very calm and gentle. She looks at his spine, legs, arms, eyes, nose, ears, mouth. She did not examine his penis or scrotum this time, as she has done in the past. Maybe her hidden cameras picked up his little show earlier. Then she has my son hop on one foot, then the other, then walk on his toes, then on his heels. “He’s doing great,” she says. “What else can I do for you this visit?” I love when she asks this question. It’s so open-ended, it just invites an anxious mom to spill her guts and pepper the doc with queries. I ask about vitamins and a flu shot. She recommends both, then adds that he also needs his MMR and Varicella shots. I find out that MMR is measles, mumps, and rubella and Varicella is chicken pox. So that’s 3 shots for my brave little soldier.

The doctor leaves and we wait a long time for the nurse to come back in. We spend the time playing a game where I try to grab and kiss him and he jumps just out of reach. He loves this game and screeches with laughter. I get tired of it sooner than him (go figure), plus I really want to hug and kiss him so I break the rules and leap out of my seat to grab him. I plant a few good ones on his head before he sinks to the ground and says dramatically, “Oh my gosh, you winned.” Just then the nurse comes in and tells us that the fun is over. My son gets on my lap and I hold his arms so he can’t grab the needle. He gets 3 shots and watches each one go in. I tell him not to look. His face clenches up tight as he tries not to cry, but tears overwhelm him and stream down his face. He gets 3 colorful band-aids and I put his shirt back on and then my sweet growing-up-too-fast little boy snuggles in my lap and I hug and kiss him. After a few minutes, he starts to recover and sit up straight. “Boy, that really hurt, huh?” I ask. He bursts into tears again and I say, “Yeah, that was really scary. Let mommy hold you a little more.” So I get a few more minutes of snuggle time.

And you know what? I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. In fact, I’m thinking of scheduling another doctor’s visit next week. I’ll even collect more pee.