There's a saying in Texas that many (too many) women adhere to: "The bigger the hair, the closer to God."  But there's a lesser-known assertion that many teenagers believe: "The bigger the mum, the more you are loved."  In the Lonestar State, homecoming is not just about a football game under a wide twilit sky, a dance in a gym bedecked with ribbons and balloons, or dressing up in fancy clothes with your friends. It's about homecoming mums. Huge, showy homecoming mums. Legend has it that fall-blooming chrysanthemum corsages have been part of the homecoming tradition since the first homecoming football game, celebrated in Missouri in 1911. Back then, a male would bestow this gift to his female date to wear during the festivities that celebrated returning alumni and residents. Texas being Texas, they took it up a few notches. In 1936, a florist added school-color ribbons to the traditional corsage for a Baylor homecoming game. And a Texas icon was born.  ...

I see those parents dropping off their cherished children at college. I see photos of the family minivan - so recently scattered with Cheerios and Happy Meal toys - now filled to the windows with clothes, bedding, and furniture. I see dads manning a push-cart full of belongings up a sidewalk and into a dorm elevator. I see moms helping their children make the twin-sized bed, unfurl the curtains across the window, fold into drawers the clothes that suddenly seem so big and still so small. I see fierce goodbye hugs laced with tears, parents telling children to call home every single day to check in. A complicated potpourri of pride and joy and grief and embarrassment.  And I remember how my going-off-to-college experience looked nothing like that.  As a child of parents who couldn't be relied upon, I mostly did it alone. My dorm, 1998 I suppose I always assumed I'd go to college. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I'd been told over and over that colleg...

It waits. In January, my sixth-grader missed his first middle school dance. He had really wanted to attend this masquerade-themed party for three local parish schools. I confirmed with his friends' moms that they would be there. He designed a mask made to look like a monster character he has written about for a Young Authors book. I helped him bring it to life.  The plan (top) and the execution (bottom) He was all set to have a great time. And then: the flu. On the Wednesday before the Friday dance, he came home early from school feeling queasy. By dinner time he was dealing with nausea, a stuffy head, runny nose, a slight cough, and a 102-degree fever. He hardly moved off the couch for the next two days. When he asked through a fatigued haze if he could still go to the dance, I had to break the bad news that he could not. Tears dripped down his flushed cheeks. My heart ached for him, because I had wallowed through that kind of disappointment. But mine has an embarrassing story att...

I carried a pink lunchbox every day.  Bumpy and thick, the molded plastic was designed to keep the contents cold during sweltering Texas school days. The outside had horizontal furrows, too narrow to stick my finger inside, but I traced them anyway like they were Braille and I was trying to understand life. The inside of the lunchbox featured separate compartments for a sandwich and chips, plus a Thermos or can of Coke (it's all called Coke in Texas).  Actual lunchbox, photo courtesy of eBay But on this day there was no drink, and the lunchbox was considerably lighter at the loss.  It must have been the end of the month, because at home we had run out of whatever I usually brought to drink in the school cafeteria. There would be no trips to the grocery store until my dad got paid, our next booklet of paper food stamp coupons arrived, or we found time and gas money to visit the SoS Spirit of Sharing pantry in the next town over. It was the late '80s, either 3rd or 5th grad...

Good evening, DHS alumni, and happy 25th high school non-reunion. Tonight we are not standing under balloon arches, not reliving the "Around the World in One Night" senior prom, not ambling through the lower commons with wonder that we made it out of here alive.  Of course we're not discussing what didn't happen at the aborted 10-year reunion, when too few of us were interested in coming home - or too many of us never left. We're not discussing whether social media or this town, small and rural and cliquish even then, was the death of that get-together. Both can be black holes if you're not paying attention. I'm enjoying not lingering by the punch bowl and not talking about the eerie red eye of the purple and white bronco on the wall - the eye which, after a football win, glowed on the horse head that lacked any curves just like me. I'm not telling you these are real and they're fabulous. It's a pleasure not to walk down the 100 Hall, the 200 H...

When he first mentioned wanting to perform at the school's annual talent show this year, I didn't think he was very serious. So I let it pass.  He had brought it up last year, too. But because the only talent he could think to show off was his impressive prowess at escaping Endermen and destroying Creepers in Minecraft, he was merely a spectator that year.  About a week after first talking about it, my fourth-grade son again mentioned his plans to try out for the show. This time I needed to listen.  He said he wanted to sing as his talent. In the last few months, my first-born has discovered YouTube music videos specific to his interests in video games. It turns out there are playlists full of Linkin Park and Evanescence songs set to Minecraft play, as well as songs written specifically for the weird characters of Rainbow Friends in Roblox. The one for Purple is his favorite. He wanted to sing one of those songs, one that had words appropriate for school.  But, until...

All you can do is not think about it. Don't picture your child hearing loud bangs like the biggest door slamming. Don't imagine the confusion clouding his face, quickly replaced by the understanding that he's in danger. Don't share the panic he feels when he thinks he's forgotten the active shooter drills he practiced , those terrifying moments when adults pretend that someone has arrived to hurt them even though adults are supposed to keep them safe. photo by Nicole Hester/The Tennessean via AP Don't visualize his eyes getting wide with fear and his sweet face draining of color as his teacher gathers the children into a knot and tells them to go go go silently, quickly, to their safe space, wherever that is. Don't think of the black tip of a long gun bobbing as it's carried down the hall past the cafeteria with its small seats, past the trophy case full of pride, past your child's classroom door.  Try not to imagine your child wetting her pants in s...

"Some kids just need it," the principal told me, with a look on her face that said she understood that need. We were standing in a doorway during the school open house, talking about some of the things the school offers that are so beneficial for my children.  One of those things is giving students the choice to have "quiet lunch" - meal time with just a few other students in a classroom, away from the cavernous cafeteria-slash-auditorium that teems with boisterous students. It's was a new program this fall, and both of my kids joined in.  Over the last five years, my son has complained many times about how loud the cafeteria can get. So loud that he has to yell to be heard, so loud that the principal has walked down from her office to deliver admonitions and a warning glare. Like his mother, my son finds it overwhelming and distressing to be in noisy or chaotic places for too long; it was no surprise to me when he said he signed up to have "quiet lunch...

I had to ask my son last night.  I didn't want to scare him by telling him what happened in Texas, but I had to know how his teachers had prepared him for what has happened at far, far too many schools since Columbine High School.  "Honey, have your teachers talked to you about what to do if a bad guy with a gun came inside the school?"  He didn't even hesitate. He didn't even hesitate. "Yeah. They said to lock the door and go out the window," my son answered. "Unless the bad guy is coming in through the window, then we go out the door."  My sweet child -- who has been alive fewer years than have passed since a gunman blasted his way through a glass panel at Sandy Hook Elementary and killed 20 first-graders and six staff -- has been trained on what to do during a shooting.  He is not law enforcement. He was not conscripted into the military.  He is 9.  I know how he's the first one to come to the aid of another person. I've seen him sto...

"Who did you play with at recess today?" "We didn't get recess!" my son exclaimed. "Mr. K said he was embarrassed that we were so loud at lunch, so we had to walk five laps around the parking instead of playing."  This year my oldest is in third grade, and third grade is hard. It's changing classes, letter grades, and increased expectations. And we've moved away from motherly teachers toward tougher teachers, it seems.  My son's story took me back to my own elementary days, in a sand-colored building with three cavernous halls ready to swallow me whole. Each classroom ceiling terminated in the point of a triangle, its vertical side featuring a row of windows designed to withstand Gulf hurricanes and tornadoes. But the storm I weathered in fourth grade wasn't wind and water. It was Mr. Meacham, who taught math, science, and social studies - and also educated me in debilitating anxiety.  Fourth-grade me I first became aware of Mr. Meacham...

"Maybe he's sad," he told me. "Or jealous of my awesome dinosaur roar." My 8-year-old and I were laying on his bed after lights-out a few weeks ago, discussing his day. Lately he's been dealing with some mild teasing at school. A couple of classmates have been telling him he's annoying, locking him out of recess games, and mocking his first name. It's nothing that we feel rises to the level of bullying, but rather the low-level needling that virtually all schoolchildren endure at some point.  "That's what my friend said. That if someone teases you, it's because they're jealous," he added, and then demonstrated a velociraptor sound that fell somewhere between gargling alligator and demon-possessed lion. If he wants to think other children only wish they could sound that vicious , who am I to argue?  But how do you explain to your kids that sometimes people are just mean? The unfortunate truth is, it's a tough world out there...

You know how it goes at the end of December. You get together with friends or strangers, watch the glittering ball drop, kiss and toast, wish everyone a happy New Year. Or maybe you eschew the party and go to bed at 10 p.m., which is invariably more enjoyable if you ask me. Either way, you wake up the next day and vow to stick to your resolutions...or actually make some this year. About half of Americans make New Year's Resolutions. We pledge to start exercising or stop gossiping or finally write that book (you know who you are). We start the year with good intentions to be more positive and drink more water. And this time,  this time we're really going to stick to those life changes. We swear. But about three-quarters of us fail to keep our resolutions. They're too ambitious, too vague, no fun, or we flat-out forget. By late March or mid-February or January 15, those resolutions have become merely wild-eyed dreams we had when we were younger and less naive. 

I feel like such a hypocrite. Since March, I've been talking, telling, and pleading that the coronavirus is real, with serious consequences. I told my friends, family, and strangers on the internet that we must take steps to slow or stop the spread. Stay in when you can. Keep your social distance. Wear your mask. Our most important task right now is to reducing the number of people who face death or long-term health complications from this pernicious virus. Now it's nearly September, and I'm voluntarily sending my children back to school in person.   Sure, whatever. This seems smart. We were left floundering when schools first shut down in the spring, just like most other families. Distance learning did not go well for us. Twice a week, I sat my son down in front of a Zoom meeting and spent the next 45 minutes telling him sit still, stop making faces, no one wants to see the inside of your nose, quite playing with your pencil, unmute yourself, don't work ahead of your ...

It's been just over two years since we made the heart-wrenching decision to withdraw our son  two weeks into his second year in a preschool program. They had declared him "atypical of his peers," insisted on having him evaluated despite advice to the contrary from his doctor and a former school psychologist, and told us they didn't have the services he needed (before knowing or caring what his actual needs were). Two years ago I was beside myself with outrage, displeasure, and anxiety. I knew we needed to get him out of there and onto a different path, even if I didn't know which direction to go. My job was merely to do the next right thing, one thing at a time, until we found where we were supposed to be. A banana and an orange are different, but both grow from flowers. The best choice we have made for our son was rejecting the school's pushes to have him labeled at such a young age, and enrolling him in a Montessori setting where he could blossom i...

Sometimes you don't know the right move, but you damn sure know the wrong one. I had to pull my 4-year-old out of a preschool that he loved due to reasons he doesn't know and would not understand. He's going to dearly miss his best friend, an extrovert who has helped draw him out of his shell. He's going to be discomforted by a new environment, new people, new routines, new rules. But I can't leave him in a situation created by adults who, I really believe, refused to work with this child's best interests at heart. There is no manual or how-to guide for making the right choices for your one beautiful, unique, loved child. Every choice has repercussions -- good and bad. Some I can see right now, some I won't be able to see for years. It's terrifying and enormous that what I do today will reverberate within him for the rest of his life. If I deliberate too long, I'm paralyzed. So many what-ifs. So many could-be's. Not atypical. Buds just ha...

As I sat down in the tiny chair and steeled myself for Pre-K orientation, I began to look around the room at the small desks, the empty bulletin boards, and the other people who were there with me. And I noticed something -- all of the other parents looked so grown up. They definitely looked like parents. Like what my friends' parents looked like when I was a kid. Like mature, capable adults prepared to successfully handle whatever challenges life may throw at them via their children. Claire Huxtable could really adult. And then I had a terrible realization: I'm in the wrong room . You know where I should be? Freshman orientation. Not for my kid -- don't be ridiculous. For me. I'm totally ready for high school now. I'm confident enough to care less about what others think of me and strong enough to resist peer pressure. I can smoothly navigate a sea of hormones (unless it's PMS). I'm really good at time management, not to mention reasonably responsi...

Heading into the parent-teacher meeting, I was nervous. Was pushing for my son to keep Baby Doll with him at preschool a bad choice for his long-term emotional development? Am I fighting for the right decision? And what if my son's preschool teacher drew a hard line and said nobody keeps the comfort item, no way, no how ? What would I do then? I prefer everything to have a clear set of instructions. Unfortunately, parenting doesn't work like that. Without a map or guidelines, or even a glimpse of the bigger picture, we're all just guessing our way through a beautiful and dangerous labyrinth. Worry is my constant accessory, like a leaden heart-shaped pendant on a chain around my neck. All I had to go on here was what I felt, and what my kiddo felt, and some vague sense of moving forward.  Start here. "I can't go on the carpet!" my son told me emphatically. I didn't know what this meant, and the helplessness was agonizing. "Tell me what scar...

Standing under what should have been a warm, soothing shower spray, I had a sudden thought: What if my son poops his pants at school? And the school has to call me to come get him, but it's during the baby's nap time so I have to go upstairs and wake her, and I think it's easiest to take her infant carrier upstairs to plop her right inside in hopes she'd fall back asleep in the car, but then carrying her and the carrier I trip and tumble down the stairs and break my arm, and I have to call the school to say I can't come get my son because I have to call 911 and go to the emergency room and I don't know who is going to take care of either child while I'm there and my poor sweet son would have to spend an eternity standing in his soiled pants, in front of the other kids, wondering where momma was and why she wasn't coming to make this better. There in the shower, overcome with guilt and heartache and worry for my child, I felt lightheaded, hot, and v...

Come closer, dear child. You have the most intoxicating aroma about you. It smells like new school supplies. That pack on your back has the pungent, stiff fragrance of new plastic -- the kind you find on character book bags, in pencil boxes, and wafting around action figures patiently waiting for you to come home and play. Those pencils smell like soft wood shavings, faintly cedar, and cool stony graphite. Your rectangular pink eraser, bright as bubble gum, has the essence of rubber and vinyl and the hope of getting it right on the third try. And this package of construction paper has a bouquet like cardboard, but far sweeter and softer. It brings to mind the creamy, faintly chemical smell of Elmer's glue. I bet you have some of that in there, too, just waiting to be globbed onto thirsty paper. You're going to take those redolent school supplies with you into a classroom, child, where you'll be greeted by more odors whose memory will stay with you well past your...