On the Sunny Side: I Made Some Kick-Ass Snickerdoodles in Cooking Class

Tootsie: Did you notice I didn't post an entry yesterday?
Mr. Farklepants: Yeah, what gives? You know your son started jr. high.
Tootsie: I know.
Mr. Farklepants: Where's his entry? It's like you love the Girl more.

When I dropped Boy-Child#1 off for his first day of junior high and caught a glimpse of him in the rear view mirror, he seemed so small in front of that giant school. He was on his own, independent of me, to navigate this new territory. I was doing so well until that reflection of him showed itself in my mirror. Then came the waterworks.

You know what terrifies me the most? Me. Me when I was in junior high. I know what I did. It was the span of my life when everything my mother taught me and warned me against went right out the window. [I was really such a good girl before then]. It was when I got drunk for the first [and not last] time. It was when my first kiss happened. With tongue. Cigarettes were smoked. It's when I ignored Nancy Regan and didn't say no, and tried something that involved rolling papers. I occasionally smelled of bong water. I had my first experience with a bully; and a scary mean chick at that. Bitch was huge. And beefy. It was when I broke curfew even though it meant risking my Depeche Mode tickets. And possibly death.

Boys finally had muscles on their biceps. And deeper voices. And less [imagined] cooties. Then came things like birth control. And celebrating relationships by the months. Passing notes in class with promises of being 2gether4ever and promptly having your heart broken. There were cliques and groups and exclusion and inclusion. The angst so thick in the air it could be cut with a knife. Junior high was like a hormone festival with education on the side to break up all of the sex wanting.

There was a great deal of doing things you didn't really want to do but did them just so you'd be accepted. It almost didn't matter by whom so long as they included you. If there is one thing I can impress upon my children it's THAT. Don't do that. No one is going to like you because of what you do but rather because of who you are. Unfortunately, they don't believe you know what you're talking about. Because you just don't know MOoooOOM! Except, hello Dude! Yes way. Totally been there done that.

And Boy-Child#1's first day? He did great! No problems and he even, kind of sort of, understood his schedule that I spent the next two hours trying to decipher. The school has either made it so ridiculously complicated just to screw with the kids heads, or maybe, just maybe it's intentional so that they'll all be so worried about where they're supposed to be that there will be little time for getting into trouble. Or catching venereal disease.

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On a totally unrelated note, according to my Sitemeter, the following Google search directed a visitor to my blog. MY blog:

"perimenopause is making my vagina stink"

That is unfortunate. I'm sorry that I'm unable to assist you.