"Hello, Joshua." 

"Hi, mom."

"This is an official 'mom call.'" I got right to it.  "My day-before-your-10th-semester phone call."

"Right on schedule," my dry-witted firstborn replied.

Happy New Year!  I hope 2009 is filled with more thrills, less spills and paid bills (translation: happiness, health and prosperity!) for you and yours!

Twenty-eight years ago last night (New Year's Eve), my husband and I got engaged.  I was 21 and he was two months shy of his 25th birthday.  We had a party that night and rang in 1981 as a couple committed to a future together.

Not too bad.  Three kids, countless presents, only two returns.  That may even be a record.  The wrapping paper deluge has been cleaned up and I think I'm officially done baking for the year.  Next stop, New Years.

How about a little holiday humor to share with the kids?

Q.  What do snowmen eat for breakfast?

A.  Frosted Flakes

Q.  What do you get when you eat Christmas decorations?

A.  Tinsel-itus

Q.  Why does Santa go down the chimney?

A.  Because it soots him.

Q.  What do you sing on a snowman's birthday?

A.  Freeze a jolly good fella!

Q.  How is the Christmas alphabet different from the ordinary alphabet?

"Snow days" didn't exist in southern California, where I grew up, for obvious reasons.  Schools closed only for catastrophic events, such as rampant brush fires, devastating earthquakes (after the fact) or other unexpected causes threatening life and/or limb.  

A survey of 1,280 teens and young adults released last week by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com is dumbfounding (with an accent on "dumb"), to say the least. 

I just received a press release about The Wizard of Oz coming to TPAC next month.  It reads:  "...this production was designed to honor everyone's memories of the classic 1939 film."  The memorable film, of course, has become a universal shared experience.  You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't seen sepia-toned Kansas turn into the Technicolor Land of Oz.  Families have been watching Toto pull back the curtain on the powerful wizard for almost 80 years, and it never seems to lose its appeal.  Even adults, who've probably seen it more

About 400 Cairo boys, ages 15 -17, were recently arrested by Egyptian police.  Their offense:  flirting with girls.

The teens were targeted in front of schools and along the Nile's banks, and will soon be brought before a judge.  The high school boys are expected to be fined, according to a police official.

To my amazement (read: horror), the top three searches on Yahoo! in 2008 were:  1. Britney Spears; 2.  WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment); and 3.

Couldn’t tell there was a recession yesterday at the Green Hills Mall. After 10 minutes of fruitless searching and dizzying circling, we finally found a cramped space at the very top of a packed parking structure. (My husband took the opportunity to remind me how much he dislikes parking structures – leftover California earthquake “heebie jeebies.”)
 

Well, our early Thanksgiving was a huge, exhausting success!  Everyone left filled and fulfilled.  Now, at least for our family, the hoilday has come and gone, so it's sort of strange to hear others still referring to their upcoming celebrations.

It was bound to happen.  Sooner rather than later.  When I broached the subject of Thanksgiving with my two oldest children (20 & 23), a bloated pause preceded throat clearing and deep breaths.  Independent of one another, my oldest son and only daughter told me that they had made plans with their significant others' families this year.  Their voices were even, polite and, I think, even tinged with flickers of sadness.  Without saying as much, they wanted me to understand, and not be hurt.  After all, I know them better than I know myself.

I'm not quite sure why my type-A personality doesn't extend to my holiday gift-buying tendencies.  It's just about this time of year, while planning Thanksgiving (this year, for 14 instead of our usual intimate six -- five of us plus my mom), that I realize I haven't bought a thing and I'm running out of time. About 6 weeks and counting...fast! Part of it is financial.  I keep waiting for a little "surplus" one month before I start shopping.  Sometimes, that surplus never materializes.  Other years, I'm just late.

A new national study by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, discovered that 213,000 plus children under 18 years of age are treated each year in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for playground-related injuries; the number of injuries stayed consistent during the 10-year study.

Despite playground guidelines and standards, high numbers of playground equipment-related injuries illustrate remaining unsafe conditions for our children.  Parents should be aware of the study's key findings:

I heard the frustration and sadness tinged with anger in the mom’s voice. Even on the other end of a phone line, I recognized it well. About five years ago, it was my quivering voice on some expert’s voicemail begging the virtual (though highly-recommended) stranger to “please help me help my son.”

I stopped to chat with a long-time neighbor yesterday.  We both have three kids, who've gone to school with each other for years.  After standard pleasantries were exchanged, she asked me if I had heard about her 17-year-old's recent car accident.  Though most subdivision "news" spreads faster than an outbreak of chicken pox, I hadn't heard a thing.  Apparently, rushing home to make curfew on a Saturday night two weeks ago -- driving too fast and intoxicated -- he flipped and totaled his car about a mile and a half from home.  Miraculously, other than surg

My teenager should get an award...an award for "Most Excuses."  Last week it was a stuffy nose, then a headache and finally a pain in his ankle that Logan cited as reasons why he couldn't complete his Biology homework.  This weekend he claimed that exhaustion and an all-day acting workshop (very strenuous...NOT!) should excuse him from Spanish homework.

Confession:  Hubby and I are going out for dinner and a movie tomorrow night...on October 31!  After 22 consecutive Halloweens, we've left all our haunted house trimmings in the boxes that have stored them in three different garages, two states and for almost a quarter century.

Logan spent 20 minutes yesterday afternoon searching for (and harumphing about!) his skateboarding helmet before he realized (read: I finally insisted that he sit down and calmly think about the last time he wore it!) that he'd left it at a friend's home the previous weekend.

Today, it was his baseball mitt.  His aggravating and noisy "hunts" always begin the same way.  With his majesty shouting throughout the house, "MOM!  Do you know where my _____ is?"  "My" being the key word in that question.

There's definitely something to birth order affecting personality.  My oldest is the most conservative of the three, not into risk-taking and definitely disciplined compared to his younger siblings.  My middle child is good at compromise and has exceptional people and negotiating skills.  The youngest is charming, creative, funny (they're all pretty funny, actually), manipulative and fearless.