Randy (AKA “The Hubs”) is flying home from a week-long business trip and is due in any minute. The laundry is done for the first time all summer. The dog endured his trip to the vet + bordetella shot today and is happily snoozing at my feet. There’s homemade chocolate cake in the house. I have lots of paying writing and editing work to do tomorrow. And Matt, my son, is downstairs playing Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “Lucky Man” on the piano.

Life’s little pleasures. They mean a lot in the day-to-day scheme of things. (Although Randy returning after being gone for a week is a BIG pleasure.) A phone call from a friend. A great cup of coffee. An unexpected card in the mail. A walk on a gorgeous July morning.

What are the little pleasures in your life right now? Isn’t it amazing how something so small as (temporarily) having the laundry done can make your day?

I’m feeling like a bit of an odd duck lately. I’m hearing a lot of moms say “Oh, I’m so glad it’s summer! Things are more relaxed and I have so much more time.”

Seriously? I’m feeling like I need a giant DO-OVER button for my summer. I’ve been:

° Working

° Driving Matt to activities

° Going to the grocery store

° Driving Matt to activities

° Going to Target

° Working

Now, I love Target as much as the next mom, but come on! I need to take a break and read a book on the deck, with my shoes off, while drinking lemonade. (OK, in the evening? Maybe a glass of wine.) I need to get off this work-schlep-chores train and relax a bit more.

Can you relate? Are you with me? OK, let’s go squeeze some lemons, grab that book and take our shoes off.

See you on the deck.

I’m so happy to be able to share a terrific guest post today. Keira, who is 16, is the sibling of one of the 8th graders who was promoted at our local middle school on Tuesday night. This is in response to yesterday’s post on that event. (Let’s just say it prompted an interesting discussion!) I think she has a great perspective — and a heck of a lot of maturity. (I also think if every high school student in our town was as articulate as Keira, our English teachers would we thrilled.) Take it away, Keira…

As a 16-year-old girl who was there at promotion, I must agree with you. It’s disgusting. My year was even worse. I don’t understand how the parents of these girls let them walk out of the house looking like that.

I would never let my own daughter display herself in such an inappropriate fashion, nor would I ever feel okay dressing myself that way. Ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re thin and cute and want to show off, or if you’re not-so-thin and still feel like you need to show it all or fit in or whatever. It’s simply not okay.

The women in my life have shown me how to be modest and that one attracts people with how they dress. Obviously, we should not judge people by how they look. I’m not advocating that at all. I’m just saying that the girls who dress like they want a certain kind of attention will get it.

And for a 14-year-old  girl fresh out of junior high, that’s never good.

Last night we attended our son’s promotion from middle school. It was a wonderful evening, and we loved seeing so many kids that we’ve known for years — some since they were in diapers.

With 380+ kids in the 8th grade class, we saw a little bit of everything when it came to fashion. And let me be very clear, given what I’m about to say: The vast majority of kids followed the dress code that was distributed to parents on three different occasions.

But — and I’m not exaggerating here — about 10 percent of the girls looked like Vegas hookers, complete with stripper heels. We’re talking skin-tight dresses (with spandex to make them even more revealing), some strapless, at a length that barely covered their assets.

What are these parents thinking? Have they abdicated all authority over what their children do? Are they afraid to say no? Are some of the moms so hell-bent on having a daughter who’s part of the in crowd that they allow (or even encourage) her to dress like she’s about to slither around a pole at a sleazy bar?

These girls are FOURTEEN.

I don’t get it.

And another thing: As the mom of a 14-year-old boy, I’m working hard to teach my son to respect girls. It would be a whole lot easier to do that if some of these girls had a bit more respect for themselves.

Talk back: What do you think? Am I out of line here? What are you seeing in your community? And if you’re a parent who thinks this kind of dressing for an 8th grader is fine and dandy, would you please tell us why?

Rant alert! A friend just got rear-ended, this morning, by a guy who was looking down constantly in stop-and-go traffic. She’s pretty sure he was texting.

How can we stop people from doing this stupid thing? What is it going to take?

Actually, I would be totally OK with no cell use at all while driving. (And yes, I know a lot of people disagree with me.) I’ve seen so many drivers involved in heated, excited, animated conversations while on hands-free phones. It’s just not worth the risk. We’ve all heard the stats from AAA and NHTSA about hands-free yacking not being any safer than holding a cell while driving.

It’s not only where your hands are. It’s where your BRAIN is.

The person on the other end of the phone doesn’t know when you’re in a tricky driving situation that requires your full concentration. Someone sitting in the car and talking with you sees the situation and gets it. When my son, Matt, is driving with me, he knows that the time to ask me a question isn’t when I’m trying to merge onto the freeway.

Emergencies? No problem. Use the phone. But yacking with your girlfriend about what she got at Target while you drive to school to pick up the kids? Give me a break. It’s dangerous and it’s just not necessary.

I’ve been trying to not be the person on the other end of the phone when someone is on a cell while driving, too. I’ll admit I haven’t always asked to talk at another time when this happens. I do it sometimes. But not always. But I’m going to do it all the time now. Otherwise I’m being pretty two-faced about this.

I don’t want to be the person you’re talking to when you get in a wreck. I don’t want to be the person your child is talking to when she rolls the family SUV.

We set examples for our kids with everything we do. And we made a family commitment about this. Randy and I never talk on a cell, or text, while driving. (And we’ve managed to lead a pretty normal, happy life while not partaking in this part of the current driving culture, by the way.) Matt has gone thousands of miles with us in the car and has never seen us do it. He’s seen us pull over to make a call. Or ask him to answer a call while in the passenger seat. Or check messages when we get to our destination. But we don’t call and drive.

So when we tell him not to text or talk on his cell when he starts driving (soon – gulp), those won’t be empty words coming from mom and dad.

Thanks to Fred Goodall over at Mocha Dad for inviting me to write a guest post on his “Mocha Dads and Moms” feature. He asks moms to guest post and then he weighs in. Good stuff.

Let’s just say I thought I had witnessed rude behavior by kids on a plane (with inattentive parents who couldn’t have cared less). But Fred’s experience tops mine. Check it out and weigh in!

I was on a flight from to L.A. the other day. A mom with three three kids sat across from me, with one next to her and two in front of her.

Jason Kotecki said something over at Dumb Little Man (Tips for Life) the other day that really caught my attention:

The real world reveals the truth about quality time. A number of fathers could tell you about spending an entire day fishing with their child. You enjoy a great lunch on the boat, share some good laughs, soak in some sunshine, and even catch a few bluegill. But it’s only in the last ten minutes — as you’re turning into the driveway — when your kid finally opens up about getting bullied at school.

Your kids need quantity time out of the relationship with you. It’s not their job to be able to fit all of their stories and questions and hopes and dreams and fears into the sliver of time you’ve carved out as “quality time.”

Sometimes a meaningful interaction only takes five minutes. But sometimes you need five hours to get to that five minutes.

Kotecki makes so much sense here, and he says it so well. Check out the entire post and let me know what you think. We always-busy parents have been reminded of this for years, but rarely has anyone, in my experience, been so on the mark. Thanks, Jason.

I was talking with a friend who works in an orthodontist’s office recently, and the subject of retainers came up. I mentioned that Matt, my son, will get nagged to wear his retainers, which we picked up today. And then I said “but you probably hear that from all the parents, right?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said, and she went on to describe moms who say things like “Well, I can’t make her wear it. It’s her mouth.”

(Insert screeching-tire sound here.)

Wait a minute. Who’s the mom? Who’s the kid? Who is paying for those braces, that roof over the kid’s head, etc.? Who is supposed to be the mature adult who knows more and who is in charge of making good decisions for the sake of this kid’s health and future?

Do I sound a little fed up? Good.

I see so much of this in my community, and I can only assume that the “kids-in-charge” trend is spreading across the land:

“My kid will only eat fast food.”

“My three kids like three different things, so I have to make three different meals at dinner.”

“My kid won’t go to bed on time. I explain to her that she needs sleep, but she just won’t.”

Seriously?

Your kid has enough friends. He doesn’t need you to be his buddy — despite how much you don’t want him to be mad at you for acting like a parent. He doesn’t need you to never frustrate him. To tip-toe around and make three dinners every night and pay the ortho bill while that retainer sits on the bathroom counter.

He needs a parent. Be one. He’ll fuss and fight and complain. But secretly? He’ll be glad that you care enough to be the adult, the person who helps set him on the right path in life.

And when he looks in the mirror when he’s 25? He might even see straight teeth.

As the mom of a 14 year old, there’s always pressure to enroll my kid in the latest “enrichment” activity… Summer reading, music lessons, sports lessons… Fortunately, after a few years, you realize there are only so many hours in a day — and so many dollars in a budget — and you find a happy balance.

But woe to the soon-to-be new parents out there, who are now being told they need to enrich their child before he even has a chance to take his first breath. Take the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System, a product that straps onto Mom’s bulging belly, emitting 16 varied sounds that resemble a mother’s heartbeat.

For $149, your unborn baby has class twice a day for an hour, and the sonic pattern introduces her to a sequential learning process, based on the natural rhythms of the womb. (So the natural rhythms of the womb aren’t enough?) The rhythms of the sounds increase incrementally as the pregnancy progresses. Until what? The baby pops out snapping his fingers, doing calculus and demanding an iPod?

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