I'm Laughing at You Not With You

Lapel pin: stylish and versatile.
Said no one ever.

Tonight, both of my middle school daughters received Presidential Awards for academic excellence which included a certificate and letter signed by President Obama as well as a lapel pin (do they even own a single item of clothing with said lapel?). While of course, I'm incredibly proud, I'm really not much of a braggart; to the contrary actually. I usually seize any opportunity to take a slight dig at my kids in the name of learning to laugh at yourself. It's my belief that a thick skin and a heaping helping of humility will get you far in life.

My oldest is gearing up for high school in the fall. I'm not sure since how this happened since I'm positive I was just pulling Polly Pocket shoes out of her nostril. Life's just moving along and then one day you find yourself explaining the HPV vaccine: You know what hurts worse than the series of three shots? Ovarian cancer, that's what.

Or, you secretly and perplexingly pray your kid takes the piercing route over tattoos. At least piercings are temporary. But wait. What if the piercings lead to those weird saucer earlobe stretcher things? Crap. Maybe tattoos are better. Lasers are improving year after year so removal might be a more viable option down the road. What the hell kind of internal dialogue is this?? And this doesn't even cover driving, boys, friends, drugs, drinking, studying, internet predators, sexting, skirt lengths, or drinking Coke and eating Pop Rocks.

For now, however, I'm lucky enough that my girls (ages 14, almost 12 and 8) are keeping it real and keeping it young. They might be growing up fast, but just this past weekend, each of the inquiries below was uttered by a different daughter. I won't reveal who said what because there's an outside chance they might read this someday and even though we all make fun of each other, we still need to live together.

• Are conjoined twins attached at the vagina?
• Do you just call the police and say, "Hello, can I be in the witness protection program?"
• Would an eyeball be considered meat?

I'm thrilled they still think of shit like this. I'm going to try to savor these moments in between my usual rantings about messy rooms (your wet towel on wool carpeting smells like a petting zoo in a rainstorm!) and running late (no, you can't flat iron your hair in the car). I love that they haven't figured it all out yet, because really, who has?