puberty

“Do I Look Fat?”

It happened today. A day I’ve dreaded since my little girl was a baby. We were getting ready to go swimming. Crowding around the bathroom sink with her little brother, the three of us busy dodging elbows and weaving through legs while searching for an opening to rinse and spit. Amid the chaos she stopped, looked me straight in the eyes and barely audible through her sad, embarrassed tone said, “Mommy, I feel like this bathing suit makes me look fat.” I froze as my heart broke. Thoughts like molasses, I sensed them trying to call an emergency meeting while unable to break free from the muck. The only clear ones I could make out were “How did this happen? My baby. She is only 6. What do I say?” Believe me when I say while I’m certainly not batting a thousand in the “saying the wrong thing in...

Top 10 Things That Smell Better Than Your Teenaged Son’s Body Spray

I don’t know what Santa was thinking. Maybe he had sleigh-lag resulting in a lapse of judgment? He gave our 13-year-old son a gift set featuring a very popular body spray. Our son was bestowed with body wash, deodorant, and spray in a scent called Dark Temptation. He was happy with the gift, but seemed to forget about it until school started after winter break. We had to remind him, a regretful error we will mourn. On school mornings, he’d emerge from his bedroom lair in the basement smelling of spicy swaggering confidence. At first, he controlled himself and applied the mist sensibly. Over time, however, it seemed like he wrapped himself in it like a mummy bundled in bandages. I began to smell him before I saw him. Opening the basement door meant being pummeled in the face by ...