Could it have been something I said?

“@$%!!!!!!!”

More commonly translated in prime time as: “Blankety-blank-blank ….bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!!”

Evidently, I had children … then became a truck driver.

That's what my husband likes to tell people, anyway.

It's true.

I could make a better effort to bury the unmentionable words in my vocabulary.

But I don't. Stubbing my toe. ... Stepping on a pointy building block in my bare feet. … Finding the bathroom toilet overflowing after a roll's worth of paper had been stuffed inside. … All of these occurrences seem appropriate reasons for inappropriate words.

I may not be able to knit yarn into a scarf, but I can knit together a stream of expletives that could make a teenager's hair curl.

It hadn't always been this way, although, over the years, it has ebbed and flowed.

There was a time in my life when I just didn't like the sound of swear words.

I blanched upon hearing them; wanted to crawl under the floorboards and disappear.

I was probably seven.

Of course, I outgrew it.

By the time I graduated from college I had not only earned a degree in Fine Art, I had gained mastery level skills in profanity.

Still, it was just another phase that would be sloughed off for self preservation (also known as trying to impress potential employers) as I was trying to feign adulthood.

By the time I got married I was almost tame, with only the most intentioned of lapses. Why, I'd even taken to flipping friends “The Wrong Finger” (index) for comic effect.

But then kids came along and somehow my nose must have grown so immense that I could no longer even see my mouth let alone watch it.

“@$$&*#!!!”

“You said a bad a word,” my kids sing in that accusatory tone no one (and I mean NO ONE) likes. Children are such goody-two-shoes. It's disgusting.

“There are no 'bad' words,” I insist. “There are just words that are inappropriate to use at certain times and under certain conditions.”

Such as when grandma is visiting.

Or during math class.

When you're at a play date at a friend's house. ... or just generally when any adult is potentially listening.

“You don't want to be that kid. … You know, the kind of kid who outs their parents as uncultured swine.”

“Or the kid no one invites back,” my daughter quips.

She's so smart.

Yet here we find ourselves, often in public, looking pink in the cheeks, wondering if we actually heard what we think we heard coming out of our cherubic kindergartener's mouth.

“What did you say?” I'll ask incredulously then quickly add “we don't use words like that” so the lady to behind us in line knows how perfectly I parent.

To which he'll laugh,“Yeah, right. Remember when you burned your hand this morning on the frying

pan? What did you say?”

“Fudge puddles? I believe I said 'Fudge puddles.”

“Might have been Cheez-its?

“Oh, oh, wait … I know … It was Smothers Brothers!!!”

He just shook his head.

The lady behind us changed lines.

I'm sure it couldn't have been anything I said.

Don't fear the cycle of the snake, fear the recycling of the dragon

Chinese New Year slithered in this week to my children's delight.

All week long Ittybit has been studying the customs and traditions that cycle and weave and undulate and blast into colorful orbit around Asian communities worldwide. She scours the internet looking for creations, foods and fireworks.

She slides the screen of her tablet, searching through parades in China, Philadelphia and Chicago for inspiration.

She stops on a page adorned with a snake – the animal of the year -- as I read over her shoulder …

“Huh … it's actually the year of the Black Water Snake to be specific,” I point to the small print.

“That's cool, I guess,” she says, wishing I would go haunt her brother.

“Did you know that the snake is a sign of flexibility and strength?”

“Yes. I see that,” she answers, annoyed at my continuing intrusion.

“And that a water snake is a sign of financial prosperity?”

“I don't know … that might be canceled out by the color black, seeing as how that makes it all a bit murky. Like you can't see it at the bottom of the water.”

“Not to mention the black mamba … Now that's a deadly snake!”

“MOM! Shussh! You're going to scare dad!”

To say he's not fond of serpents is an understatement.

Whether one needs to be taken out of the pool filter or used to clear a drain matters not – He refuses to handle either.

But snake or dragon, tiger or rabbit, even he admits the Lunar New Year is a colorful, other-worldly, 15-day experience that makes the western celebration of lowering a crystal ball in the dark of night seem anemic on the verge of bloodless.

Just the passing of time with corporate sponsors.

Ittybit is especially excited for this New Year, since her class is celebrating with a party and sample platter of foods. The fact that she and her classmates mostly fall into the category of Black Water Sheep did little to dampen her excitement at being able to label her brother a Red Fire Pig and point to Chinese astrological charts as evidence.

Perhaps what delights her most -- and what she relishes revealing to teachers and friends – are the Brown Earth Monkey-like antics of her dear-old-mother the year we made a cardboard parade dragon one winter break two Februaries ago. And how we completed it just in time for the town's annual People's Parade parade in July.

The way she explains, however, hinges on the following year, in which parade patriarchs put forth a proclamation reminding residents to highlight their favorite AMERICAN traditions as part of the Independence Day procession.

“She may throw monkey-wrenches into the works, but she means well,” their father laughs, before reconsidering: “Hey! Wait a minute … how did I end up having to dance with the head of the dragon down main street?”

I shrug. So I confused the Melting Pot imagery with Independence Day. It happens.

Ittybit laughs.

“Oh, yeah. That was hilarious.”

“You know what's going to be even more hilarious? … When mom brings it to school so you and your friends can dance with it through the hallways … ”

Ittybit stops laughing.

“But … She recycled it.”

“If by RECYCLE you mean she's out there right now stuffing it into the trunk of the car? Then yes. She's recycling it.”

One-dog wrecking crew

The damage was shocking.

It must have been a freak storm that upended the house, sending it toppling off its multi-colored brick foundation into the neighboring structure.

A straight-line wind of sorts must have swept through the hallway, ignored the recycling ready for transport to its next incarnation, ruffled piles of newly laundered duds awaiting new assignments in various bureaus upstairs, and barreled through the little Levittown that had sprung up on the living room floor.

I'd just left for a moment or two – time enough to get a cup of coffee and a cruller – planning to return to the building site refreshed and re-caffeinated.

Instead, I walked in on chaos.

What had been as fine an example of LEGO architecture as an untrained playhouse builder could muster was now a pile of rubble.

The Champ was blinking in disbelief amid the devastation. His mouth was arrested soundlessly in the likely processing of a vowel. … But he didn't cry.

He choked out one word:

“Rose,” fingering the most likely suspect.

The dog was nowhere to be found.

Or at least that was what she wanted us to believe.

She was probably hiding in her “room” – lounging amid the remnants of the children's wrecked toys – waiting for her name to be linked together with a reprimand and chain of muddled expletives.

In fact, I've often find her in her “safe place” whenever I return and find bits of this or pieces of that – sometimes recognizable items that have been chewed into an unsalvageable pulp.

It's not her fault. She's just a dog, who, left to her own devices will get into mischief if not properly supervised. I know I shouldn't really blame her … though I do, whether it's her fault or not.

For instance:

“Ma-uhmmmm,” said The Champ, three hours before the Super Bowl caused him to remember he was once the proud owner of a fist-sized Nerf football, and wouldn't-it-be-fun-to-play-football-in-the-house. “Hey, I can't find my football,” he said, which all mothers know is code for “Find it for meeeeeeee! Now! please?”

“You mean the one I snuck into the yard sale box while you were busy selling lemonade to the neighbors last summer?” Come on. I'd never be crazy enough to say aloud in a million years. “Oh, sorry bud. The dog chewed it up,” I said instead.

What? She's not going to say anything. And besides with all the toys I've patted her head for pre-chewing before the dustpan cycle, I feel a little guilty chastising her for laying waste to the boy's plastic village.

It's not as if she breathes fire.

She's just a little overzealous – the bull in the china shop kind, not the oversized lizard in Tokyo variety.

The Champ gets it. He realizes she can't help herself.

She's eaten so many kitchen sponges, blocks, socks, books, pencils, pens, markers, crayons, stuffed animals, paintbrushes, pillows, lunch boxes, mini guys, frilly dolls, toilet paper rolls, bathmats, rugs, magazine covers, balls of yarn … not to mention food items that have no place in her canine diet … even the boy realizes she has a compulsion.

He closes his mouth and shrugs.

He begins to pick up the pieces of his leveled LEGO landmarks: the “Leaning Tower of Pizza,” the “Gwen Ifill Tower,” “The Outer Space Needle” that we actually got to visit when we went to “see Attle.”

“Hey! These are hardly chewed at all,” he exclaims with relief.

“That's progress.”

And from her room, I could hear the thump, thump, thump of a tail.

Never quite finished

I didn't hear the knock at the door, or feel the icy wind as it opened. I was preoccupied.

Inside the warmth of my home office, I was hunched over the desk working feverishly on birthing a baby.

Fabric, stuffing and yarn were all I required, but this new creation wasn't without pain or blood, as I continually pricked my inexpert fingers trying to secure the yarn wig to the baby doll's noggin.

“How many does that make,” asked my dad, as he stood in my mudroom and released his no-legged little dog. Lately he's been dropping by to let my furry niece have tucker-herself-out play dates with her slightly, older, minutely wiser cousin.

“Five,” I said with an audible sigh. “Each one slightly worse than the next.”

“Maybe I should have gotten you that Cabbage Patch Doll you said you would never want in a million years,” he laughed.

The hounds barreled past me, chasing each other's tails, diving over chairs and under tables, upending some of the less substantial furnishings, and rousting the cat in their race toward the kitchen.

I barely registered the commotion.

I was obsessed.

Five Waldorf-style dolls, all of relatively similar size, shape and coloring, sat on my desk in various states of finish. Some had hair and homemade clothes. Others were still waiting to have their arms and legs attached. Only their naked, expressionless faces still waited for features.

I had intended to make one – for a neighbor's child, who is having her first birthday party – almost on a whim. I had also intended to fail in that endeavor and buy a “real toy” at a toy store before the big day.

But somehow the first one didn't look half bad. … And then I realized giving her away would be like giving away my firstborn. …

So I had to make another. … And like any mother who experiences the true joy of childbirth, wants to experience it again.

But there was a rub.

My success in making these dolls look like dolls and not sad, lumpy pillows that had sprouted pointy, lopsided appendages did not sharpen my confidence in finishing them.

One misplaced stitch would likely put a look of snark on her otherwise cherubic face. Whatever the expression my needle and floss would provide, I imagined, would certainly take away the mystery.

I waved my father away.

“I'm not ready for visitors just yet. Why don't you go and brew yourself a cup of coffee. I'll be out in a minute.”

One more pass of the sewing machine over a plait of yarn and the last doll would at least have hair if not a hair-raising expression.

My father banged around in the kitchen a bit as the dogs banged around the living room.

I had done as much as I had nerves to do. I joined him in the kitchen, brewed myself a cup of coffee and stood amid the clammer of dogs.

“Finished?” he asked.

“I don't know how to finish,” I said a little too abruptly. … “It's crazy, but I'm afraid of messing them up.”

“All parents are. ... All parents are.”

Nursery magic

It was as fine a specimen of fluff-filled horseflesh as any.

Fully three-feet tall, the butterscotch-colored mare was still smooth and plump after all these years. She had held up well. Most other seven-year-old toys as well-loved as Butterscotch would have been run ragged by this point. Yet she exhibited no thinness of fur or bursting of seams, no lameness or weakness of legs.

A person would have to look closely, squinting their eyes, to see the wear around her edges. They'd have to be absolutely attentive to discern the lipstick-colored fur around her muzzle and the powdered blue sheen around her eyes weren't part of her original beauty.

Butterscotch has served my children well.

She'd been a plaything of amazing versatility given her size and lack of movement. She'd galloped in the infantry of their imaginations with a quiet grace … especially when the sound sensors in her ears – the ones that played “Home on the Range” and made clip-clop noises when pressed – stopped working.

The children's love for her was unshaken.

The nursery magic wore on even as her specialness wore off.

She was the first thing we moved into Ittybit's new room in the new house, and the last thing Bitty saw when she went to sleep at night. Even as we stand on the edge of the t'ween years, I'd knock on her door and find my daughter draped over the horse, reading, as if in a comfortable chair, whenever I opened it.

So I was surprised, and a little bit flustered, to find Butterscotch in the hallway outside Ittybit's bedroom one morning, where I'd guessed she was stoically waiting for an imaginary gate to open so she could go out to proverbial pasture.

I'd read the “Velveteen Rabbit.” I knew “real beauty” has nothing to do with “physical beauty,” but somehow I'd deluded myself into taking that premise and extending it to mothers who'd had babies later in life.

Babies, I'd convinced myself, would keep me young even as I grew old.

Of course, I hadn't considered that in a blink of an eye the babies wouldn't be babies anymore. But the proof was there in hallway … as clear as any mirror image of my face in harsh light … that the nursery magic was over.

Which meant Butterscotch and I were just old nags: She'd be silently collecting dust in the storage room above the garage and I would be hollering at them to clean their rooms.

Tears started to stab at my already sleep-puffy eyes as I turned and trudged downstairs with dread to find out our fate.

Found Ittybit dressed and ignoring her breakfast as usual. She'd ask me if I liked the earrings she selected for the day and then tell me all about her plans for the day.

I'd make her lunch, ask if she remembered to pack her homework, her library book, and if she had her sneakers for gym. Hesitantly, I asked what were her plans for Butterscotch.

She looked at me quizzically for a moment, as if I'd been speaking in a foreign language, and then it dawned on her she'd pushed the toy into the hallway.

“I was planning on asking The Champ if he wanted her … but then I realized she still keeps me calm when I'm reading. And he'll just draw on her with Sharpie anyway, then she won't be any good for my children one day. ...

“So I decided I'm just going to move her back into my room for a while.”

I smiled. I had my magical moment of reprieve (albeit provided by fear, longing and a little boy's love of indelible ink) but magic all the same.

Just remember: 'arsenal' begins with 'arse'

I have to admit being a tad irritated at the gun folks who want to protect assault weapons.

It's the principal of the thing.

Their rights … the right to bear arms. … the right to stockpile an arsenal … shall not be infringed …

Whenever I think of it, I am reminded “arsenal” begins with “ARSE.”

I can't help it.

The arguments are always the same:

“Guns don't kill people … people kill people.”

“Laws only keep law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves.”

“Only a good guy with a gun can protect us from a bad guy with a gun.”

Blah blah blah blah blah.

That's mostly what it sounds like to me, a buzz of white noise under blaring headlines of massacres and suicide epidemics and predictable accidents.

I'm so tired of people who feel that the world is only tolerable if they have their guns …

Or their iphones …

Or their late-night cartoons ...

Won't pay taxes. Won't fund schools. Would rather live in a shack in the woods with an armory. Washing down their anger and artery-clogging fats with vats of soda out of spite.

The rest of society be damned because it's all about (the royal) you, the individual.

Talk about Nanny State all you want, I'd prefer it to the amateur Police State we're cultivating.

As much as I'd like to praise New York state for finally moving to decrease the mayhem we've created as a society by arming ourselves for end times, I can only shrug.

Assault weapons bans, mandated registration and mental health reporting requirements, are all admirable goals. It's a start, a much-needed start at that, but it's not enough.

I had believed the argument that our gun laws are strict. I had believed it was more difficult to get an assault weapon than it was to adopt a dog, or, for that matter, purchase a package of Sudafed. But it's not actually true. Not outside of New York City at any rate.

After the devastation at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I was shocked to learn New York state only requires the registration of handguns.

I had no idea any person with a clean record and no recorded history of mental illness could buy a long gun – including assault weapons – without a permit or registration of any kind.

When you buy a car, the state makes you have a license, carry insurance, have it inspected annually and register it every two years. Buy a Bushmaster and the state dusts its hands.

It made me angry. Judging by the speed at which legislators moved, it made others angry, too.

And then guns – specifically the one used in the killings at Sandy Hook -- started flying off guns store racks.

I got angrier.

Law-abiding citizens who own guns shouldn't be OK with that.

Law-abiding citizens with guns should want to know that people who own these deadly products are licensed and capable, and should their situations change -- should something in them snap -- their rights to own guns should be reviewed.

We talk a good game about mental illness and how we must do better for those who suffer. But we've always found it easier to put our money into reacting. Prisons are a sure thing. Prevention is trickier.

Toss a coin. Roll the dice. Might as well.

The reality is we have no way of predicting who among us will harm others -- those with diagnosed mental illnesses, or those who just have personality disturbances, and might rather die (and possibly take a schoolroom full of children with them) than admit they have a problem. But we can't just wash our hands of it and fortify our homes.

When The Journal News printed the names and addresses of legal handgun owners I was overwhelmed with clarity and a single question: Why hadn't anyone done this before? This might actually help protect some people. Fight fire with information, so to speak.

After all, wouldn't it be handy to know which parents store arsenals in their homes before sending our kids on play dates? Wouldn't it be helpful to know what your daughter's new boyfriend is packing?

I can assure you, it's not something that usually comes up in the polite, getting-to-know-you type chat.

Under the new law gun owners will be able to opt out of that directory. Register and redact. This from a state that releases names of teachers ranked by how their students score.

How exactly is the good doctor to know their spiraling patient has guns? I suppose that's the part about good faith.

Why open up mental health information and protect gun information?

Apparently privacy and speech – unlike gun ownership – are rights we expect to be restricted.

Or maybe it's simply that we'd rather protect guns.

After all … guns don't kill people, right?

Oh, Oh, Dream Weaver

I'd like to know who casts the actors in my dreams.

Seriously. We need to have a chat.

And the scripts? The weird assortment of characters, arbitrary plots and subplots that never seem to resolve and don't quite bear much resemblance to anyone I've ever met before.

I don't believe for a minute these things come out of my mind.

I mean? A monkey? Sitting in the driver's seat of a beat-up 1949 Mercury coupe, to which, evidently, I own the keys?

I've never seen a car like that, and only know what one looks like because of the wonders of Google.

But that's beside the point.

The car wouldn't start.

Last night I dreamt it was Christmas eve, and as it would appear most of us are wont to do, I spent the morning before a long trip to grandmother's house (someplace I have the feeling we will never, ever arrive) with my children at the Y, swimming in a pool teaming with dogs.

Our dog – a larger, more subdued version of herself – hangs out on long, steep staircase to the pool with a youthful Jazz trumpeter who is singing the Blues.

She has no leash.

Which, for some reason, I feel the need to immediately rectify so I tell Ittybit, who is her own, usual self, to take the shopping cart she's been skating with over to the hardware store and buy a leash with the money I painted onto potato chips.

She obliges, dear, sweet thing that she is and off she goes.

The Champ is busy cleaning loose fur out of the pool filters and turning the clumps into LEGO bricks, as I assume any child would do given a little bit of creativity and the director of some maniacal dream weaver.

I have often thought of dog hair as an underutilized byproduct of animal husbandry. So … that one MIGHT have been my contribution to the script

… But also, beside the point.

Speaking of husbands. … Where was mine?

He didn't have a role at all.

I tossed and turned and waited for my daughter to return with her shopping cart and the leash we would need to keep our not-wandering dog from not wandering.

But I couldn't sit around. I kept taking $5 cab rides within a walking distance to check on her.

Only the taxi was a yellow Beetle, and it had no doors.

Finally she arrived with the leash, which, when clipped to the dogs collar sent her running in all directions.

A woman, with the brut force of an army picked up the pooch and tossed her overhand, up two flights of stairs and into the pool.

As she did my husband appeared … and bit my nose.

It was a snap, really, more than a bite.

But it woke me up.

It was still dark outside. The house was silent. I checked the clock; it said 5 a.m.

I considered going back to sleep in an effort to see how it would end, and then I realized it was probably best to try and read until morning. Forget the whole thing. Chalk it up to fever dream and leave it at that.

The last thing I wanted to do was witness whatever kind of craziness was waiting for me at granny's house should my dreamers be able to get that darn Mercury started.

Then I'd have to admit I was out of my mind.

May all your New Tears be happy

All week long I kept typing it: “Happy New Tears.”

I blamed my great, big fingers trying to work the tiny phone keyboard for the mistake… and Facebook. I blamed Facebook for forcing me to reply to everyone I've ever known since third-grade summer camp who wished me season's greetings.

I also blamed growing up in the northeast for my propensity to add an S to practically all nouns.

Of course the thing I couldn't do was admit that the mistake seemed apropos.

It's nothing new. Each December's end I squint in the glare of the New Year – with its grand, fiery, celebrity-soaked entrance -- hoping it will settle down and spend the next 364 days being calm and uneventful.

In looking back, it seems, I survey the previous year's damage and hope for better … or at least nothing worse.

I wish for fewer fights with my husband.

I wish for fewer illnesses for the kids.

I wish for fewer worries for my family and friends.

And even though I don't actually make it official by declaration, I round up a few things I'd like to achieve:

I'd like to be more active.

I'd like to eat more vegetables.

I'd like to cut down on sugar, white flour, dark thoughts … and bitterness.

Truly, though, I'm not cynical.

I haven't truly accepted that I can't change for the better.

Now's as good a time as any for list making and fresh starts.

And really … it's better than at Christmas time when the house is filled with an abundance of the things that only sabotage our best intentions.

Cookies, candies, lax bedtimes, snow storms, bacteria, sinus pressure … feelings of ineptitude.

… Batteries not included.

My phone “dings” with another message wishing me a Happy New Year. … Another over-zealous response: “HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!”

How many extraneous exclamation points will I need to use before I start to feel real excitement?

“I need to snap out of this,” I tell myself, aloud, so I might half-heartedly listen.

“What did you say?” Ittybit answers. “Nothing, just talking to myself. This time of year makes people crazy.”

She shrugs and tugs on her coat.

Her brother has storm clouds brewing between his eyebrows and the place where a scarf rests underneath his nose. Nothing else is visible amid the layers of winter wear I'd wrestled him into.

The school bus is coming, and he'd rather stay on vacation. He'd rather run around in his shorts in front of the blaze of the wood stove playing with LEGOs than have to do the work of Kindergarten. Today will be hard.

But eventually things will be back to normal again.

There may even be a few improvements.

It's not impossible.

All it really takes is intention and repetition in no particular order.

I take a deep breath and exhale. “One day at a time,” I tell myself. “Mistakes only count when you stop counting.”

Who knows? Maybe it's not the worst thing to wish for that all our New Tears be happy.

Holiday sequels and other misfortunes

In the glow of the tree's Light Emitting Diodes, Ittybit's cheeks blazed crimson and her eyes glistened …

Her brother was already nestled all snug in his bed …

Well before bedtime.

But it wasn't the impending arrival of the right, jolly ol' elf that I suspected.

T'was the flu before Christmas.

She had complained of a sore throat, but I had blamed songs we'd belted out while caroling in the cold.

I gave her a soothing drink and sent her off to dreamland.

She didn't want to be sick for Christmas.

“You're just a little hoarse. Nothing to worry about,” I told her as I pulled the covers up to her chin and kissed her warm forehead. “Tomorrow you'll be right as rain.”

Whatever that means: Right as rain.

Snow is right for Christmas; rain, not so much.

She closed her eyes and didn't question my weak, metaphorical talisman.

Sadly, my superstitious wishes didn't come true. For when they opened their eyes on Christmas morning, my children met Santa's loot with feverish brows and only lukewarm excitement.

Even the coveted electronic contraptions, which should have been Santa's finest work, were met with subdued disbelief and the intent to test out … later.

Honestly, the reaction might have pleased me were it the result of the their burning desire to play with LEGOs instead. But the magic goes right out of Christmas when the little ones only want play with their toys by proxy because they just don't have the energy to do it themselves.

“Please build me a LEGO,” begged the boy. “The helicopter one with the superheroes,” he directed from his nest on the couch.

He put his hand on my knee as I struggled through the instructions and didn't once complain of my ineptitude. He barely registered distain when I put the helicopter blades on backwards, as true a sign of the creeping Christmas crud as if he'd asked to go back to bed.

Had The Champ been tip-top, he'd have wrestled that chopper from my fumbling paws and put it together by just looking at the picture on the box. He'd have had it together in no time and announce his feat by squinting and speaking in pirate.

I couldn't help but think this skewed image of Holiday Cheer-turned-Holiday Make-The-Best-Of-It seemed worse than if Santa had crossed us off his list completely.

Oh, how I had pictured a different sort of Christmas: Me and the mister would be drinking coffee in our bathrobes. The kids would be ripping though wrapping paper, playing with a new toy every hour on the hour. The morning favorite would eventually give way to the gift we'd thought was a bust. Eventually, we'd all get bundled up and go visit the neighbors to spread a little holiday cheer.

Visiting now would just spread holiday ho-hum bugs.

Instead, we canceled dinner and sat, each one of us, nestled in all snug in our comforters in front of the TV ready to relax with cable's finest holiday offerings.

Of course, we couldn't find those in the listings so we settled instead for their sequels; the red-headed stepchildren of Hollywood's classics.

We sat, ate frozen pops and even laughed a little as Ralphie and Randy – now a teen and tween in A Christmas Story 2 -- relived the good old days of Red Rider BB guns and Little Orphan Annie decoder rings and planned for the future (most likely another straight-to-video installment).”

My kids were thinking of the not-too-distant future, too.

“When the new year comes will it still be 2012?” asked the boy. “Will we still be sick?” asked the girl.

“No, Sweets, it will be 2013 and hopefully we will all feel like celebrating.”

And if we're lucky, we won't be watching this sequel next year.

What children believe, we can deliver

I hadn't expected to bring my kids to school that day. I'd planned to send them off with the bus just as I had every Monday morning.

But we woke up late, and I wanted to make sure they had eaten breakfast ...

That's not true. I wanted to make sure I didn't spend the last few minutes of our time together -- the day after a long weekend of disbelief that a young man walked into a school and murdered 26 people, most of them children -- yelling at them to get ready lest they miss their ride.

There was ample time to wolf down a bowl of cereal. But making it through dressing and teeth brushing and packing backpacks and lunches would take a drill sergeant.

And I didn't have it in me.

We arrived at school on time.

My kids barely noticed all the police officers and school officials gathered in the main lobby as they scampered around their friendly custodian, who was giving high-fives as he directed foot traffic.

There may have been more adults than usual on this day, but they were all familiar faces.

I didn't hug my children as they ran to their classrooms. I didn't follow them and speak to their teachers. I know them well, and know my kids are in excellent hands. And my children never looked back as they scampered away.

They are fearless like that.

Instead, I found a familiar face. A former principal who was standing by the office – a woman so devoted to the school she had helmed that she has remained involved despite having to step down from her position as she battles lung cancer.

She assured me they would do their best, but they had no idea what they were facing. Who knew what? Who understood what? They would be there to comfort.

I hugged her and told her I appreciated the time she took trying to comfort me.

I wished it had been different, but I can't say I was surprised when my daughter, a fully-fledged third grader, came home that afternoon in tears with a single question:

“Why would someone do something like that?”

No one knows. There is no good answer. Meanness. Spite. Evil … are all words that came to mind. There is no rational explanation.

This is the worst thing that she's ever heard in her life. This is the moment when she realizes truly awful, frightening things happen to innocent people at the hands of other human beings.

I was a little younger than her when that moment visited me. It was the early '70s and my family was in D.C., traveling to see relatives. My sister and I sat as far apart from each other on the backseat as humanly possible, as the news on the car radio reported that a woman had murdered her children.

So many questions whirled around my head as my father drove through the rain-slicked city, and my mother looked out of the window straining to read street signs. Neither had registered the news. Neither had realized I had.

I watched my mother that whole trip as if she were an alien creature, wondering if she were capable …

But I never asked any questions. ...

Unlike my daughter, who, sitting on my lap on a rickety kitchen stool, wanted to know everything I'd left out that her friends at school had filled in.

“He killed his mom, too?”

“Yes.”

“Did his mother really give him the guns?”

“I'm not sure that she gave them to him; he may have taken them without permission.”

“He killed children?”

“Yes, he did.”

She wanted to know everything. How many? How old? Did people survive? What did the teachers do to protect them? What were their names?

I answered as best as I could.

And then the question I was dreading …

“Has this happened before?”

“Yes. It has.”

“Why haven't we stopped it?”

“It's hard to explain.”

“You don't have to. I know it's because they don't want to get rid of guns.”

The thing is, our children believe we can make the world a better place even when we think it's a lost cause.

“What can I do?”

“Be kind.”

I was never so glad to have someone else's words than I was that moment:

“I want to read you something our president said:

'There’s only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we have for our children, for our families, for each other. The warmth of a small child’s embrace, that is true. 

'The memories we have of them, the joy that they bring, the wonder we see through their eyes, that fierce and boundless love we feel for them, a love that takes us out of ourselves and binds us to something larger, we know that’s what matters.

 'We know we’re always doing right when we’re taking care of them, when we’re teaching them well, when we’re showing acts of kindness. We don’t go wrong when we do that'.”

With kindness and courage we will affect the change our children believe is possible.

I believe it, too.