okay, so it’s been a while since I posted — in case you haven’t been updated since, rest assured all is well!? My daughter is back in good health, and questionable taste in music.? In fact, she is preparing for her first formal dance tonight with The Boy.? The Boy, as in the one who is also My Student.? The one to whom, during the course of a phone conversation, she felt compelled to tell My Age.? As if she didn’t know this was breaking All Rules of Etiquette Whatsoever.? As if having my students believe I am 27 is a bad thing.? Even if it means the smart ones do the math and wonder for a split second if I really had her when I was 12.? Geeeeezzz.

But I digress.

Today was the day of The Dance.? Despite the fact that the dance is at night, preparations fully begin hours in advance.? Now I’m not saying she was nervous.? I’m also not saying she put her stockings on in the car, managed to ruin them in record time by puncturing her thumb right through while pulling them up, or that we had to make an emergency run to the nearest Rite Aid so she didn’t have a panic attack.? And I’m not mentioning that she blurted out? “DEODORANT!!!” at the top of her lungs as we were going 60 on the freeway as she remembered the other thing she forgot.

So while I didn’t say this, I did what all good moms do — found the one thing that would put her at ease: the Simon & Garfunkel CD.? We drove the rest of the way belting out “Ceeellllia… I’m down on my kneeees… I’m begging you pleeaase to come home…” with quirky smiles on our faces.

She got to The Boy’s house in good spirits, with only a quick flash of terror as the yippie dogs jumped on her 15 minute-old stockings.? She even took the obligatory “date pictures” semi-willingly.? And The Boy even bought her a lovely corsage.? Still, the “mom math” question remained: if the dance starts at 8pm, and dinner is at 6pm at Panera, where does the other hour and a half go?? (Let’s face it, even a teen can’t stretch a turkey sandwich out to more than half an hour.)

Turns out, The Boy decided to earn his cahones back.? After being beaten soundly at air hockey, (my daughter has an unbroken record,) he did what any good man would do — challenge her to a video game she has never heard of on his turf.? So she spent her “pre-dance” date time playing Call of Duty wearing an evening gown and no deodorant.

Which, I suspect, was exactly the way she would have wanted it.