Seven days and counting - Top 10 List

Paris' Bat Mitzvah is in a week. Here's a peek at what's going on inside my head:

1. It will rain. It won't rain. If you were at our wedding you will understand this.
2. There will be too much food. There won't be enough food.
3. One of us will get the flu.
4. My clothes won't fit after coming back from alterations.
5. Paris will have a growth spurt this week and her clothes won't fit after coming back from alterations.
6. A storm will strand Tristan in SLC and I'll have to do our hair and makeup myself.
7. The kids won't eat the centerpieces. Please, under 21s, eat the centerpieces! Over 21s too!
8. People will try take home the centerpieces. Who started that tradition anyway?!
9. The photo montage will not be finished.
10. My friend from college, who gave much thought to attending but in the end could not, will go to the SuperBowl instead to cheer on her beloved Packers. I will, of course, blame this on her husband and never speak to him again.

The Hair. The Makeup.

Tristan moved back to Salt Lake City last year. Not only is she gorgeous, she is a hair stylist and fabulous with makeup.

I asked her to be our on-call beauty expert for the Bat Mitzvah weekend.

As our planning progressed, I asked her how much time she'd need to do hair for me and The Pinks, and makeup for me and Paris before each of the three functions.

It was a long diatribe about sending her pictures in advance of the people and all the clothes so she could plan looks and make recommendations on hair and makeup. It talked about makeup brushes and styling products and. I am beginning to think I should have bought her two airline tickets - one for her and one for the equivalent of Sephora that she will haul out here to beautify us.

Cybersecurity and the Tween

I attended a parent education workshop at our middle school on cybersecurity. More than a few of you asked for the recap.

Here's the thing: I'm fairly web savvy. I work in technology. For many years Dave sold computer security software. We have firewalls and virus protection at home.

But when it comes to your kid, you forget how much you need to teach them.

The night after the talk I spent an hour tightening up the security controls on Paris' Facebook account. Let's just say she's pretty locked down now. I also went through all her email. That was another fun three hours.

It pretty much comes down to this: own your identity and our actions. Your digital presence stays with you forever. It's like a tattoo. Sometimes it's visible and sometimes it's not. But it never goes away. A student's drunken pictures from Cancun and posted to Facebook will come back to haunt them when they interview for a summer internship at CBS News. On Facebook, reposting a link to a web site that sells term papers will have college admissions officers questioning your ethics.

One of the police officers speaking was absolutely against Facebook. He says kids don't need it and shouldn't have it. It just causes trouble. I suspect he doesn't have kids. The school guidance counselor had a more realistic approach. When your kids are 10, 11, 12 you can manage their online presence, you can teach them right from wrong, you can discuss cyber etiquette and consequences with them. Not so much with a teenager. Start these conversations early.

We have kept Paris on a short leash when it comes to the computer. For the longest time she could not accept friends or post without discussing it with us. When we ask who she's texting, IMing with or talking to, she has to tell us. It's important to know who your child's Facebook friends are. We have been through her whole friends list together to ensure this.

Facebook has an entire Safety for Parents section. It's a good read.

The scariest part of the talk was learning that laws that protect our children from cyberbullying are still in their infancy. Lori Drew, who cyberbullied Megan Meier in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, until she took her own life, was not prosecuted following Megan's death.

And Formspring, let's not even go there.

Have we met?!

While chaperoning an elementary school field trip last week, I had an extended conversation with another mom, one who I did not know previously.

We are both working moms with more than one child.

One of the things we had in common was that neither of us spends much time at school, and that we approach school functions with a smidge of anxiety because we know that moment will come. It's the one where a parent, who looks vaguely familiar, approaches you and picks up the conversation where it left off last time. The problem is, you don't remember that conversation and you are struggling to remember who this person is without looking like an idiot.

Here's my situation: I have three children. This means that in my years of parenting I've had children in 14 elementary school classes. Add to that the preschool / dance / soccer / theatre / religious school / softball parents. Now add in the people from volunteer work, my professional life and childhood in a nearby suburb. No wonder I'm a little slow on the pickup.

My friend in NYC doesn't have this problem. Her kids go to a teeny tiny private school and she lives in a city big enough to provide a comfortable layer of anonymity. Part of me really likes that idea. And part of me is happy to live in a small town, one where both the upside and the downside is that you run into people you know every time you leave the house.

I think this is another one of those taboo topics, one people will cop to upon discussion but never admit out of the blue.

Al Capone shines my shoes.

Not really because he's dead. And even if he were alive, he probably wouldn't.

However, this is a great children's book, set on Alcatraz.

It was really becoming embarrassing, this having lived in the Bay Area off and on for 35 years, and never having been. And so I found a friend with the same predicament and we went!

Alcatraz is a quick ferry ride over from San Francisco's Pier 33, one with stunning Bay and city views. Cori and I took the audio tour, which wound through the former cell house and onto the exercise grounds. The view is incredible; we went on a bitterly cold and clear day.

Things I learned:

• The food there was so good that the guards and prisoners ate it.
• There were 1,576 men who served time at Alcatraz during the 29 years it was open.
• The worst of the worst were sent to Alcatraz.
• Only one escape attempt was successful; three men left the island on a life raft made of raincoats. They have never been found.
• It closed because it was too expensive to upkeep.
• Entire families lived on Alcatraz: the warden's family, the guards' families. It had its own Officer's Club.

The audio tour is well done, just long enough to go through the history but not so long that you're bored.

Next on my list: walking across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Today's BatM Funnies

I got an email from "Valerie" today. We are friendly with Valerie and her husband, and our daughters have been friends since first grade.

She inquired about appropriate attire for the BatM. I gave her my usual response: covered shoulders for the women, knee length or longer is better for skirt length at the service. At night most women will wear party dresses and men will wear jackets and about half will wear ties.

Her response? "'Eleanor' told me that parents don't get to come to the party." I laughed and said, "I think Eleanor may not want you there but we invited you and we do hope you'll come!" I'm so glad we clarified because Valerie said that they really did want to come and had been looking forward to it.

I suspect Eleanor is busted tonight. And then ...

Yesterday was the cut off date for RSVPs. There are a dozen people we have not heard from, mostly Paris' middle school classmates and my weird relatives.

This afternoon, after the mail came, I picked up the phone and began making calls to the outstanding invites. I'd made six calls when the texts started coming to Paris' phone. I'd humiliated her. C'est la vie.

Polar Bear Plunge!

Tori, no stranger to cold water*, participated in the community pool's Polar Bear Plunge.

With an outside temperature hovering around 40F and light rain, I was not sure she was going to get out of her warm bed to do it.

She placed second.

The funniest part was the lifeguards' race. Three late teens, all water polo players, screamed like 2-year-olds as they hit the water. They then swam laps at the speed of Michael Phelps and pulled themselves out of the pool seal-style with a loud grunt and belly roll, all with matching grimaces.


* A few winters ago Tori went to the outdoor hot tub at Tahoe with our neighbors. One of her friends dared her to swim across the pool, which had iceberg-like masses in it. Of course she did. I'm glad I didn't know this until after we got home.

Taskmaster. Taskmistress?

I had last week off work and it seemed to me that Bat Mitzvah preparations took up a significant chunk of that time.

My gas-guzzling week included trips to Aaron Brothers, the San Francisco Flower Market, Flax, Nordstrom (x3), the post office, Richard's, Target, Cost Plus, Cheesecake Factory, Crate & Barrel, At the Candy Shop, Costco, Party City, Levy's Bagels, Joann Fabrics, Beauty Source, Office Max and on and on.

The dining room continues to take on a life of its own.

My panic has subsided as I've methodically checked things off my list.

My Badgers were in the Rose Bowl so we had a crowd here New Year's Day. Dave made a deep friend turkey left. Melissa Danish, a UofO-bound high school senior and family friend, will be one of the party motivators at the Big Bash. She gave me some pointers and her mom helped me with some assembly projects during the ugly game. At least we didn't go to Anaheim to see it this time.

I still have a lot to do but the advance work is on schedule. This week's project: finding something for me to wear.

Tim Gunn would be proud.

The eight-year-olds turned nine this week and Liberty had a Project Runway birthday party!

The Challenge: to create a fashionable evening look using Old Navy pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt.

The contestants rose to the occasion and we saw some serious and thoughtful design from these aspiring designers!

The models had their makeup done by our resident glam guru, Paris. Then the fashion show and judging were followed by a pizza and Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.

We also celebrated the birthdays with an immediate-family-only outing to Sky High, a warehouse with a trampoline-lined floor. You can bounce off the floor and walls, and even play games like dodge ball and jump into a foam pit. This was a blast even for me and Dave. Of course his uterus didn't feel like it was going to fall out.

From there we had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen with my MIL and the cousins. And then Liberty tried to stay up until 11:46p so she could gloat to her sister that she was older. No such luck. Maybe next year.