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I couldn’t let this day pass without adding my own farewell to the tens of thousands offered around the globe. The Lion of the Senate is gone, and I, for one, will miss him.

Before I became a mom and a writer, I worked in politics and policy. Ted Kennedy’s profound influence was felt on every issue I ever worked on, especially in civil rights and public education. He was the leader I and my colleagues looked to for wisdom and guidance. Unabashedly liberal throughout his career, he offered everyone who worked with him a peerless example of how one could remain true to one’s political values while working cooperatively with opponents to produce compromises that would have been unachievable if attempted by anyone else. His colleagues often disagreed with him, but they still, as his close friend Republican Senator Orrin Hatch attests, respected him. With his unique blend of fierce liberal principles, unmatched work ethic and devotion to public service as well as his encyclopedic knowledge of the issues facing our country at any given time, “EMK”—as he was always referred to in emails and memoranda—accomplished more in his legislative career than perhaps any other figure in United States history.

I owe the late Senator Kennedy a personal debt, too. As someone who lives with a chronic illness, it is in large part thanks to him that I can get health insurance without being openly discriminated against by insurance companies. Prior to passage of the Kennedy-Kassebaum Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996, health insurance companies could and did mandate pre-existing condition clauses that translated into people like me being locked into either jobs we no longer wanted in order to preserve coverage or into accepting no coverage at all for our chronic conditions for periods of twelve to eighteen months or even longer. This Act was just a patch for one of a myriad of problems with our healthcare system, but it was a patch that changed my life. Now perhaps, in Senator Kennedy’s memory, we can find a way to offer more than just a band-aid for the failing system the Senator worked so hard to reform.

Senator Kennedy stood up for the poor, the young, the old, the handicapped and the disadvantaged, for those whom society ignored or oppressed, for people who could not find the words or wield the influence to speak up for themselves. His life was not without controversy, but however one might feel about the ghosts of his past, there can be no denying his efforts, his energy, his conviction and his influence. Everyone from President Barack Obama to anyone who seeks services from their local community health center to anyone who earns minimum wage—and on and on—has benefitted from the work and the life of Senator Edward Kennedy.

Now the lion roars no more, and we as a country will be the poorer for that silence.

Rest in peace, EMK.

(Warning: my husband, who is my “second pair of eyes” on everything I write, deemed this post to be “The Bitter Blog Post.” I suppose it is. But I’m a mom, and the people who operate this camp were irresponsible with my kid. You’re damn right I’m bitter.)

Seven-and-a-half year old “Jack” attended several different day camps this summer. Most went well. In particular, the Lego FIRST camp he attended in early July made a lasting impression on him and sparked an entire summer’s worth of enthusiastic design, creation and building with his own Legos at home. A mom can’t argue with results like that.

Not all of Jack’s summer camp experiences were so positive, however. Last week, Jack attended a camp at a local pool and racquet club that was supposed to be all about having fun. But it didn’t live up to its billing, and I learned that it’s important to make certain inquiries of prospective camps before sending your child—inquiries that I never made because it never occurred to me that I would need to:

• If you make a last-minute decision to change the location of a previously scheduled field trip to a different location that is a full hour and forty-five minutes away from the original destination, will you inform parents of this change at some point? Maybe even seek their permission? Or will parents only find out their kids weren’t where they were supposed to be when their children so inform them over dinner that evening?

• If one child is causing trouble, will you attempt to determine the cause of the problem or will you simply revoke a privilege for all children in attendance without making any inquiry? (This was the most minor of the issues I heard about, and yes, the event permitted me to explain to Jack the concept of “one bad apple spoiling things for everyone,” but those points don’t make it right.)

• If you permit young children to spend as much as four hours in one day in the pool, will you simply assume that they will sunscreen themselves on a regular basis or will you at least issue a reminder every once in a while? And when you find yourselves surrounded by a camp full of walking, boiled lobsters, will you take a little responsibility in this area then?

These were just the things I found out about. As I’ve repeatedly written, Jack doesn’t like to tell us anything. But I have learned to decode him, and I could tell from his lack of smiles, his dejected demeanor and the fact that he ran to me when he saw me each day and grabbed my hand that things weren’t going well. (In contrast, I had to wait until the counselors insisted he leave before he would even acknowledge my presence at pickup time in his other camps this summer.) In all, poor Jack was so miserable when he came home by Thursday afternoon that his father and I decided he could stay home on Friday, and he cheered up the instant we told him. I generally guard my writing time like it’s Fort Knox and we had already paid for the whole week at camp, but neither of those points mattered. Things like time and money don’t mean anything when your kid is in a bad situation and it’s possible to take him out.

And I learned something as well: no question is a stupid one when it comes to your kids. Just because you think something ought to be common sense doesn’t mean that other people—or camps—will think that way, too.

Let’s get one thing clear: I hate beets. As in loathe them, despise them, really don’t understand why God introduced them to the planet when we would have been perfectly fine without them. (And I’m in good company, by the way. President Obama is reported to harbor quite the beet aversion himself. I knew I liked that guy.)

But I belong to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) co-op, which means that once a week, I pick up my family’s share of locally grown, organic vegetables. I get to feel good about my actions by feeding the kids pesticide-free food, supporting local farmers and encouraging a sustainable, environmentally friendly form of agriculture. Plus the vegetables are yummy. (I never used to eat carrots, but now I do. The CSA varieties taste like an entirely different vegetable from what I buy in grocery stores.)

But while there are some choices available when I pick up my share, mostly I get the vegetables they give me. And that means sometimes beets are on the menu. (Don’t even try to suggest borscht. Liquifying the things and then serving the result cold? What were my ancestors thinking??) Thus, despising these swollen, bloody-looking roots as much as I do, I’ve learned that there’s only one acceptable solution to the problem of what to do with a bunch of organic beets: Make chocolate cake.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I was skeptical the first time I tried this, but it is truly delicious. The recipe below will produce a decent-sized snacking cake; I usually divide it into two or three portions and freeze all but one for future use. You can play around with beet amounts to arrive at the level of moistness you like best; I usually just throw in whatever I’ve got. The best thing about this cake is that it’s actually nutritious! You can feed it to your kids and know that the sweet you just gave them is actually good for them. Just don’t let them in on the secret.

Here’s the recipe. Eat your beets!

Uncharted Parent’s Beet Chocolate Cake

Ingredients
1 ¾ cups sifted flour
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ cups sugar
3 eggs
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
½ cup vegetable oil
Approx. 1 cup pureed beets*
3 ozs. semisweet or unsweetened chocolate (I prefer semisweet)
1 tsp vanilla extract

What to do
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Spray a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
3. Melt chocolate on stove over low heat. Set aside.
4. Sift together first three ingredients. Set aside.
5. Combine sugar, eggs, applesauce and oil in a large bowl. Beat with electric mixer on medium for approximately two minutes.
6. Add pureed beets, chocolate and vanilla. Beat until blended.
7. Add dry ingredients to beet mixture in 3 increments, beating well after each addition.
8. Pour batter into pan.
9. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until tester comes out clean.
10. Cool in pan on rack.

Make sure to keep the cake covered after it has cooled so that it doesn’t dry out. If you want to make it even richer, gently mix a handful of regular-sized or miniature chocolate chips into the batter before pouring it into the pan. Enjoy!

*To puree beets, immerse in a pot of boiling water until you can easily plunge a fork all the way through them. (This can take a while, so plan to be doing something else while the beets boil.) Remove tender beets from boiling water with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl to cool. Once you can comfortably handle them, simply peel off the skins with your fingers. (Watch your clothes; beet juice stains.) Place peeled beets in a blender and puree, or mash with a potato masher.

Like it? That’s the new license plate I’m thinking of getting. Seven-and-a-half year old “Jack” and I put our heads together to come up with it. Allow me to explain:

One of the things we like to do to keep the boredom monster at bay during car rides is decode other people’s vanity license plates. These ready-made brain teasers are widely available and sometimes challenging. Moreover, keeping an eye out for them has led to the more traditional game of identifying plates from as many states and Canadian provinces as possible. The activity is free, it’s fun, and the kids learn about geography. What’s not to like?

A few days ago, we found ourselves on the highway behind not one, but two cars sporting Québec plates. I realized that I had never taken advantage of the opportunity afforded to me by our proximity to our neighbor to the north to teach my son a little French. (The Canadian border is less than five hours away; we see Québec plates all the time.) Never one to miss a teachable moment, I asked Jack if he understood the provincial motto on the license plate: “Je me souviens.”

“No,” he replied.

“It’s French,” I instructed. “It means, ‘I remember.’”

“Well,” he said, and via the rearview mirror I saw a tiny smile creep onto his face, “that wouldn’t be true for you if you went there, would it?” Then he cracked up.

As did I. As I’ve written before, I usually think it’s hysterical when my kids bust my chops, and there was no denying that Jack had hit the bulls-eye with this one. It is a simple fact of life in my house that if something needs to be remembered, the last person to go to is Mommy. The kids don’t even act surprised when I forget things anymore; the last time I had to inform Jack that I’d forgotten to pick something up at the store as promised, he simply rolled his eyes and sighed, “Of course you did.” He knows. They all do.

It doesn’t matter that I’m not the only parent in this boat or that Jack and his sister should fairly claim their portion of the blame for my condition. I never had the best memory to begin with, but the real plummet began with a sharp jump off the memory cliff in pregnancy and continued through that first, sleep-deprived year of parenthood. I liked to tell people then that “the baby ate my brain.” While it’s true that the baby excuse is no longer as plausible as it used to be now that my kids are seven and four, I still think I can fairly settle some of the onus for this on their young, mind-sapping shoulders.

The question of responsibility aside, I think it’s important to know your limitations and to be able to make fun of yourself a little. It’s also a good example to set for the kids. So if you’re driving around my area and see a car whose plates read, “I4GET,” that might be me tooling around town, advertising my memory-deficient status on my shiny new plates.

If, that is, I remember to get them.

Time for something funny, but not, alas, something written by me.

Uncharted Parent is the midst of a truly wondrous week in which I get to devote four-and-a-half uninterrupted hours to my novel for five straight days. The last time this happened was . . . never! And it’s unlikely to happen again anytime soon. (The story of how I achieved this is a long and complicated one involving summer camp an hour away, full-time daycare for a week and the complete shelving of just about every other responsibility I have. Totally worth it.)

So rather than try to compose an insightful, brilliant blog post whilst my characters sit before me, drumming their impatient fingers on my desk, I’m going to direct my readers to a post on Wendi Aaron’s blog. Wendi often gives us gems (despite her tag line), but this letter to the creator of Dora the Explorer was written by a guest blogger, Lulu and Moxley’s Mom. It’s a riot. Makes me wish I’d written it first.

Parenting is rife with moments when we don’t know if we’re doing the right thing. Moreover, there’s no way to know for certain until decades later when you see how your kid turns out (or when he or she begins sending you the therapy bills). In general, when confronted with a given situation, we comb through our knowledge and experience, filter all of that through the lenses of the extant situation and our love for our kids and then advise them as best we can.

Sometimes, though, we (or at least I) find ourselves grappling about in the dark, just as we did when we were their age.

I had such a moment this past weekend.

To sum up a complicated tale: seven-and-a-half year old “Jack” got into an altercation over a ball. Another kid at a party snatched away the ball Jack was playing with and refused to give it back. A struggle ensued, Jack complained to me, I suggested some words to him, Jack asked the kid for the ball back. The kid gave the ball back, then took it away again as soon as Jack began to play with it. The kid played keep-away with the ball, and Jack kept trying to get it back. There was no hitting or punching; it looked just like a good-natured game might, except that the other boy was smiling, and Jack was not.

Well, you know what happened: somebody got hurt. Arms and legs were flailing, you know how it goes. In the struggle, Jack’s forearm connected with the other boy’s mouth. Ouch. The kid instantly began howling and crying, and I don’t blame him. It probably hurt. On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling like this kid wasn’t quite offering his mother—a woman I didn’t know—the whole story when he pointed at Jack and told her, “That kid hit me in the face.”

Throughout the entire exchange, I struggled with the questions of whether to intervene and what to tell Jack. I want Jack to learn how to solve problems on his own, and for that reason, I don’t rush to get in the middle of his affairs the moment I perceive them—even though part of me invariably wants to run over and stick up for my son, no holds barred. Moreover, I saw enough of this particular altercation to know that it stemmed from Jack’s being taunted by another kid, and I didn’t want to discipline someone else’s child unless it was necessary. If I had seen Jack act as the aggressor—or if I had witnessed hitting or punching, regardless of who started it—I would certainly have ended the situation, but Jack was defending himself, and I wanted to give him a chance to do so as long as it didn’t get out of hand.

As the other kid cried, Jack came up to me and protested, “He took the ball away from me again. I was just trying to get it back.”

I searched my brain for the right thing to tell Jack. I didn’t want to condone physical measures, but I didn’t want him to think I wouldn’t let him defend himself, either. I reached back in my memory to all the times I’d been bullied in elementary and middle school and remembered how helpless I’d always felt then. Decades later, I still wasn’t sure of the right response.

“Jack,” I said, “did you mean to hurt him?”

“No!” he insisted.

“Then maybe you could apologize to him. You could just say, ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt you.’” I’d worded my suggestion carefully, but wow, did it feel lame. This is the trouble with lawyers-as-parents; we approach backyard battles with the same mentality that causes us to say things like, “It depends what the definition of ‘is’ is.”

“Okay,” Jack said.

“And think about this,” I continued. “When you get into a situation like this one, where it’s physical and someone could get hurt—even by accident, ask yourself if it’s worth it. Ask yourself if it’s really worth risking someone getting hurt over a ball.”

He nodded.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Jack nodded again. “Yes, Mommy.”

“Okay then. Are you going to apologize to him for hurting him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No.” He then walked over to the other child and apologized using the precise words I’d suggested.

And I kept wondering if I’d handled the whole thing the right way.

We teach that violence is bad in my house, but a kid has a right to defend himself—in proportion. And yes, often even in the face of aggressive, taunting behavior, the best thing to do is to walk away. But does that mean that you should teach your kid always to allow himself to be teased, bullied or stepped on? Does that mean that when someone takes something away from him and verbal requests don’t work, he can’t try to get it back? And when do you step in versus giving your kid a little leeway to discover what works and what doesn’t for himself? And when do you tell the other parent, “Sorry, but your kid isn’t telling you the whole truth”?

I wasn’t sure of myself in these situations as a kid, and I don’t seem to be all that much more certain as a parent. I do the best I can, but am I doing the right thing? Am I teaching the right lessons to my kids and permitting them the tools they need to develop into the best adults they can be?

Who knows? All I can do is try, and wait and see what comes back to me in the way of therapy bills decades down the road.

Four-year-old “Emmie” stumbled upon this book at the library and we love it: Bubble Trouble, by Margaret Mahy. It’s an adorable, silly story told in tongue-twisting rhyme about what happens when a little girl blows a bubble that carries away a baby. (Plot spoiler: the baby is just fine in the end.) When my husband read this aloud to Emmie, he laughed louder than she did (which of course made Emmie love it all the more).

Somewhere out there, someone in the universe is laughing his, her or its head off right now. (Feel free to choose the pronoun that best fits your beliefs.) And if you’ve been sensing these cosmic guffaws and wondering about the object, I can solve that mystery for you: they were sparked by a visit to a pediatric allergy doctor earlier this week. Someone with impeccable accuracy aimed an arrow of irony in my direction and is enjoying a good joke whilst I face the fact that I need to clean up my act. Literally.

Here’s the deal: if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I am a lousy housekeeper. What’s more, I don’t care. My kids wear clean clothes and eat off clean dishes, the Board of Health is unlikely to condemn my house if they ever show up, and that’s always been good enough for me. A little dirt never hurt anyone, I’ve always reasoned, and there are about 2,684,873 things I’d rather do than clean. Like write, or get a colonoscopy. If you’re going to condemn me for not keeping a clean enough house, well, then you’re probably not someone who’s going to enjoy my company anyway.

The universe has had its way with me on more than one occasion, so I have to confess I was prepared for the results of four-year-old “Emmie’s” allergy tests on Tuesday even before the doctor delivered them. Yup, sure enough, Emmie is allergic to dust mites.

My new mandate is right in the name: dust mites. I can no longer shrug off the cleaning responsibilities I have so successfully avoided up until now. From this point forward, if I don’t do better than push the dirt under the couch, I’m not just a lousy housekeeper; I’m also a bad parent who fails to meet the health needs of my child.

Karma can be so cruel.

The good news is that the allergy doctor emphasized Emmie’s room as the target for the most serious cleaning overhaul. Her room isn’t that big and already has a hardwood floor, so after I encase the bed components, wash all the bedding and curtains in hot water, and freeze and jail most of the surviving stuffed animals in plastic bins with tight-fitting lids (note to relatives: no more stuffed animal gifts please), maintaining Emmie’s room in a more-or-less dust mite-free state shouldn’t be that difficult.

The bad news is that our forty-something year-old house spits up dust at astonishing rates: if I dust the living room, I can see the next layer begin to form on the coffee table in a matter of hours. Clearly, the war against those disgusting little mites will have to be waged on some level throughout the whole house.

I will do what I need to do. Emmie is my child, and rising to the occasion is what parenting is all about. If she can breathe better and no longer suffers from itchy eyes, then of course whatever I need to do will be worth it. But make no mistake: I’m going to hate every minute of it. And don’t forget: I’m a writer. I like to consider myself to be a creative person and I’m already trying to develop strategies to minimize my cleaning requirements. I’ll let you know if I find any.

Everyone’s heard the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

The problem is that if you’re only four, you might be one of those people who just doesn’t get it yet.

For the past three months, “I have a belly/tummy/stomachache” has been four-year-old “Emmie’s” weapon of choice. She wields it to avoid cleaning up the playroom, to request a change of menu at lunch or dinner or to try and alter any agenda item she simply would prefer to avoid. I have to confess, it did work the first one or two times she used it. But by the time she unveiled the line for the twentieth time, even Mommy couldn’t be persuaded to gin up sympathy anymore.

So when Emmie’s preschool teacher called me yesterday in the middle of the day to tell me that Emmie was complaining of a stomachache, my reaction was probably not what the teacher had anticipated.

“I’ve heard that before.”

There was a pause during which I realized that to the unfamiliar ear, my response might not come off as deeply loving and maternal. So I explained Emmie’s frequent use of this excuse over the past several months. “Really, I’ve heard it almost every day for three months.”

“Sure, I understand that,” said the teacher. (I think it’s in their contracts that they have to say those words prior to disagreeing with anything a parent says about his or her child.) “But you should know: she didn’t eat any lunch at all, and she looks kind of pale. She’s just sitting around; she’s not really doing much of anything. And there is a stomach bug going around the school. Two of the teachers had it this weekend.”

Damn.

I had no choice but to take the complaint seriously. When I walked into Emmie’s classroom, a very sad little girl gazed out at me from the story corner. I waved and beckoned for her to approach me.

“I want to hear the story,” she protested.

My jaw tensed.

“Emmie, I’m here because you’re sick. Get over here.”

She dragged herself to me and collapsed against my legs. “I have a stummyache,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded wanly, proving herself too weak to speak.

A different teacher from the one I spoke with earlier approached me. “If it’s an act, it’s a good one,” she said. “She’s really lethargic; she didn’t eat anything. She has gotten a little of her color back though, so that’s good.”

“Okay, Emmie,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

In the car, I informed my patient that she could have a little applesauce if she wanted, but then it was straight upstairs for a nap. She argued with me, insisting that rest would only make her “stummyache” worse, not better. I began to entertain dreams of what it would feel like to be the mother of an Academy Award-winning actress. After another vigorous protest, she took a nap, and reported afterward that she felt “almost all better.”

I know what you’re expecting here. Either I’m going to tell you that she then puked all over her room (or all over me, or all over the cat), or that she ran sixteen laps around the house and confirmed that the whole thing had all been an attention-grabbing act after all.

Sadly for me, I still don’t know the answer. Emmie has succeeded, once again, in spinning a web of comments and actions that leave me wondering whether she really deserved special care and sympathy or if I and her teachers were all marionettes in her own little puppet show.

This morning, Emmie was bouncing, boisterous and bubbly. She exclaimed that she was now “all better,” and she cracked so many jokes at breakfast for her big brother that he almost choked on his toast.

The good news is that Emmie is genuinely happier today than she was yesterday. Whether that’s because she is delighted not to feel sick anymore or because she successfully pulled one over on her mother and her teachers, I don’t know. But the bad news for Emmie is that the next time she complains of a “stummyache,” she’s going to have to work a lot harder to reel me in.