We dressed up the kids and took them out to dinner tonight. After spending $1100 on our car yesterday, I was prepared to go to the grocery store and buy a supply of white bread and peanut butter, but my husband had a nice, big gift card to my favorite restaurant. We went out and pretended that we always order wine, calamari, filets and ginger-crusted salmon that melts in your mouth and tastes like perfection in a superb, pink package.

I digress.

My son ordered for himself off of the children’s menu, but instead of saying that he wanted, “crab cakes” he looked at the poor waitress and just said, “I want crabs”; which is something you pick up at an entirely different type of place.

But, other than that, he was on his best behavior and was quite charming.

And, that right there? Got the whole family free dessert.

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I talk a lot about my son here, mostly because he does the crazy stuff in the family, but lest you forget, I also have a daughter. As a matter of fact, this place is named after her.

Let me start by saying that I’m really proud of my first-born who will be turning…gulp…13 in a couple of months. She is an amazing student, keeps her room clean and I never have to tell her to do her homework, study or read. She serves at church, does volunteer work and likes to help around the house (if she’s getting paid for it, anyway).

But, over the last year…whoa. Something has snapped in her personality and, though I had heard rumors about this stage, I can’t say I was prepared for it.  Now she is short with us, she knows more than we do and I won’t even mention how she treats her little brother. Her usual stance is defensive, with one hip jutting to the side, arms crossed over her chest and eyes ready to roll. And, boy can she roll ’em.

I began to feel that all hope was lost when my son, who was recuperating from pneumonia, started to complain about how tired he was. We were driving home from, nearly, three hours of watching 7th grade volleyball when he said, “I’m so sleepy. My eyelids feel heavy.”

And, whereas a few years ago, my daughter would have said, “Aw, it’s okay buddy. Just close your eyes” (and it’s possible she may have sang him a song) she instead yelled at him and said, “WELL, THEN SHUT THEM!” See? Sweet as pie, that girl. There was no compassion, no appreciation for the fact that he had sat in the stands with his fingers crossed for her every time she served the volleyball.

I wanted my daughter back, because this Cybil in the back seat was not my kid.

I wondered if part of this was my fault. Was I, unknowingly, tossing fuel on the fire? Was she angry because her brother is different? Could this all be caused by hormones? Is it what she’s eating? Maybe she’s not getting enough sleep. Should I take her phone away? Keep her home from the dance this weekend? How could this be fixed?

But, it turned out that my worrying was for naught. My sweet girl is, actually, still in there; because when our family got some bad news…when we found out that my mother-in-law has cancer…my daughter gave her dad a big hug and sincerely apologized for being a crabby mean girl.

When it really mattered, she cared.

And, for a 12 year old, I guess that’s pretty good.

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What is your natural instinct when something scares you? Do you cover your eyes? Scream? Run? Fight?

I hate being scared and my knee-jerk reactions prove it. Last year at the Boy Scouts’ haunted forest when the boys jumped out from behind the trees, I grabbed my daughter and used her as a human shield.

But, that wasn’t when she first learned about my impulsiveness. The poor girl once made the mistake of standing behind my bedroom door, underneath a white sheet and when I least expected it, she jumped out at me and screamed. I screamed too. I also hit her in the face.

Last week, my husband had just climbed the steps when I entered the dark hallway right in front of him. He said…something…who knows what it was…and it scared me because I expected the dark hallway to be empty. I hit him so hard in the chest that I thought, for a second, he was going to fall down the stairs.

Fair warning, if I hear something go bump in the night, I’m going to shoot it. Just sayin’. I can’t help the way I react.

This has never been more evident than a few weeks ago on a trip to Lake Erie. My family and I were taking a tour of a one-room cave. I was shoved up against the back wall with a large crowd between me and the only exit. My head was about six inches from the ceiling.

I looked down at my son who was staring at something above me when he said, very nonchalantly, “Mom, there’s a bat.”

I was sure I misunderstood.

“What, buddy?”

Again, he looked just past my head and calmly said, “There’s a bat.”

I turned around to see a mouse-like, winged creature within inches of my face.

I can only describe what happened next as half slow-motion, half George Constanza. I nearly trampled my own kids so I could get out of there.

What can I say? My motherly instincts are pretty awesome.

But, as I was getting ready to throw people to the side, the tour guide said, “It’s okay! It’s fake!”

The picture is so blurry because I was still shaking. You know, because of a Beanie Baby.

But, on the upside, I didn’t knock anyone out.

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I haven’t had much time to tell you about the BlogHer ’11 Conference, because my job is to read what everyone else is saying about the BlogHer ’11 Conference and, whoa Nellie, do people say a lot. At least 99% of the reactions have been positive, so I have that going for me.  It’s hard enough to read thousands of comments, but if they were negative, I would likely be reading them from the corner, in the fetal position while sucking my thumb.

Since I am swimming in a sea of post-conference reports and tweets, I know that I’m not going to get around to writing a glowing post about my wonderful weekend. Therefore, I have decided to use visuals to describe how stellar my trip was.

This is what I found on my bed in San Diego after a hard day of work at the conference, which was also the night before I would be speaking in front of thousands of people. Nervous poop much? Thank goodness the convention center was big enough that I had entire bathrooms to myself. I digress. Those are rose petals left by my roommates. And, see that pillow on the right? That was personalized for me by one of them too.

This is what I found on my unmade bed, when I returned to Ohio. This is my dog’s “baby”. It is covered in dirt, fur and hardened dog slobber.

And that, boys and girls, sums up my conference experience quite well.

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