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I might be old, but I have two younger sisters, bobbing around in their 20s and doing fabulous, youthful things. One lives in D.C., where she works for Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai to green up the planet. The other sister rocks the skinny jeans as she prowls Brooklyn, going to college by day and life-guarding by night.

As the elderly sister, you might think I’d be the one with all the wisdom. At the very least, I can tell them what not to do, right? But last night, I desperately picked the brain of my youngest sister, who pays for her textbooks by giving swimming lessons to little kids.

Amos’ lessons are painful, and I’m not sure who dreads them most, him or me. He even freaked out in the bathtub the other night, which never happened before our first two swimming lessons last week. Aunt Sarah provided some clarity. “Stop pushing him, get him comfortable with the water, there’s no rush.” That was her basic message. So we’re going to head out to swim lessons tonight and try to resist the pressure. When it’s time for the babies to go under, Amos will be allowed to opt out, at least for a week or two until he can chill enough to get in the water without pooping his pants immediately.

There seem to be two schools of thought about this swimming business. One, the more popular one these days judging from my google searches, is that kids really need to learn this stuff so they just have to cry it out. The other is that you should take your time and let the kids have fun. My sister said really there’s a middle ground, that you have to push a little but not too much. So we’ll try that and see how it goes.

I’ll be psyched if the middle-ground strategy works, because Tuesday and Thursday nights are going to miserable if it doesn’t. I never expected swimming lessons to be quite so panic-inducing.

These teeth are ferocious. Amos has had a fever off and on for a week. Last night he turned into a tasmanian devil at around 2, flailing around and burning up but refusing any Tylenol. The only thing he wanted was milk, which of course we had just run out of. Softie Rodney went out around 3:30 a.m. on a milk run, but when Amos tried to drink it he cried because it hurt his mouth. Bah! He screams like a banshee when we give him Tylenol. Does that hurt his mouth, too? Any advice would be much appreciated.

A year ago on Mother’s Day I was on an airplane over the Atlantic, headed for Uganda on a work trip and absolutely freaking out about leaving my year-old baby boy. I didn’t really want to go, but you’ve got to keep the lights on somehow, right? Travel is part of my job. It used to be my favorite part. Nowadays not so much, but secretly I really do love it during those fleeting moments when I can shuck the worry and guilt about leaving the family at home. Obviously Amos and I both survived the Uganda trip, although I’m not sure I would have if my cell phone hadn’t worked just fine in East Africa. The bill was stupid high, as you can imagine.

This year’s Mother’s Day was way less angst-ridden. Amos and I baked a cake together in the morning, then rode a camel at the zoo in the afternoon. Romantic, yes? I think we enjoyed the day equally. He was totally at ease on the camel, giving me another hint that he’s the real adventurer in the family. I’m certain that someday he’ll overtake me on the frequent flier mile tally.

My gift this morning was a set of wallet-sized Amos photos to take with me when I ship out for Africa again next weekend. I’m off to Senegal this time, which I keep telling myself is way closer to home that Uganda (it’s on the northwest side of the continent, just a short swim away!). The trip is scheduled to be eight days long, and please pray with me that the stupid volcano in Iceland gives it a rest so my flights home through Brussels won’t be cancelled. This time around I’m better prepared. My dad and his wife are coming in from North Carolina to help take care of Amos, which is perhaps unnecessary but makes me feel lots better. I have a fancy blackberry for 24-hour easy access to Amos reports. I’ve already got the house stocked with groceries, and there’s even a casserole in the freezer. I never make casseroles in real life, so I feel far ahead of the game.

Planning ahead and staying busy are the best ways to stave off the panic, I find. It also helps me to think of all the other mothers where I work who also travel away from their families and live to tell the tale. And really, I’m not complaining. There are far worse job requirements than having to jet off to exotic locales every once in a while. It will be great, right? Still, I won’t sleep much this week fretting about all the things that might happen. And I guarantee you another stupid high phone bill is in my future.

My sister in Colorado had a baby this weekend. The little thing was two weeks late, but Mary still went with the home birth, sans epidural or narcotics. How hardcore is that? The results are wonderful:

No name yet. Beauty?

I get all giddy and greedy this time of year when I see the UPS man swerving down the street, ping-ponging between houses on either side. Is my Amazon order in yet? Is someone sending us a present? Pick me! Pick me! On Monday night he stopped at our house with a package from Amos’ grandparents in NC. Woohoo! My dad’s wife, a.k.a. Grandjan, sent Amos a special plate to put Santa’s cookies on for Christmas Eve. I pulled out the camera to snap a few shots to share with Grandjan since she couldn’t be here to see Amos’ reaction herself. Here’s the first shot. Notice Rodney’s protective hands hovering around the porcelain plate, ready to catch it if Amos’ fingers slip:

but it's backwards

But that picture didn’t show the cute Santa-side of the plate, so we staged another. It was much better. See here:

sort of

But that shot is still kind of lame. So I asked Amos to stand still and hold the plate in front of him. Right as I was about to snap the photo, he turned and darted into the kitchen. Our kitchen has ceramic tile floors. There was a crash, then this:

oops

And then, of course, this:

dag

Bah humbug.

Shrek the Halls came on last week, and it made me remember the days before Amos when I would sometimes amuse myself by dressing my dog up in a Shrek costume. Now I spend quite a bit of time chasing Amos around, trying to get him dressed at all. Sam the golden retriever is far more laid back about putting clothes on than probably any 2-year-old on the planet. I tell you this as a caution for people who think their dog is good practice for having a child. Not so much.

This year’s Little Rock Christmas parade was ruined, and I’m pretty upset about it. Lots of it was great: The marching bands were amazing, especially Parkview and the dancing ladies in their saucy outfits. The beauty queens were fine, the motorcycles and fire trucks were a hit. But what was up with the gory, bloody, over-the-top crucified Jesus? Some overzealous church (I don’t even know which one, I was too appalled by the spectacle to read their signs) had some poor teenaged boy marching barefoot and clad only in a sheet down Capitol Ave. in 30 degree weather, hauling a cross. That would have been okay except that this freezing child was absolutely doused in fake blood, from his hair down his face and chest and running off his ankles. The sheet he wore around his waist was sopped in it. It was like the horrifying scene from “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Remember that movie? Remember how it was rated R because such violence and gore is terrifying and completely unsuitable for young audiences? So why in the world did anyone think it would be appropriate for a children’s Christmas parade? What’s wrong with a nice nativity scene? My husband and I were disgusted and we left right away. That was not what we came to see.

UPDATE: I just got all mother-hen style and called the city, where the very helpful person who answered the phone gave me a number for The Angela Rogers Group, which is the event-planning firm hired to handle the parade. The person at The Angela Rogers Group said they were really upset by the bloody Jesus, too. They had no idea he was coming. The church, which is called The Potter’s House, did not indicate on their registration form that they were going to be doing anything like that. Next year, the person I talked to said they’d keep an eye out to make sure parade participants are more child-friendly.

So I’m taking the easy way out and going with a seasonal theme for the blog today. But I promise not to get all sentimental on you. These are the things that made my weekend awesome:

1. I got to drink delicious wine with a pack of lovely ladies while we watched baby bobcats romp on a ridge overlooking the Arkansas River. I’m not even kidding, this totally happened to me.

2. The new fence around our backyard kept Amos from darting into traffic while I stayed in the hammock.

3. The cat’s litterbox really wasn’t too gross, even though I hadn’t cleaned it out in a week.

4. The leaves finally seem to have stopped falling from the heavens.

5. I got a fun e-mail from my little sister in D.C. mentioning that she was headed out to a glamorous dinner party. Ah, to be young again!

6. I got another e-mail from my friend Tara in Pennsylvania, and even though we hadn’t talked in months and months, that didn’t even matter.

7. Three-day workweek coming up. Bring it.

8. Grandbob and GrandJan sent Amos a UNC T-shirt, and it looks even more handsome that I’d hoped.

9. They sent me one, too.

10. We’re going to my in-laws’ house for Thanksgiving so I don’t have to clean my house for company or cook anything.

Happy, happy days!

Until Amos starts complaining, my husband and I skimp on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy and buy only the DVDs of the children’s shows we loved. We’ve got the two-disk Schoolhouse Rock collection (highly recommended, get one today!), half a dozen Sesame Street oldies before Elmo pushed Big Bird out of the limelight, and the full third season of The Muppet Show.

It turns out everything goes pretty much as we remembered it except the Muppets, whose behavior is far more scandalous than I noticed the first time around. Miss Piggy is always drinking champagne, and most of the time it drives her to violence. Haaaa-YA! Then there’s the terrorist Muppet who’s always blowing things up, sometimes launching Kermit through the air and all the way into the laps of those grumpy hecklers in the balcony seats. But the weird stripping by Sandy Duncan is the oddest indiscretion we’ve come across. Her first musical number starts off with her slamming a row of whiskey sours while belting out the line, “What’s a nice girl like me doing in a place that never closes?” She dances and sings in the arms of ragtag monsters while diving deeper and deeper into the cups, and when she gets fully liquored up she rips off her skirt to reveal those long, skinny gams encased in slinky black stockings.

I mean, whatever. The Muppet Show was a primetime deal meant to appeal to kids and grown-ups, and in my house I’d say it does the job. We eat it up. I’m sure back in the day my mom watched a few episodes with my brother and me, and she very well may have been enjoying an Old Milwaukee and a cigarette at the time. I wonder, though, how those party-time Muppets would go over on Nickelodeon. I hate to say it, but our parents were a lot cooler than we are.

We’ve been getting some pressure to get Amos’ hair cut, so we took him Saturday mainly so we wouldn’t have to hear the complaints anymore. Mistake! He will be a dead ringer for Axel Rose before I put him (and myself and his dad) through the trauma again. We went to Pigtails & Crewcuts, that cute little salon over by the Fresh Market where they have the little fire trucks and taxi cabs the kids can sit in while they get their hair done. I will give them props, those ladies gave it their all. First, Amos of course refused to sit in the little fire truck, so his dad had to hold him while he screamed and squirmed and tried desperately to break free. One lady tried to distract Amos by blowing bubbles, but his terror level was such that the beloved bubbles hardly registered. The cut ended up fine, although trimming the back of his neck and around his ears was far too dangerous for everyone involved. The pictures tell the sad, horrific story:

And now that it’s over, not only are we guilty for putting him through it, we’re also kind of sad about the short hair. It makes him look older. What mom wants that? Even worse, it makes him look like a miniature right-wing radio talk show host. I can’t wait for his lovely red locks to grow back out. What was I thinking?