"How do you get your daughter to sit there and write during her summer vacation?"

Okay... so, given that this was about my own child, this statment was clearly not technically overheard at Starbucks. But since we were in my favorite spot writing, and since it gave me a lot to think about for the last week, I decided to include it.

What struck me as funny about this conversation was that I, like many other moms I know, have nearly every day so far considered making a summer homework chart with motivational prizes. It's not, though, something I've done. No, the reason my daughter was with me there writing (and more about that in a moment) was because I bribed her with a Frappacino. I was desparate to do my own writing, and so I loaned her a computer and opened up a Word doc for her.

Now, the writing she was doing.... well, if you consider checking out the 100 different fonts she could use and thereby only actually typing two sentances (one of which was a repeat of the first one, only in a different font), if you consider this writing then I am clearly up for the Mom of the Year award. My expecations are a little bit higher, however, so I don't really consider it anything to be bragging about.

That said, I also didn't exactly come clean to my mom friend who was so impressed. It's hard to admit my shortcomings, especially to somone who always looks like she just stepped off the cover of Vogue. So consider this my mea culpa... I am obviously not the Martha Stewart of motherhood, but at least I remembered to order my daughter's Frappacino without coffee this time.