You can keep him as long as it takes to civilize him.  I'm seriously considering sending Ten to charm school.

I've been trying for ten long years, and this child still resists the use of silverware.  Over the years, I have had to inform him (sometimes more than once) that the following are not finger foods:

• orzo
• Caesar salad (with dressing)
• ice cream sundaes
• linguine
• ravioli
• potatoes
• butter

It was bound to happen.

I've witnessed the return of bright-neon everything, colored jeans, and even the espadrille, all things I haven't seen much of since the '80s.  Of course, Sixteen, being sixteen, thinks that all of these are the epitome of what's new and cool.  That was no surprise.

What did surprise me, though, was her reaction to the announcement that her school had added boat shoes to the (very short) list of acceptable uniform footwear.  She thinks boat shoes are adorable.  Who knew?

I wore boat shoes in high school and college, during the height of the preppy years.  They were great shoes, and I'd like to buy another pair to wear now.  But something's stopping me.

If I buy them, and like them, and wear them all over the place, my daughter is sure to decide that these shoes are no longer cool.  Boat shoes are the one part of the school uniform that she wouldn't fight about, and I don't want to jeopardize that.

So I've made a plan.  First, she'll get her boat shoes.  She'll admire them from all angles and insist that I get a pair too.  Maybe she'll even choose the color, since I don't have a school dress code dictating my choice in footwear.

We'll bond over my favorite shoes.  Shh!  Don't tell my daughter that I already like these.  She'll think I'm infinitely cooler if I buy a pair of shoes that she chooses for me, and who am I to get in the way of that?

Two pairs are better than one when it comes to shoes!  But no matter how many pairs of shoes you buy, Shoebuy's got a deal for you!  Right now, save 20% AND get free shipping at Shoebuy.com!

Having spent most of the past four weeks observing the goings-on of my household from the living-room couch, I haven't focused very much on neatness and organization.  Instead, I've had to settle for "reasonably sanitary" and "nowhere near my mom's standards."  But we're getting by, I'm slowly healing, and soon I'll be back to my old self.  While my house probably will never live up to my mom's standards, I look forward to the day when it will live up to mine.

Right now, though, I'm battling four people (OK, five people--I'm nearly as guilty as the rest of them) who put things down "for now" and never think about them again.

That's how there came to be a gun in my living room on the day Ten and his science-fair partner were putting their project together.

It's not a real gun; it's a BB gun that belongs to Twenty.  He usually keeps it safely in his room, since he can't have BB guns in his college dorm.  But it was recently used as a prop in the high school play, and when Sixteen brought it back home, she set it down on a shelf in the living room instead of returning it to the place where it belongs (insert exasperated motherly sigh here).

I didn't even notice it sitting there.  After all, it wasn't going to spoil and smell bad; no one was going to trip over it; it didn't need to go into the dishwasher.  That's pretty much all I'm focusing on these days.

Unfortunately, the mom who delivered Ten's science-fair partner was more than a little spooked by the sight of that gun on the shelf.

"Please tell me that's not a real gun," she whispered, pointing anxiously to where the BB gun sat, surrounded by baby pictures of the kids' cousins.

This is the same mom who will not allow her fourth-grader into my backyard because we have an above-ground pool with a locked gate, or into my front yard because, well, there's a street in front of it.  It looks like she's only going to let her child play here on rainy days when there's no possible way the boys will want to go outside.

Once again, I'm declaring my living room a Toy-Free Zone.  If you're doing the same, you'll find lovely home accents at Through the Country Door.  Reclaim the living room--or any room--and redecorate, all while saving 10%!

Mother's Day is coming up quickly, and the kids have been asking me what I'd like as a gift.

Silence is golden, kids.

Really.

I love my kids and everything, but (as the Grinch would say) "the noise, noise, noise, noise!"  Twenty just came home from college yesterday, so the Summer Season of Bickering is about to start.

Other summer sounds that make me crazy are the Dueling Landscapers.  These guys are pros, and they've got the decibels to prove it.  I swear they compete to see who can make more noise with their driving mowers on the flat, 1/5-acre lots on my neighborhood.  Then they finish it off by using a leaf blower to send every stray bit of grass into the next zip code.

Landscapers are required to wear ear protection when they use equipment like that.  The rest of us are not so lucky.  If I were Queen (and I'd be happy to run for the job) I'd make those landscapers distribute noise-canceling headphones to all neighbors within a 1/2-block radius of their work.

Come to think of it, that would be a great Mother's Day gift from the kids.  With a set of noise-canceling headphones, I could block out the landscapers.  I could tune out the neighbors' log-splitter running directly under my dining-room window.  I could ignore The Bickersons in the family room and be blissfully unaware of video-game-related disputes among ten-year-old Street Urchins.

Now hear this, kids!  Mom wants some peace and quiet for Mother's Day!  That would be the best gift ever, next to big hugs from all of you, of course.

TheNerds have a big selection of noise-canceling headphones and you can save $5 on your $50 purchase through May 30!

As a diagnostician, the nurse at Ten's elementary school leaves something to be desired.  She's the one who sent home half the school in The Great Head Lice Scare of 2008, mistaking "fuzzies" from winter hats for gnarly nits.  She's the one who told my son, after he'd become ill at school, that he might have the flu, which, by the way, had killed a few children in a neighboring state within the past week.

And she's the one who believed the Stomachache Kid and made me cancel an MRI.  True story.

A specialist sent me for an MRI, and after I waited more than a week for the insurance permissions and the appointment and all of that, I was finally on my way to the imaging center.  Then my cell phone rang.  When I saw that it was Ten's school calling, I pulled into a nearby parking lot and answered the phone.

The nurse told me that Ten had a stomachache and needed to come home.  I explained where I was and said that I would try to get someone to pick him up.  But Twenty, who was home for spring break that week, was not answering the house phone or his cell phone.  And my neighbor, who's always home, wasn't.

It was just as well that my neighbor wasn't there; I hate to foist a child who might possibly have a stomach virus on someone else.  As Marcie Dahlgren-Frost says in Uncle Buck, "You need a relative for an imposition of this size."

I was just around the corner from the imaging center, so I walked up to the appointment desk and explained my situation.  Fortunately, they were very understanding and gave me a new appointment for the next week.

Then I jumped back into my car and broke the land-speed record as I headed across the county to Ten's school.  I was there within twenty minutes of the first phone call.  Once in the door, I entered the nurse's office, only to hear her say, "So, did you get your MRI?"

And after all that, the Stomachache Kid wasn't even sick.  He's got the nurse's number, it seems, and he brings on the puppy-dog eyes and all the rest of his dramatic talent when he's had enough of school for the day.  I spent the rest of that afternoon keeping him from playing backyard soccer and Nerf basketball in the family room--because that's not what you get to do when you've come home sick from school.

If you need sickroom supplies, toothpaste, or other health and hygiene items, visit Drugstore.com.  New customers can get a FREE $100 gift card to Restaurant.com, PLUS free shipping, on a $50 order!

When Ten woke up the other day, I told him to shower and get ready for a party for one of his many cousins.

That's when the argument started.

It was a special occasion, and this party was not going to be held in someone's backyard.  I was hoping he'd dress according to the venue, so I nixed the idea of his wearing his favorite T-shirt that advertises the local pro soccer team.

It's not like I was asking the kid to wear a jacket and tie.  I'd have settled for a golf shirt and a nice pair of plaid Bermuda shorts.  Provided, of course, that he'd scrubbed all the grass stains and mud off his knobby knees.

"The party's not in their yard," I told him.  "It's at the Holiday Inn."

"At a hotel?" he asked.

"Yes, so you should try to look nice, OK?"

"A hotel!  That's great!  Do you think there'll be a gift shop?"

You can save up to 50% off your hotel bill, whether the hotel has a gift shop or not!  Just reserve through Travelocity and save a bundle.

The kids are off from school this week, so I'm getting a little taste of what summer vacation is going to be like around here.

Not that I need reminding.  I know what it's going to be like:  loud and messy.  I'm no Felix Unger, but I like to be able to walk around my family room without stepping on popcorn.  And I do like my quiet.

When Ten and his friends are in the house and it's quiet, that means only one thing:  they're playing a computer game.  That's OK for a while on a rainy day, but when it's 60 degrees out and sunny, I want those boys outside enjoying the nice day.  They resist every step of the way.

It's pretty clear that no one else's mom will let them inside the house to play video games either, because every time they leave to go to someone else's house, they're back here within fifteen minutes.  Yesterday, Ten and two of his buddies (known around here as the Street Urchins) showed up with two mini-Milky Ways in hand.

"Mom, do you like Milky Ways?" Ten inquired.

"Sure," I replied, and he told me I could have the candy he was holding in his grubby little hand.  Then he beat a quick retreat to the family room, where it got awfully quiet awfully fast.

I sent them back outside.

With over 20 years experience in the parenting department, I've learned that it's a good idea not to put up with much.  We have a backyard pool, so I spend summer days being a combination lifeguard, peacekeeper, referee, towel police, and monitor of four-letter words.  Fortunately, the Street Urchins fear me a little bit--just enough so that they'll listen (for the moment) when I remind them that Baseballs Are Not Pool Toys.

For Mother's Day, my husband is going to open the pool.  Oh joy.

Meanwhile, I put up with the little boys and find myself saying things like, "If you shake that soda, I will kick you out.  I might even use my foot."

If these kids want to bribe me with candy, it's going to take a lot more than two mini-Milky Ways.  Unfortunately, my kind of candy isn't in the budget of the average 10-year-old.  Good thing there are deals like this one, from A Candy Store:  save $5 off any $50 order through April 14 with coupon code CandyFanACS.

I'm not a big fan of buying things at airports.  They know you're a captive audience, so everything is way overpriced.  But people must be buying things at airports, because more and more of them look like shopping malls with TSA agents at each entrance.

That could be a good thing for shopping malls, actually.  Keep out the teenagers who roam the place in packs and never seem to buy anything.  But I digress...

Last night, my daughter was at an airport because she's going on vacation this week with her friend's family (it's good to have friends!)  Once you get through the whole "take off your shoes and go through inspection" thing, there's an awful lot of time to kill before you actually get to get on the plane and go someplace.  So she and her friend did a little sightseeing--and shopping.

I got a text message with a picture of some seriously high-heeled platform shoes in a leopard pattern that looked like they'd make my daughter, still recovering from a sports injury to her ankle, fall right over and break several bones.

"No," I replied.  "You just got out of the boot."

I got back, "Hahahahahaha"

"You didn't buy those, did you?" I texted back as quickly as my forty-mumble-year-old fingers could manage.

"Gottago!"

Later, she eased my mind and told me that no, she had not spent her vacation money on those crazy shoes.  This morning I told my sister about all this.

Her comment?  "You definitely don't buy shoes at the airport."

My sister is right.  You don't buy shoes at the airport.  Especially not when there are so many great online shoe deals to be had.  Shoes and Style is having a big sale, and you can get 15% off PLUS free shipping through August 1, 2012 when you use coupon code MENOTSNS.

My daughter and I took a quick trip to my most un-favorite place, The Mall, in search of some yoga pants and pajama pants for me.  I'm going to need them as I recover from surgery scheduled in a week or so.

My daughter is 16.  I am not 16, and have not been 16 for quite some time now.  Let's just say we gravitate toward very different clothes.  And the pajama pants at The Mall were much more in tune with her taste than with mine.  The same was true with some of the yoga pants.  No longer just basic black from waist to hem, they now come with waistbands that are tie-died, lace-trimmed, and even Bedazzled.  I'm not generally a Bedazzled kind of girl; never was.

That said, I won't be wearing these pajamas for too long.  After the first few weeks, I should be able to fit in my "regular" clothes once again, instead of needing things that are a couple of sizes larger than usual.  So I gave in to her encouragement to buy some pajama pants that were certainly comfortable, but definitely outside my comfort zone.  One pair looks like it was run over by a paint truck.

I'm pretty sure that I'll be scaring the nurses and any visitors I might have when I wear these, but I'm going to take comfort in the fact that they were on super-clearance, so I didn't have to pay too much to look that frightening.

You'll find really cute pajamas at Sleepyheads, and you can even save 15% on your entire order with code SOCIALTW through June 1!

Every spring, we have a bunch of welcome visitors when the Duck Family comes to town.  We hear them before we see them.  Daddy Duck has a quite loud voice and he prefers to get an early start in the morning, so the quacking alarm clock wakes me bright and early (or, rather, dark and early) every morning.  After a week or two of that, the ducks wander around to our front yard in search of a handout.

They have figured out, over the past six or seven years, that we're good for plenty of birdseed and bread.  Once they start showing up, they'll be here several times a day.  I start buying an extra loaf of sandwich bread every time I go to the store, to satisfy their appetites.

Daddy Duck always lets Mama Duck eat first.  He stands back, alert and watchful.  She'll waddle almost close enough for me to touch her.  In fact, if I don't get to the front door quickly enough after hearing them, they'll come almost up to the door.

My kids--and my neighbors' kids--are endlessly fascinated by the ducks and eager to see them come back every year.  We don't know where they hide their nest, but one year we were lucky enough to see nearly a dozen little ducklings making their way through the backyard.

Duck Season has begun, so I'm making sure there's plenty of birdseed and bread around.

Got pets to feed? Get over to Petco.com, where you'll save $7 on your $70 order with coupon code affreg through April 27!