A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I kept mixing up my kids information as I filled out their emergency cards for the upcoming school year.

I didn’t realize I had done it before.

I found out today as an entire preschool class came running up as my daughter arrived, yelling, “Happy Birthday!” as I tried to signal to the teachers that today isn’t her birthday.

But it is, according to the emergency card I filled out last summer.

Both kids have birthdays that start with a J and end with a zero. In between there are a bunch of different letters and numbers, but one of my most frequent mix-ups is assigning my daughter a July 10 birthday.

It never got me in trouble before, but then again, she’s only 4, right?

I’d been wondering why my daughter kept asking if her birthday was this week. I figured it was because she’s not so clear on time yet. “This week” could mean this week, this month or this year.

I guess it could also mean this week. Now I understand why she asked me on Tuesday if her birthday was “the day after tomorrow.” She probably she really thought it was.

Luckily, we’d just had a conversation about her birthday driving up to her school and she knew it wasn’t today… I think.

I might find out she’s expecting presents when I pick her up from school.

Try to teach a three-year-old to say “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

It’s a pretty complex retort for children at an age when they’re considered average if they can string five words together into a sentence.

Chances are, they’re going to end up on the sticky side of the insult.

But isn’t that really they way it is? We tell our kids – tell ourselves even – that sticks and stones will break our bones but words will never hurt us, but words do hurt.

 
Still, don’t we all have embarrassing moments that will stick with us forever? Bullying on the playground. Frankness from a friend. Teasing from a sibling who knows how to get at your vulnerabilities.

Physical injuries fade, but sometimes the words just rattle around your head forever.

Bloomberg.com just reported on a study that showed that more than four out of every 10 college students surveyed had experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse, either before they entered college or while they were co-eds.

Much of that abuse was “emotional.”

Where’s the line on emotional abuse?

You can show off a fractured arm or blackened eye, but how do you reveal a broken heart or bruised psyche? How can you tell whether you’ve just been knocked down a peg or if your ego has taken a beating that it will be hard to recover from?

Is having your feelings hurt the same as being abused?

It’s disturbing to think that more than 40 percent of college students feel they have been abused in any way. They might be going through life stronger as survivors, but they also might have plummeting self-esteem or pent-up rage they’ll end up unleashing on someone else.

It’s much easier to see things clearly when there’s physical contact involved. You can teach your kids what’s appropriate touching and what’s not. There are laws written that define those guidelines.

Emotional abuse is something different. We teach our kids that they have to have tough skins. They have to be able to tolerate some teasing. They have to learn not to take derogatory statements to heart. We want them to know that they’re better than anything anyone could say about them, but how do we really equip them to have that strong a sense of self?

Are we just settng them up to start absorbing all the pain instead of setting up boundaries to determine when hurt feelings  have become more than that? How do we teach someone to recognize that they’ve ended up in a relationship where they feel threatened, even though no hand has been raised in anger?

It’s troubling to think that so many children hit adulthood feeling that someone has not just hurt them, but abused them… and abused them in ways that parents might not have prepared them for.

Maybe we should stop teaching them to be rubber and help them figure out what to do when they end up being the glue.

When I picked my daughter up from preschool on Wednesday, she and a classmate were dancing to “Cupid Shuffle,” which they’d learned watching another class perform to it at graduation.

When we got home, I downloaded the song from iTunes and played it over and over for her until she was too tired to move any longer.

On Friday, I looked up the video on YouTube:

My daughter was fascinated until I started trying to learn the moves. There’s an instructional video, just in case you can’t figure out what it means to go:

To the right, to the right, to the right, to the right
To the left, to the left, to the left, to the left
Now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick
Now walk it by yourself, now walk it by yourself
– “Cupid Shuffle” by (you’ll never guess) Cupid

 

It’s probably possible that my daughter could be less impressed with me, but it would be hard to imagine.

“Settle down!” she told me, pushing me back into the chair.

Rather than being the cool mom, I was the embarrassing mom. Unfortunately for my daughter, I’m the only mom she has. If she can’t handle now, imagine how she’s going to feel when she’s 12 like her brother.

And speaking of her brother…

On Saturday, I ducked into Steve and Barry’s, thinking I’d buy my son some t-shirts so he’d stop wearing his school uniform shirts.

He wasn’t nearly as amused with the “Chillin with my gnomies” t-shirt I bought for him as I as. How am I supposed to know that garden gnomes aren’t hip?

Good thing everything at that store is $9.98 or less.

… or if you know an addict, you’ll want to watch this.

I’ve never figured out why my son likes watching (and making) YouTube videos of people playing video games, but he does. When I saw this video from the Onion News Network, I laughed not only because it’s funny, but because my son is bummed it’s not real.

“It looks fun!,” he said.

I love the Onion.

(Apologies to The Onion for taking the video off YouTube, but I couldn’t embed it otherwise. You can get to the video on the Onion site using this link: ‘Warcraft’ Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing ‘Warcraft)

I’m torn.

Is the best quote this:

“My avatar is the biggest World of Warcraft fan in the whole World of World of Warcraft world.”

Or is it this?

“When you’re staring at the computer screen, you actually believe you’re in a dimly lit basement staring at a computer screen.”

Every day I get a reminder from The Literacy Site informing me that if I click on a link, I can help get free books to impoverished children.

Why not click? It’s not like they’re asking for money.

When I was looking at yesterday’s message, though, I noticed a phrase that always gets me excited: “when you buy 1, you get 1 free.”

In this case, it’s a “Triple Wish Hoop Necklace”

I took a look, bought a pair for myself and my daughter and ended up buying some other things besides.

Each item I bought means one more book for one more kid.

Not a bad way to spend money, but even if you’re not in the mood to shop, it doesn’t cost anything to click the link.