It’s been way too long since I posted anything here, and for that I truly apologize. I’ve been very busy working on a number of projects, including an ebook version of Dedicated Idiocy: A Personal History of the Penn State Monty Python Society, and putting together a rough rundown for my upcoming book, Now with Kung Fu Action Grip, a collection of poetry and writings about my son, age 2.

I’ll make more of an effort to post something here, even if it’s just about my everyday parenting challenges. This morning, for example, I was thrilled to run into one of my son’s little friends at the YMCA. She was waiting in a hallway with two older children (possibly siblings, though I don’t know for sure). As my Kung Fu Panda and his friend exchanged shy pleasantries (you’d never know the two of them had been holding hands while running through the park just last Thursday), the older girl asked me, “Is he your son or your grandson?”

If I had $1 for every time someone had asked me that, I could be building quite the college fund.

This time, I had to remind myself that she was only about 8. It’s entirely possible that she knows a lot of 40-year-old grandmothers. After all, if I’d had a kid at 20, and my child had done the same, I would indeed be a grandmother. It’s just not the sort of thing you want to hear — ever, really, but especially when you’re sweaty and walking around in exercise gear. Only five minutes previously, I’d been smiling silly after an invigorating Zumba class with a guest instructor who kept us all on our toes.

So I reminded myself not to take it personally, and I just smiled brightly. My son bid his friend bye-bye, and we walked away, still smiling. After a short while, I didn’t even have to force it anymore.