A week ago, my fourth-grader asked me about getting an Instagram account. I demanded she produce other fourth-graders who had one so I could ask their mothers about it. That ended the conversation.

Today, school was cancelled due to ice. She mused as I ignored her while working that she wished she could text with her friends.

I told her she's too young then went back to ignoring her while working. 

Then I sort of felt bad, so I started to suggest she call them and had to hold my tongue. Of course the friends she wants to talk to moved here from Iowa and their mother has a long-distance cell phone number, and our home phone doesn't get long distance, and I refuse to let her use my cell because I need it for work. So she can't call them. They live within walking distance and she can't call them. She could probably Skype with them, but that is now making my head hurt.

The world of 2013 is so complicated. 

She's not getting a cell phone. Not yet. She's not. 

Or Instagram. 

Or, OMG, SnapChat, that devil's tool all the kids like.

So far I've muddled along whistling in the dark about my daughter and technology. She has an iPod Touch and has had one for about a year now, but so far she only uses it to play games and FaceTime with relatives.

She's not getting a phone.

She's not texting.

She's going to talk. Or for God's sake, pass a note. Or be bored.

*headdesk*

(I just peeked. She found a new app and is now writing a story. THANK YOU, JESUS. Back to work.)

When she got on the bus, I could see the angry bright red skin between her nose and upper lip from twenty feet away. As she changed into her leotard and tights for ballet, I realized her lips were so chapped they were hours away from splitting. Over a week of rubbing tissues against her little face over and over had taken its toll.

I smeared a little nasal gel on her nose, and immediately she begain shrieking that it burned. I searched all over the house for the good lip stuff and couldn't find anything. Beloved came home early from work and offered to take her to ballet for me, and I nearly jumped up and down at the anticipation of not having to go out in the freezing cold for three hours between the commute and the getting of dinners for the little ballerinas and the sitting on the hard bench in the parent waiting area for ballet. I didn't mind it when I was using the time to work on PARKER CLEAVES revisions, but now that it's out with beta readers, I don't want the benches anymore. She only has two weeks left of ballet, and even though she's danced since she was two, I'm ready for that chapter of our lives to be over, maybe as much as she is.

He left with her still howling about her nose. I drove to the grocery store and bought two tubs of Vaseline and two tubes of medicated Blistex. I drove back home and made myself a huge salad and a tuna sandwich and a tube of biscuits for her so she'd have breakfast in the morning. I burned the homemade croutons. I set off the smoke detector. 

I sat on the couch and finished one book and immediately opened another. Chain reading, binge reading, because sometimes I just can't get enough of someone else's stories, and television has actors who can be bad actors and commercials and a million things that slow down the story. Sometimes reading is the only way to get the story directly in the IV and coursing through my body fast enough. 

She came home and grabbed the purring cat off my lap. I looked at how tall she's grown and how old she looks except for the fiery patch under her nose. She took a shower and washed her hair, then I gave her the Vaseline and the Blistex and told her to put them on. 

She came out of the bathroom to where I was sitting, still reading, propped on a pillow against the linen closet in the hall where I sit when she wants me near but I don't want to be in the bathroom with its heat and humidity and tile floors, and she kissed the tub of Vaseline.

"This is my new best friend," she said.

I laughed. "Why?"

"Because my nose hurt so bad and that other stuff just stung and I was worried about putting this on and I did, and it felt like a nice, warm blanket, and now my nose is comfy."

"Did you put the stuff on your lips?"

"Yes."

"Does it hurt?"

"No. It feels good, too."

Then she took her cough syrup with pretzel chasers and we read our books in her bed, and then she laid her wet head in the crook of my arm and the cat wound himself into the valley between our legs and we turned out the lights. I lay there reminding myself to be grateful that we are not as sick as we were, that the lump in my breast from last month turned out to be just a harmless cyst, that my husband is not traveling this week so it's not so hard to take care of myself, that this ballet business is almost over, that the truck that needs new struts and is over 200,000 miles has not died yet and will perhaps make it through the holidays into the new year when replacing it would be easier for us, that we made it so long before it really got cold. 

I went over the list in my head as I listened to her breathing grow more even, though still snuffly. I reached the point when I have to decide if I'm going to get out of her bed and have an adult evening (which I always do) or just close my eyes and go to sleep hours earlier than I usually do and in the wrong bed.

I got up. I nearly always get up. And I felt almost deliriously happy about how well the Vaseline worked. There is real joy in helping to relieve someone's pain. It makes you feel less stuck.

Tomorrow the little angel has a ceremony to go to for school. She has been bugging me to iron the flounces of her skirt to make them stand out prettily, and of course I keep forgetting. This morning, she left me a note on my laptop. Mommy, please iron my skirt. I wrote it down on my work list: Iron skirt.  And I remembered! I ironed it.

I got to the second row of flounces before I started crying.

There I stood in my basement, holding an iron in my hand, thinking about how proud I am of my girl who tries so hard in school. I also thought about the worry list she wrote on her playroom whiteboard, how she's been counting down the days to know if her team won, how the combination of that looming childhood worry combined with a school spelling bee this week has her seriously spinning.

She will be fine, of course. Competition is healthy. She doesn't play sports, so this is her opportunity to learn to be a good winner or loser, to look forward to things, to be rewarded for a job well done, to celebrate or mourn with a team. Sports are great and all, but they aren't the only teams in schools. 

So I stood there, trying to get all the wrinkles out and knowing because of the way the flounces were gathered I would fail, trying to keep Kizzy from burning his little black paws on the steam he so desperately wanted to touch, thinking how fast it is going and it will be like a roller coaster that took forever and only thirty seconds between now and when I'm steaming her high school graduation gown. 

I'm doing all I can do. She was so wound up she had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night. I know tonight will be worse. We've scheduled some worry time for after ballet (not sure I wrote about how she decided two weeks into September that she can't handle the step-up to two nights during the school week, she still hates ballet, quitting at the end of the semester, and I will be very happy not hear a daily litany of how much she hates ballet after that). I'll work on PARKER CLEAVES while she's in class so I won't be sitting there at bedtime thinking how every minute ticking by is a minute I'm not writing before the 11 pm mental shutdown. I'll be fresh. I'll remind her what a good coper she is. We'll breathe deeply. And tomorrow, win or lose, we'll celebrate, of course after the ceremony and school and my trip to the blonde fairy that has already been rescheduled twice. I'd like to clear my calendar for her, but Beloved is traveling till Thursday and, well, dammit, I need my hair cut.

I'm not writing this for you all, I'm writing this for me, you see that right? I just realized it myself.

I can do this. I can stand by her through this excitement and anxiety all by myself sandwiched between two ballet sessions she hates and amidst taking out the garbage and carpooling and scheduling things ahead for Thanksgiving at work and laundry and cooking and writing. I will not let my own anxiety about managing my job and my kid and the house alone affect my ability to teach her to cope, because the better I cope, the better she will cope. 

Fucking hell, being a good example is SO HARD. 

As I sit on my front stoop every weekday morning with my girl, waiting for the school bus, I check out the fashion statements of today's children. Our bus stop has swelled to eleven kids from three in one year, thanks to some large families moving in. That's a lot of shoes.

Something seemed odd about those shoes for the longest time. Then I realized what it was -- they rotated.

I don't remember which grade I was in, but one year I had burgandy Kangaroos with Velcro AND THE POCKET. God, I was so cool. When I got a little older, I had a pair of white Nikes (NIKE! SQUEE!) with white pinstrips on the nylon. White on white, dude. I thought I was the queen of Sheba with those white-on-white pinstriped Nikes.

I don't remember wearing other shoes to school until I hit at least middle school. Elementary school was tennies, unless you were tromping around the halls in your moon boot liners in the dead of winter.

You had to choose your tennies carefully and with an eye to all outfit possibilities. All my outfit possibilities were jeans, because I also don't remember ever wearing a skirt to school on a normal day. Maybe cords, but those would also go with my tennies. My mother will read this and maybe be able to inform me if I actually wore more than one pair of shoes at a time to school in elementary, but I really don't think I did. In fact, this line of reasoning has continued on well into adulthood. Every season, I tend to buy a pair of black whatevers or a pair of brown whatevers. Maybe I'll add something cute if I see them at TJ Maxx or the rich people Goodwill, but the fact I don't buy shoes has less to do with my ability to afford them and more to do with my mindset of the One Pair of Shoes.

I realized this yesterday when I pulled out my black booties for the seventh time in a row since it got cold. I'm a shoe child of habit. A fashion nightmare. I keep wearing the same pair of shoes over and over like I'm twelve.

But these children! They have awesome shoes! Ballet flats and Converse that lace all the way up to their knees and Uggs with GLITTER. And some tennies, of course, but only on P.E. days. My own daughter alternates between tennies, purple tall Bearpaws, cowgirl boots and hot pink patent leather ballet flats. She puts me to shame.

She is nine.

I think I'm still searching for those white-on-white-pinstriped Nikes that went with everything, were comfortable and yet still made me feel refined, if there is such a thing as a refined Nike. I wasn't the only one who wore the same pair of shoes all the time -- it seemed everyone did. The standards were so much lower then.

It was easier with lower fashion standards. Bring back the one pair of shoes, people.

[Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on BlogHer.com.]

Last Saturday, I packed my bag, drove to St. Louis and attended the young adult literature/anti-bullying Less Than Three Conference hosted by New York Times best-selling young adult author Heather Brewer.

I knew it would be interesting, but I didn't know it would be life-changing. The sessions ranged from cyber-bullying to self-bullying to school bullying to LGBTQ bullying and were led by young adult authors who had written novels discussing -- in some fashion -- bullying. By the end of the day, I learned every author up there had done what I myself have done: They wrote around the thing that hurt them.

A.S. King: "All bullying is embarrassing to the victim."

Heather Brewer gave the keynote address. "Fourth grade is the first time I remember wanting to die," she said, and the air in the room expanded in an instant. My daughter is in fourth grade. A little piece of my heart broke off and floated away imagining a fourth-grade Heather.

She told a story of trying to hang herself in her closet as a teen. When the bar broke, she didn't tell anyone, because she was unsupported at home and didn't have a friend -- not one friend -- until she was a freshman in high school. When she made that one friend, everyone said they were lesbians, because the only reason someone would hang out with her had to be sexual favors. Her teacher laughed at her the day someone wrote "LESBO" on her folder. She carried the folder all year to show it hadn't hurt her. She didn't care about being called a lesbian if she had a friend. All she wanted was a friend.

T.M. Goeglein: "Never think no matter what you say, it won't help -- if you have the chance to say something positive, do it."

Heather wasn't the only one. Every author had a story. They could remember the exact names of their bullies and see the faces of their bullies in their mind's eye. That these talented and successful people shared that shame drove home how universal the experience can be and how powerless anyone can feel at the hands of a bully.

Carrie Ryan: "The reason it gets better is that we make the choice to make it get better."

At the end of the day, I left St. Louis and drove back to Kansas City wondering how my life might have been different if I'd been one of those teens attending the panels, if I might not have fallen prey to anorexia, if I might have learned to love myself more and ignore the voices in my head telling me the rules were different for me. And I wondered if kids who bullied other kids in my high school might have thought twice if they'd heard Heather's story. "In every school, there is 'that kid,' and it is acceptable to pick on 'that kid,'" she said. "I was 'that kid.'" I remember several "that kids" I knew while growing up. I remember standing by. I remember joining in. I'm so ashamed to say that, but it's true. I never was a ringleader, but I was a follower of leaders. And really, there's no excuse for any of it. There are reasons but not excuses. By the time I was in high school, I knew better and I don't remember being mean, but by the second half of high school I was lost to the voices in my head forcing me to run bleachers and eat fewer than 800 calories a day even after it grew painful to sit and I grew fine hair all over my cheeks as my body tried to protect itself from my mind.

Ellen Hopkins: "You have to ask the person, "What is the reason behind self-harm?" Because there is always a reason."

Maybe I would've been different if I would've had the chance to hear successful adults talk about overcoming, surviving, moving forward. Maybe I would've been different if I'd had my nose stuck in Heather's story. "I'm in every school, and I'm usually quiet," she said. "Give me something to hold onto."

Give me something to hold onto.

Posts on Bullying

• Holli Long writes about being a safe person to talk to.

• Julie Ramanow writes about dealing with adult bullies in the workforce.

• Becoming Supermommy writes about being raped and abandoned in the snow at 14.

• Another Piece of Cake writes a thank-you note to her bullies.

Anti-Bullying Resources

• PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center

• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

• I Choose

• Project Anti-Bully

Cutting and Self-Harm Resources

• S.A.F.E. Alternatives (Self-Abuse Finally Ends): 1-800-366-2288.

• Mind Infoline – Information on self-harm and a helpline to call in the UK at 0300 123 3393.

• Kids Helpline – A helpline for children and teens in Australia to call at 1800 55 1800.

• Kids Help Phone – A helpline for kids and teens in Canada to call for help with any issue, including cutting and self-injury. Call 1-800-668-6868.

Support for LGBTQ Teens

• National directory of Gay-Straight Alliance school organizations

• The Trevor Project

• Welcoming Schools

Eating Disorder Resources

• AED Academy for Eating Disorders

• EDA Eating Disorders Anonymous

• Eating Disorder Coalition for Research, Policy and Action

• Eating Disorder Foundation

"Mama?"

"Mmmm-hmmmm?"

<insert question I didn't listen to>

"Mama?"

"Mmmmm-hmmmm?"

"How come every time you're not really listening to me you say 'mmmm-hmmmm?'"

"Because right now I'm trying to manage my emotions."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm mad about something, but it doesn't do anyone any good for me to be mad, and I can't change the problem by being mad about it, so I'm trying to just process the mad so it will go away. It's okay for me to feel mad but not to act on it. Do you ever feel that way?"

"You mean like when I got mad about Tiny? And then you got mad at me for acting mad?"

Yup, exactly, kid. Modeling desired behavior fucking sucks. 

Perhaps we should've gone earlier, or not at all. Every year since she was tall enough to ride The Octopus, we've taken the little angel to Worlds of Fun for roller coasters and barker games. She's nearly fearless when it comes to eye-popping drops that scare adults. But we never went after the Halloween decorations went up before.

The little angel didn't make it through the first Harry Potter book or The Lord of the Rings movie. She was existentially scarred by a P!nk video. I thought we could detour around most of the scary stuff at Worlds of Fun, but at one point we exited a coaster into a brightly lit area with resting fog machines and extinguished strobe lights ... And baby dolls splashed with red. She saw them before I directed her to look at the cement while I led her through it. She couldn't look at the scary part at one-tenth intensity.

She heard the theme song from Dr. Demento while eating dipping dots by The Mamba, her favorite roller coaster.

They're coming to take me away, ha ha!

I'd never heard it before, but I hated it. It's a little chilling, especially when you're aware of very real mental illness. She mentioned several times how scary that song was, and inside, I agreed. I take no pleasure in imagining losing my mind.

She wanted to play the game where she won Tiny the giant gorilla last year. We had to set Tiny out for the trash man after the room in the basement where he was flooded, and he got saturated. There was no choice. He would've molded. I think in her head all she had to do was get back to that game and play again, even though the game is so impossible that the only prizes available are taller than a kindergartner, even though it was a fluke of life she won the first time.

After her first round, she cried. I'd given her a budget and she blew through it in ten minutes, the last few throws as reckless as a sports fan up too late in Vegas, playing the spread with the mortgage. When it was over, I saw on her face how very hard this reality was to stomach, like when she found her baby teeth in my closet and buried her head in my shoulder at the loss of the Tooth Fairy.

She cried for a long time, tried to blame me for the loss off Tiny, for her inability to win another, making us that family fighting in public. We shut her down, and it was a long and silent ride home.

She couldn't get to sleep for an hour and a half tonight. She appeared downstairs and asked for my help. As I smoothed her hair, she told me she kept seeing those baby dolls, but it wasn't just the dolls. It's how hard it is to grow up. To love the coasters and be scared of clowns with sharp teeth. To want to dress up but jump at things that spring out at costume shops. To ask yourself, as I see her asking herself, if you should be able to hack this stuff now and knowing in your heart the answer is "no." I know because I keep asking myself the same thing as we careen around this corner of childhood and see adolescence as the next exit on the freeway.

I told her to imagine touching the creepy dolls when they popped into her thoughts like she does the games she plays. Imagine them turning into kittens when she touched them. I am running out of tricks as she gets older and begins to see things I can't explain away. Sometimes people do things that are ugly. Sometimes you see a trailer for a scary show while you're watching something innocuous. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you run out of money without winning a giant gorilla. I can't change that.

"What if I run out of kittens?" She asked, tossing and turning as the sheets twisted around her sweaty face. It's that weird, in-between season when it's too cool for fans and too hot for blankets.

"You can never run out of kittens," I said. "Haven't you ever seen the Internet?"

It took another half hour before she finally fell asleep, but she didn't say anything more. I lay there, waiting for her to find peace in sleep and hoping I was doing it all right.

"Mama, why does heat make you so tired?"

We crossed the street and headed into the art festival. We're heat-hardy, my daughter and I, indiginous to the sultry Midwest summers like goldenrod and cone flowers. The 105-degree temperature didn't stop us from wanting to look at paintings until we hit the pavement, where temperatures had to be even higher. And the humidity, thick like a washcloth, making it hard to breathe.

"I'm not sure, exactly. Maybe so you'll be forced to slow down and it will be harder to give you heat exhaustion. It's probably your body's way of protecting you."

Each step seemed a little harder. The heat wrapped around my body. I could feel the air molecules pressing on my skin, heavy and saturated. I looked over at my daughter. Her pale cheeks had a high flush with beads of sweat hanging above her lip, unable to evaporate in the thick air. 

"I don't feel good," she said.

My head swam. "I don't, either. Let's get out of here."

I had to pull her by the hand the two blocks back to the car. I actually felt a little dizzy as I squealed onto Main Street and directly to the QT, where we stumbled into the delicious air conditioning and gasped for filtered air. We bought a huge bottle of water to share and hung out for a few minutes by the freezers, alive in our skin in the way of extreme temperature relief -- those first few moments when the cold limbs tingle with warmth or the icy air hits hot skin and you think, in that moment, everything is right in the world, there is nothing better than having this need fulfilled, the return to equilibrium.

We piled back into the car and cranked the air conditioning, turning back toward home. 

"My head hurts, Mama." 

I dropped her off at home to cool down and rest, and I drove to the grocery store to get food, finding myself still wandering a little awkwardly amid the rows, my head achy. 

I don't often have extreme reactions to heat, but when I do, I'm reminded I'm a mortal, that life is delicate and beautiful and to be examined while I have the chance. 

---

In something less heavy, I reviewed lice prevention products on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews, because that is life I want eradicated.