I know this post is going to take a long time to write, so I'm cuddled up on the couch with the last glass of white wine in the house to tell you all about it.  I hope you enjoy it.  I hope it encourages you.

In May 2004, I started Surrender, Dorothy at the urging of my friend Average Jane.  I had read a few blogs at that point, and the little angel was one month old.  I, like many bloggers, felt isolated and wanted to reach out while on maternity leave.  Little did I know at that point how this blog would change my life.  It is now unrecognizable from what it was then.

It has taken a very long time for the traffic on this blog to build.  I won't tell you what it is now, but let me just say it's higher than I ever hoped it would be but not as high as I someday hope it will be.  But I wasn't really in it so much for traffic, or for pulling in ad revenue, but as a place to write at least five times a week.  Anthony Trollope was a mailman for his entire writing career, and I've never anticipated I would be able to quit my job in order to write books.  I still haven't.  Maybe someday I will be able to, but I am not one of those people who can make a living from her blog.  Not now.  And that's okay.

I heard all the stories from Cagey and Average Jane about BlogHer 2005, and I decided I really, really wanted to go to BlogHer 2006.  We had a free plane ticket from Beloved's job, and I had a place to stay, also free. So it was a win-win to go.  As I read my favorite bloggers and reveled in the fact I would soon be meeting them face-to-face, I thought it would be cool and an amazing gift to my daughter to print out my favorite posts from each of them, put them in a binder, and have them sign their work at BlogHer.  I thought about this for a few weeks.

Then I thought -- wouldn't everyone like to have such a thing?

In February 2006, I e-mailed Jenny Lauck, Eden Marriott Kennedy, and Alice Bradley with an e-mail entitled "An Idea in Its Baby Stages."  I told them about my idea and asked them what they thought.  They were all a little cautious, as they had NO IDEA who this Rita Arens person was, but they thought it just might work.  They agreed to contribute.  Most importantly, they wrote me back.  I remember feeling thrilled to see their names in my in-box.  For I, if nothing else, am a huge dork.

I found an example of a book proposal online and read all about the marketing part.  I decided I needed some statistics to show how much of a trend blogging is, as even two years ago, it hadn't really become mainstream.  I e-mailed Lisa Stone of BlogHer and asked if she had any statistics I could use.  She asked for my number and called me.  She asked a lot of questions about my idea, and I told her cautiously, again, waiting for the part where she would ask me who the hell I thought I was.  She didn't.  She said, "I want to be a part of this."

And thus began a wonderful friendship.

I started surfing, and reading, and e-mailing, and gathering together a list of 30 or so women and one man whose writing I admired.  Some didn't write me back, but a lot of them did.  Three or so who wrote me back for a long time ended up having to drop out for one reason or another.  I didn't fault them for dropping out, but I remained shocked that many more didn't drop out than did. At this point, the book was called The Tequila Mommy Message Board.

In May 2006, Lisa invited me to join the initial BlogHer ad network, which began with parenting bloggers, or, as we were being called, "mommybloggers."  I eagerly accepted, hoping it would help add to my legitimacy as I continued searching for contributors.  In June 2006, I was invited to be featured on Mommybloggers, and Mir Kamin claimed to have discovered me.

If Rita were a weaver, she'd be one who sits quietly in the corner, nottalking or waving her arms and calling attention to herself, but justever-so-steadily producing ever-more-intricate fabrics. You might noteven notice her. But then when you do finally look over? She'ssurrounded by mountains of of breathtaking work. I have no idea how shekeeps flying below the radar, but when her popularity explodes I am SOtaking credit for having discovered her. ;)

Mir will never know how much that comment in particular meant to me.  Because I had been writing for a really long time, and I did feel like crickets were chirping an awful lot.  But her comment kept me going.

Around this time, the little angel stopped sleeping through the night. She would wake up three times a night, sometimes for twenty minutes, sometimes for two hours.  I spent a lot of time on her bedroom floor, dreaming of the book finding an agent. That was as far as I allowed my daydream to go in those days.  That dream got me through the most difficult period of my adult life -- when my child wouldn't sleep.

The deadline for submissions to the book was November/December 2006.  I hired a lawyer and laid out $900 of my hard-earned cash for real, legal-and-everything contributor agreements, which we all painstakingly mailed around.  When the deadline came, I lost a few more contributors who never sent back in their contributor agreements, but I still had enough for a great book, and as the submissions trickled in, I was getting very, very excited.

I took all this uncut stuff and started massaging it into something real. At the same time, the proposal needed help.  Lisa worked with me a lot, and Liz gave me incredible insight (do we all realize that Liz has written a book?).  In the end, the proposal was 75 pages long.  One of my other contributors, Risa Green, who has written a book  that oh, I don't know, became a television series, spent a lot of time on the phone with me, telling me about her experience in the publishing world. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude.  I still can't believe she was so nice to me. 

At the end of March 2007, I got a fancy NYC agent. She changed the title of the book to Mommyblogging at Mach 10, which I kind of hated. I also attended BlogHer Business, where Jory Des Jardins introduced me to Redbook editor Stacy Morrison, who immediately agreed to write a foreward for the book, and I died and went to heaven. My agent sent the proposal out to eight prominent parenting editors at big publishing houses. They all passed.  By June 2007, I got this e-mail from my agent:

I have no problem with you trying to sellthe book to a smaller publisher at all. And I wish you the best of luck.

I was destroyed. I didn't blame her, I mean, agents don't get paid until your book sells, and if they don't sell it to a big enough publishing house, their little 15% cut doesn't keep the lights on. I remain thrilled that an agent of that caliber pushed the book as long as she did, which was longer than two months.  That may not sound like much, but actually, it was pretty good for an unknown author with a book that still needed a bit of explanation to the mainstream media.

The night I got that e-mail from my former agent, I had a nervous breakdown on the back porch of Chateau Travolta, into which we had just moved. I'd uprooted my entire life to move out to the suburbs, the little angel wasn't sure about her new school, I wasn't sure about my new commute, the house needed a ton of work, my husband's job wasn't going so great, and now my dream was being squashed.  I was desolate.  My husband wouldn't stand for it. He told me to pull myself together, that of course this was going to happen, and look how far I'd come!  Stacy Morrison!  BlogHer!  All these contributors!  And who was I to stop now?? WHO???

Sometimes you just need a little tough love.  Thank you, oh life partner.

I did what every other undiscovered writer does.  I bought the updated Writer's Market and made a short list.  Chicago Review Press was number three on that list.  I went to BlogHer 2007 with my sister Blondie. I met Esther from a major publishing house.  They passed on my book, but she called me and left a voicemail I still to this day have on my phone, saying it was a good book, a great book even, and whoever published it would be a very lucky company indeed.  She saved me, again, as I needed saving so many times.  Thank you, Esther.

I e-mailed Chicago Review Press. I didn't hear.  I called. I called again.  Then one day, at work, the publisher called me back.  She said a lot of stuff I don't remember, then the one thing I did.  She said, "I think I want to do this."

I changed the title again to Sleep Is for the Weak and floated it past her.  A lot of people don't realize that most authors don't get to choose their title or cover art. I was very fortunate to keep my title and be able to weigh in on the art.  My marketing contact and editor are avid blog readers.  They get it.  I never had to explain anything to them.  They worked with me to redistribute the posts, write some introductions and own the book in a way I hadn't done before.  I can't say enough nice things about Cynthia, Mary and Michelle. Throughout the entire project I felt like a huge poser, just waiting for someone to pull back the curtain and point out that I didn't know what the hell I was doing.  But nearly everyone I've encountered has been wonderful and giving of her time and energy.  All I had to do was ask, and back up my proposals with facts.  Yes, getting rejected 15 times before finding a publisher was horrible, but it also made finding CRP so much sweeter. 

We signed the contract in September 2007.  The book is coming out in bookstores this September 2008, a full year later.  It's a BlogHer book, the first BlogHer book, and I hope it's the first of many.  The list of contributors is certainly not exhaustive of all the wonderful writers out there. If this book sells well, I hope to do another.  I hope to get more people's words out into the world.  I hope to write a book all my own.  But for now, the dream I began when I was twelve has come to fruition:  This fall, I hit the Dewey Decimal system and the Library of Congress.  It is worth the 200+ hours and $1500 I have in this book. It is worth my pride, 195 e-mails, countless phone calls and two and a half years of my life.  It is worth all the criticism I'm sure I'll receive, because that's what happens when you throw yourself out there.  But I write this story to let you know that it didn't happen overnight, and it was worth every fucking minute.  Keep writing.  Keep trying.

And please, read this book.  I think it's really good.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

BookSense (indie bookstores)

Editor's Note:  Cool Mom Picks is giving away three books.  See all of the details here.

I've seen some really random things this month. 

1. A bike rack on a hearse.  It was on the top of the hearse, but it wasn't a roof rack - it was a trunk rack. I have no idea how it was affixed there, but I almost got in a wreck looking at it.
2. A car on fire on the side of the interstate - no emergency vehicles yet.  The owners were standing in the median, looking understandably dismayed.
3. A picnic of families whose children were dwarfs or midgets or little people.  I'm not sure if any of those terms are PC, but I mean no harm.  I've never seen a child displaying these physical characteristics before, so to see twenty or so of them playing in the park was startling at first.  I thought they were all the little angel's age until I got closer and realized the little angel can't ride a tricycle, let alone a moped, so maybe those weren't toddlers.
4. The little angel voluntarily eating soy sauce.
5. Poo in the potty-training potty, a first.
6. My rental neighbors doing yard work (they're new). No one has done yard work next door since my lesbian-firefighter neighbor, C., moved away.  She was my favorite, partly because she did yard work and partly because she always talked to me. None of my neighbors ever talk to me. Wah.
7. A woman swimming at the Y with an intact mouth of fire-engine-red lipstick. How the hell did she manage that?  I can't even keep my waterproof mascara from running.
8. A horrible painting of phallic stalagmites.  They were pink and brown. Argh.
9. A jeep with a six-foot can of Red Bull in the back. 

That's it.  I'm out.  I'll be back after BlogHer.

My back has been hurting every day for the past four years.  I injured it while doing sit-ups with a weight on my stomach at some cardio-funk class in 2002.  At the time, I pinched a nerve and was howling so bad the on-site massage therapist offered to do something about it for free just so I would shut up. I couldn't turn my head until I went to a physical therapist.  This went on for three weeks. I learned at the time I had horrible posture and weak middle-back muscles.  Who knew you could work out your spinal cord?  I dutifully did all the exercises and now sit up reasonably straight, but still, the pain persisted.

In the last two months, it's gotten really intense. I've been doing crazy things like icing it for two hours a night and falling asleep with golf balls under my neck to try to relieve the pressure.  Right now you're scratching your head and wondering why I've never just gone to a chiropractor. 

Reason One:  My mother told me they are quacks when I was a child.  I should've known better (and she's recently recanted and told me that one of the reasons she thought this was that she lived near some chiropractic students when she was in college and they smoked pot).  This is the same woman who obeys all traffic laws and believes drinking alcohol before the age of twenty-one is a worse crime than Enron. (I kid my mother - she also taught many, many useful things about health and speeding.)

Reason Two:  Everyone I know who goes to a chiropractor is ADDICTED TO THE POPPING.  Seriously.  I didn't realize chiropractic was covered by insurance.  Even as it is, it's still $35 a pop (BWAH HA HA), and they want you to go, like, twelve times if it's a one.  So I was very afraid that this would turn into an expensive habit and what if, after all the monies and the pot-smoking I was still in pain? Well, WHAT IF?

But this week, it just hurt too bad. I went to a chiropractor yesterday.  She was not a witch doctor, nor did she laugh dastardly when she took my fragile neck into her hands.  She was a very young, very pleasant-looking redheaded woman who told me everything she was going to do and also told me that the lump I've always thought was a muscle knot is an out-of-place rib (WTF???? I forgot they attached in back) and that I have a whiplash injury.  The whiplash injury has made my neck straight instead of curved, so instead of the weight of my head resting on bone, it's being held in place by my very tired and cranky neck muscles.  No WONDER it hurts.  I've got a rib sticking into my back muscles and a straight neck.  The X-ray looked so weird I actually asked her if my head looks like it juts forward like that normally.  She gave me an odd look and said no. I think she might've been lying.

Good news, though - she also said she thought it could be fixed, fixed, fixed!  For the first time in four years, I allowed myself to really FEEL the pain in all its glory, so I could think about it going away.  I realized I've been consciously trying to tune it out because I was deathly afraid it would be with me forever.  Knowing it could leave made me realize how much it really, really fucking hurts.  A lot.  WAH.

I go back Saturday.  She may offer me some pot or some crack or whatever they do to actually seal the addiction deal, but I don't even care.  If she can fix my back, I will kiss her, even though I already inappropriately told her that if she really wants to have a baby immediately after marrying her fiance who just got out of the army today, she should try every other day on days 10 through 21 of her cycle.  And then she looked at my like I was crazy again and popped my neck.

The end. Have a good weekend.

This morning I went to see my psychiatrist.  Yes, I admit, I have one.  I've had a few therapists over the years.  I've also had a few bouts with depression, every eating disorder in the book and extreme anxiety. And those were in the golden years of teendom and early adulthood!  What awaits me in old age?

Anyway, I'm not above admitting this, obviously, because though it seems we live in a pretty self-medicated world, I also think we live in a pretty obnoxious and overstimulated world.  And that, my friends, is our own damn fault.  1984? We're living it, minus the rats at the end. I don't mean to be negative - I love modern conveniences - but let's not fool ourselves that those very conveniences aren't making our lives even more hectic, our goals more unobtainable and our expectations for ourselves, our children, our marriages and our happiness Just. Plain. Ridiculous.

Tangent over.

This morning I went to see my psychiatrist, which I have to do every three to six months to keep getting my medicine, only to find out that though her office takes my health insurance, my health-insurance provider has outsourced the mental-health portion to someone else, who they don't take. Meaning my psychiatrist is out-of-network. Which is medical profession for "fuck you."

So...decisions.  Do I go find a new psychiatrist and try to explain that the only reason I sought help in this particular chapter of my life was the extreme lack of sleep I was getting last holiday season?  That I spent two hours a day crying because my daughter spent two hours a night doing the same?  That I wanted to kill the next person who asked when I was having another baby because the toddler I had hadn't started sleeping as well as a newborn at 22 months?  It all just seems like so much work. Plus, I'm feeling better now that the little angel only wakes up a maximum of once a night and usually goes right back to sleep.  Oh, and I got a new contract that goes until January, and it's even doing editorial stuff which makes me happy, happy, happy.  And I like my husband and my daughter and my friends and family, and really the only thing off in my life right now is my fear that Sister Little's head might explode or something, but that will probably be rectified with no issues soon.

So with nothing going wrong, am I still crazy?  I know, that's harsh.  I was never crazy.  Extremely anxiety-ridden, but not crazy.  The anxiety does seem to be gone, although after a weekend spent with four pregnant women, I did find myself having dreams about an adult little angel looking at me and asking why I never gave her a brother or sister.  I do have some anxiety about the fact that I don't want another child, but I feel like I should have one just because.  But other than that, pretty good.  Of course, the more I ponder whether or not I'm anxious, the more anxious it makes me.

You can only stop flying missions if you're crazy, but you prove yourself sane if you want to stop.

So here I am.  I don't think I've ever felt normal. From the age of eight I had horrible self-loathing and body issues.  Then Ma's cancer and the years and years of eating disorders and more self-loathing, followed by the anxiety that is your early-to-mid twenties.  I capped that off with marriage, home ownership and the birth of my first child.  I seem to be taking things easier now, but is that because I'm a) medicated, b) 32 or c) I've already faced a lot of Life's Big Decisions?

What does it feel like to feel normal?  How do I know if I'm better?  Anyone?

Because sometimes, life is random.

life preservers

beach balls

duck bills

goose feet

tennis shoe liners

miniature staplers

regulation basketballs

notebook covers

the little angel's Gymboree pants

pencil erasers

night lights

workout shorts

Vitamin C pee

liquid soap

barrettes

the center of the sun (I'll bet)

swizzle sticks

umbrellas

construction worker vests

road barrels

those triangles on the back of Amish buggies

Nemo

circus peanuts

Cheetos

Fanta

orange zest

L. L. Bean socks

my beloved's boombox speakers

my college bookbag

raincoats

Sybil's cat food cover

tulips

Tuesday mornings in June

crayons

government cheese

chicken waddles

Legos

Kleenex boxes

sippy cups

happiness

Where did the little angel get all of these bug bites?  Was it at home?  Was it because she plays with chalk too close to the Puffer?  I should bail out the Puffer.  I hate that boat cover.  We should've bought a new boat cover in the Ozarks. We need one that will be tight, like a drum. 

I wonder if my parents still have my old snare drum from high school?

I need to buy bug spray for the little angel, so she doesn't get eaten.  What if she gets West Nile?  S. had West Nile and couldn't work for six months.  But she's two now, and everyone knows two-year-olds can sustain anything an adult can.  It says so right there on all the medicine bottles. Sort of. At least they're in the dosage chart.

I hate bug spray.  I hate DEET. It sounds too much like DDT.  Which is worse, letting her get eaten by bugs and possibly contracting West Nile or covering her in poisonous toxins every day?  Why are even fucking bugs more scary now then they were when I was a kid?  I can't let her play in the yard without supervision because I know there's a rapist two doors down thanks to that damn sex-offender web site, and I can't let her just get a bug bite because I know she could get sick.  IGNORANCE WAS GODDAM BLISS.  I hate how not ignorant I am. I will now aspire to being more ignorant, at least as far as parenting is concerned.

I can't forget to go get the Nuvaring. I can't believe I brought an empty box to the Ozarks.  Now we'll have to use condoms.  If we have sex. But I want to have sex!  I want lots of sex!  Hotel sex!  I will not be getting hotel sex.  Will he laugh at condoms?  Do I remember what size he wears?  He'll be pissed if I get the wrong size.  Maybe I should just buy really big ones, just like I'd want him to buy smaller underwear than would fit me.  Hmm.  This is why men should have to buy their own shit.  How am I supposed to remember how big he is compared to the rest of the world so that I can buy appropriately-sized condoms?  Damn Nuvaring.  Do I know how to reset that timer?  I bet it works just like my PDA.  (pause while sticking paperclip in hole in back of timer)  Yup.  God bless industry standards.

Don't eat the Play-doh!  DON'T EAT THE PLAY-DOH!

The cat was locked in the bedroom all afternoon and pissed all over my bed.  I'm really mad about the bed.  But I feel kind of bad for the cat. I'm sure it reached about 95 degrees in there. Poor Sybil.  She didn't ask for it. BUT MY BED!  WAH!!!!!!! MY BED!!!!!  Be nice to the cat - you don't know how long she'll live.

Nuvarings cost $39?  WITH INSURANCE?  You've got to be kidding me.  Is my lack of organization and memory worth $25 a month?   Wait a second - how much does the little angel cost a month?  $800 for daycare, $30 for diapers, probably $50 in food and milk, $40 in broken/lost/outgrown clothing/toys/play-doh/sidewalk chalk...yeah, Nuvaring is SO worth it.

Why is it that every time I get in line at Osco the check-out person looks at me as though my order is the world's hardest Sudoko? Like this is a life-changing experience for them?  Are you standing at the crossroads of your check-out career?  Just take the damn red pill and check me the fuck out.  And quit staring at my kid like that - she's missed six meals in this line.

I have to reschedule Parents As Teachers. Why do I do that?  Last time she told me that if you want to make your kid smarter, you just put more books in your house. I have never seen a finer example of misinterpreting statistical results in my life, especially displayed by someone who is charged by the great state of Missouri with teaching me how to parent.

Why do we have to iron clothes?  Why?

Are the sheets done yet?  Damn, Sybil - are you missing your box now?  There is cat pee dribbling across my floor!  EWWWW!  She is so geriatric, it is not even funny.  That cosmetic surgeon I sat next to on the flight to the coast last week told me that if people knew the truth about how dirty animals are, no one in their right mind would live with one.  And now Sybil is so totally proving him right.  But I so love her even though this is the second life-sustaining surface she has peed on in eight hours.  Damn cat.

I should get the little angel to drink from an open cup. She's probably old enough for that. I don't know if I can take away any more security objects right now. I feel weary. I should potty train her. It's summer.  She never wants to sit on it, though. Should I force it?  I think I might've shot my parenting wad on getting her past the paci and crib phase.  I have nothing left to give. 

Do I really have to bleach my teeth with these strips for 14 nights?  What about maybe a week? I feel like a boxer with these things in.  Why do I care what color my teeth are?  Or my hair or my skin?  Why is everything on me bleached or stained darker?  What does that say about the human condition?

I think I'll go read The Devil Wears Prada while I bleach my teeth.

Did I wash off the little angel's bug spray?

My friend S. has been dieting for quite awhile now.  She looks great.  Part of her regimen includes a workout called the Cardio Party that is Guaranteed! To! Burn! Up! To! One! Thousand! Calories!

Since we were trapped indoors at the lake on Saturday, we four girls decided to attend the Cardio Party.  The invitations looked nice.  And, because the only other thing we were doing inside all day was washing down Oreos and Cheese Puffs with boxed wine, it seemed like a prudent thing to do.

Before we started the Cardio Party, there was a lengthy discussion of the Mushroom Phenomenon.  The "mushroom" refers to the area of fat that hangs over one's bikini bottoms or underwear on the sides, creating a mushroom effect.  A man would call it love handles.  I've also heard this fat referred to a "muffin top," which seems a little more endearing to me.  If you're going to comment on my fat, at least be cute about it.

We compared muffin tops and decided to bump the Cardio Party up to the top level.

Big mistake.

The workout wasn't bad in terms of all the workouts I've ever done, but joining the Cardio Party after two kickboxing-free years ensured I would walk like the protagonist in March of the Penguins for the rest of the day, barely able to raise my foot higher than twelve inches.  There was some cursing involved, usually directed at the hostess of the Cardio Party, who told us at the beginning of the DVD that she's birthed two children, recently, and insisted we were having fun. Bitch.

After about forty minutes of huffing and puffing and kicking and punching and doing some scary thing called "The Wheel" that simulated King Kong eating New York, we collapsed on the floor.  I dragged myself outside into the freezing June air and looked longingly at the normally warm lake, which at the time featured rain blowing off its little whitecaps.  A few geese, confused by the winter in June, huddled under the boat dock.  Then I heard the little angel wailing herself awake from a nap that lasted exactly the length of the Cardio Party.

So I did what any responsible adult would do.  I tapped the box of wine.

Scene:  12th Street YMCA, noonish.  I am putting on make-up after doing another kill-yourself-in-forty-minutes noon workout.  This is my new thing - I HATE getting up early and will do anything to avoid it, especially when the little angel wakes up at night, which she still does sometimes. 

Two frumpy-looking office workers in their forties are busy arranging mall bangs and pulling up their seersucker pants.  They are apparently going on a trip this weekend together to somewhere they have to bring their own food. 

Frumpy One:  "Well, I'm going to bring the pork chops and breakfast for Saturday.  No-cooky stuff, like maybe bagels."

Frumpy Two:  "Oh, I think you should get doughnuts. Screw the bagels.  I'm making my famous Mexican dip for Saturday afternoon.  June's going to bring her strudel, too."

Frumpy One:  "Do we have chicken tenders for the kids?"

Frump Two:  "Yeah, and Kool-Aid.  Speaking of that, who's bringing the Jello shots?"

At this point, I dropped my hairdryer on my foot.  Crazy redneck party people disguised as government workers have taken over the women's dressing room at the 12th Street Y.  Watch out, world.

I was just talking with the Editor Across the Aisle about how few surprises there in life.  The sex of your child (and no, it's not only a surprise if you wait -it's a damn shock whether you find out at twenty weeks or forty, folks), a really dramatic haircut, weigh-ins while dieting and...self-tanning.

I've discussed self-tanning several times before.  As I've perfected my technique, I've had shocking results less and less.  However, there are few surprises that bring forth as much trepidation for me as applying self-tanner before bed, donning my full-length pajama pants, then removing them in the morning to see what I've done to myself.

This morning, I noticed that while I did a decent job on my calves and knees (thank goodness, because this is really the only part most people will EVER SEE), I seem to have missed my inner thighs.  As a result, I now appear to be wearing chaps in some lighting.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, it's not the worst mistake I could've made, but on the other hand, it smacks of either counter-culture or Western wear, neither of which have a prominent place in my wardrobe.

I often think I don't like surprises, but the very idea that I can get worked up about the outcome of my drugstore self-tanning seems to contradict my self-observation.  I also like getting unexpected mail, wondering what movie just arrived in my Netflix envelope and checking my e-mail now that I've started getting my comments to this blog that way.  Suddenly!  Strangers!  It's as exciting as when a new kid moved into my hometown, population 5,000.  Everyone wanted to date or be friends with the new kid, regardless of how weird or dorky they were, just because they were NEW NEW NEW.  They weren't in our preschool class!  They didn't remember when our pants split during the second-grade track meet!  They didn't know our awkward stage last for five years!  NEW!!!

Anyway.