GoMom

My almost 4 year old daughter has been taking a dance class since she was 2. This dance school is absolutely amazing. She has always loved the classes and the teachers. At the end of last year with the final performance, she was pretty intimidated and had a hard time, but she really worked through it. Now suddenly she wants to quit.

I am starting school tours for junior kindergarten. I'm always surprised by some of the questions parents ask on these tours or why they express any concerns out loud in front of the director. At this point we're being watched, not our children.

In honor of the panic that will hit us around, say Wednesday morning, when we've run out of ideas of what to throw in the bag.

First of all, get a SIGG, because how do you not have one already? Fill it with chocolate milk shaken with a touch of cinnamon and vanilla.

If you have the time for homemade sports-bars, these are cheaper and tastier than most shelf brands.

Dark chocolate covered bananas, and they're organic, fair-trade, and will get your kid an A from the hemp-wearin' English teacher.

Shun just any pbn'j, surprise them with a pbn'mf: peanut butter and marshamallow fluff sandwich. Relax, it's all natural and probably no worse than jelly. Plus you'll get a huge smooch when they get home.

The least you can do is throw in some Pocky sticks, but better yet, send along some choice Double Whammy Hard Candy! Who doesn't want that?

The schools my kids attend are the same ones I went to as a kid. Besides the addition of a new pool and a new middle school, they haven't changed much. Except in the morning when the road and parking entrance are clogged with parents dropping their kids off. When I was there, being dropped off by your parents was the ultimate wussy-indicator, if you didn't ride the bus something was wrong with you. I know this isn't the case anymore, but I have still always favored the bus.

Now, as I am about to toss my 5er into the reality of Kindergarten, I am freaked out! How can I put my little dough-boy on the bus with a bunch of kids he doesn't know? How will he know where to go? What if he forgets to get off at his stop? I know it will all be fine, that he might have to jump a hurlde to win the race, but still, there's something scary about putting him on a big yellow beast and watching him pull away out of my control.  I'm curious, do you bus or drop off and why did you choose?

Sandra Tsing Loh is interviewed in Salon this week about her new book, Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%@& Story About Parenting. Cali-mommy Loh was shocked, when the time came to send her eldest daughter to school, to find that the upper middle class had pretty much abandoned the public school system in L.A. But Loh couldn't afford private school tuition, and her book explains how she and her artist friends made public school education work for them. Loh is funny, profane, and authentic, and her voice will resonate with any of us who've wondered how we can give our urban children the same advantages as their private or suburban-school-enrolled peers.

Today, Washington Post columnist Stacey Garfinkle examines a school's recent decision to ban recess games of tag. At first glance it seemed like one of those Safe Child Syndrome issues, but after reading the piece I realized that the school was just trying to figure out a way to get parents involved on the playground. Too little supervision by adults meant games were getting rough enough to result in broken bones.