"So, how's your girlfriend?" I ask my son out of the blue. "Which one?" he says with a devious smile.

"The new one," I say.

"Oh, her." He shrugs. We both smile.

And that's the end of our update on Jimmy's dating life.

It's all a joke, of course. Jimmy doesn't have a dating life. The "girlfriend thing" remains awkward (his word) and unnecessary (my word).

Instead, we encourage our 14-year-old son to have a host of friends - girls as well as guys - and to forget about dating until the time is right. (That would be a time when he has his own money and a driver's license.)

The fact that we discourage exclusive, romantic relationships for our tween and young teenage children - and that we monitor their behavior to assure they aren't dating behind our backs - puts my husband and me outside the parenting norm. (What else is new?)

We believe in the concept of "late blooming" as far as dating goes, based on the theory that childhood is too short to spend your time worrying, for example, about whether your 13-year-old girlfriend has seen you talking at your locker to another person who just happens to be - gasp! - a female.

So while some 14-year-old boys must attend to the emotional whims of their romantic partners, my son must concern himself only with important things, such as how the Yankees are doing and how long he must wait until I feed him again.

"Mom, those people are staring at us," my daughter says as we prepare to leave the campground in our rented RV. "They're starting to totally creep me out."

When you're a teenager, you're easily creeped out. It happens when you open a Tupperware container of leftovers or when someone in your group (your mother) orders anchovies on a pizza or whenever you walk across a parking ramp.

This is why merely announcing that she was creeped out didn't get my attention right away. It was a bit like telling me she was breathing.

Still, I look across the street at the older couple camped on the site opposite ours, and sure enough, they are staring. And not just staring. They are laughing.

Not guffawing or shoulder shaking. But clearly they're amused by us, and not in a good way.

No matter how many times I attempt it, I still haven't figured out how to be in two places at one time. My problem isn't that I feel the need to be with every child at every event. I'm long past the guilt and fear that I'll send a message of favoritism to one child while another feels neglected. No, the issue that still plagues me after all this time is something much simpler, much more basic than the instinct to offer maternal love and support.

This issue is transportation.

Never mind cloning myself so I can demonstrate my devotion to each of my offspring by sitting on multiple sets of bleachers, yelling "Go!" or "Way to go!" or "Go faster!" There are plenty of folks who will stand in for me to cheer on my children at any given sporting event.

No, if I could clone myself, it would be for the purpose of creating a fleet of minivans, each containing extra gym clothes, a replacement trombone and a box of cereal and fruit bars.

Do you have any idea how far a mother's voice can carry in a designer shoe warehouse with 28-foot ceilings? Far. Really far. All the way from the dress shoes on the back wall of the store, off the vaulted tin ceilings and up to the sandal display near the front doors.

I discovered this as I walked into the store. That's when I heard Prom Mom and her snarky daughter duking it out over a pair of 4-inch platform heels. It was a match worthy of HBO on a Saturday night.

"You called me all the way over to this store to ask my opinion. I'm telling you right now you are not wearing 4-inch heels. Now, if you're going to ignore me and wear what you want to wear anyway, why did you drag me here in the first place?"

"Homework?" I ask as Amy settles into the van and clicks her seat belt.

"Math and English. And I have to color a page for social studies."

I figure these tasks will consume roughly a half-hour of my daughter's afternoon — just the right amount of time to support the day's lessons, but not so much that she'll still be sitting at the kitchen table hovering over her books when it's time for the rest of us to assemble there for dinner.

"Sounds easy," I say.

"Mom, it's math," she says.

Say no more.

My daughter saunters into the kitchen, her head wrapped in a wet towel, her body swaddled in an oversized fleece bathrobe. "What are you thinking?" I say. "Your date for the dance is going to be here any minute."

Looking at the clock, she bolts upstairs to brush her teeth while I plug in the iron to press her best outfit. Before long, we're standing in front of the mirror in my bathroom, where I fire up the blow dryer to dry and style her hair.

"Remember to be ladylike," I say over the hum of the hair dryer. "And use your best manners at dinner."