Knee pads? Check. Low-sodium, sugar-free diet? Check.

Annual well-child physical? Check. Seat belts in the minivan and helmets on the bike? Check.

Cell phone? Not so fast.

According to a study released in Europe, your child's risk of brain cancer may jump as much as five times if he or she uses a cell phone as a youngster.

Presented in London at the conference of the Radiation Research Trust by Lennart Hardell of the University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden, the research concludes that children who start using cell phones before the age of 20 are much more likely to contract glioma, as well as two other forms of cancer. Or not.

True confession - a little over a year ago, I caved and bought a TV for the kitchen.

It's a small TV - not the sort of thing on which you'd watch an important football game or a movie - but big enough so I can see what Rachael Ray is doing across the room while I'm making my own yum-o version of mac 'n' cheese (from a box).

I didn't get the TV only because I'm a Food Network junkie. The real reason I got it was to try to keep people from taking food to various parts of the house so they could watch television while they ate. Our family room was starting to look like the dirty-dish belt at the local all-you-can-eat buffet.

So I capitulated on my longtime rule that there would be no TV while my family ate because clearly I was suffering under the delusion that anyone was obeying this rule in the first place - my husband and myself included.

I have to give my daughter credit. She's persistent. Despite my repeated denials, emphatically delivered in my most characteristic "mom" voice, she pleads for a cell phone as if there is any chance on God's green earth we will relent.

She's tried every conceivable argument. "I'll be safer," she says. "Think of the convenience when you want to call me home from Nicole's house." (Nicole lives next door.)

And my favorite - because it's so unconvincing - "I'm the only one of all my friends without a cell phone."

Amy is going into the sixth grade. She's not getting a cell phone for another three years, when, anticipating the start of high school, we will arm her with our own version of an electronic tether - a bargain phone with basic features, not to include a portable typewriter.

Pink now is the wardrobe essential for an entire generation of tween and teen girls, so it didn't surprise me when a mom I know mentioned taking her daughters to the new Pink retail store at the mall.

What took me aback was when she said: "I absolutely hate the Pink store and I can't stand shopping there. Yet my two girls are always walking around with the word 'pink' across their rear ends. What can you do?"

What can you do?

Hmm. ... What can you do? What, oh what, can you do?

This is the pivotal parenting question for 21st-century moms and dads.

Right away when I answer my cell phone, the sound of Amy's teacher's voice tells me this is going to be bad.

"Mrs. Hicks," she said gravely, "we have a problem."

"I have given your daughter several chances to complete her missing work and also to have you sign a slip saying she has told you that she has fallen behind in social studies," the teacher said. "She continues to lie to me about having done the work, and I suspect she is also lying about having told you about the missing assignments."

This is a veteran teacher: Her suspicions are money in the bank.

According to Amy, she somehow "forgot" to tell me she owes her teacher enough workbook pages to wallpaper an airplane hanger. Go figure.

We'll leave the issue of integrity for another day. The other more immediate problem is, fifth grade is about to come to a close. The teacher would like to be sure Amy knows enough social studies to matriculate to the sixth grade. Quite honestly, I'd kind of like to know this, too.

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.

When I open the back door, I am greeted by my dog's wagging tail and the unmistakable, pungent scent of overripe bananas. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, knowing fruit flies are swarming in my kitchen like locusts on the prairie.

Ah, home sweet home.

The kitchen is a four-day time capsule. There, squeezed against the wall, is the ironing board, right where I left it. The iron still stands precariously on the end where I set it to cool before it could be put away.

There's a newspaper on the kitchen table. When I left it was Monday's edition; now it's Friday's.

On the island counter sits the bowl of fruit and vegetables I restocked last Sunday, uneaten and in various states of decay. The now-black bananas emit their gaseous odor alongside wrinkled peppers of yellow, red and orange; a shriveled lime that resembles a Hacky Sack; and an avocado covered in cheesy white rot.

If my plane had gone down or I had been snatched away by aliens, I wonder how long it would have taken for someone to notice the rotting food in the middle of the kitchen.

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?"

If it's 9 p.m. Tuesday, it must be time for dinner. Now if only I had thought to get to the grocery store earlier in the day. Sigh.

The dinnertime challenge around our house isn't just figuring out what to feed the troops — although that's certainly part of it. I have teenagers who still think it's "yucky" to eat tomatoes.

No, like most families, our challenge is to manage our respective schedules in such a way that we're all in the house and hungry at the time I coincidentally serve a hot meal.

A long line of pet owners already waits at the reception desk when I walk into the small-animal clinic, yet the two women behind the counter don't seem to be helping anyone. Instead, one secretary stands next to her chair looking helpless and waiting for direction, while the other one — obviously the alpha secretary — talks into the headset hooked around her ear.

"Raisins?" she asks. "How many?"

Silence. We all wait while the caller on the other end of the phone responds.

"What kind of chocolate?"

More silence. We're gradually getting the picture, knowing glances passing among the dog owners vying for service from the staff.

"It depends on how much milk chocolate he had," she finally says.