I’ve never been good at decision making.  I especially have a hard time with non fact-based questions that have a single, definitive answer: what’s your favorite ride at Disney World?  What would you choose for your last meal?  What would the ideal birthday party consist of?

It’s not so much that I have a hard time coming up with answers, it’s that narrowing down my answers is next to impossible.

We have this super awesome set of conversational cards (check out Table Topics if you haven’t already).  The whole point of them is to spark a conversation – which isn’t a difficult task, considering there are six (and often times more) seats occupied around our table.  The thing is, though, that most of the questions are those creative ones that force you to choose one thing:  the best, the only, your favorite, etc.

My least favorite?  Those “describe ________ in one word” types.  Really?  One word?  C’mon.  Who can do that?

I’ll tell you who.

Kennedy.

She gets ‘em spot on every time.

Case in point?  One night we had a table topic card that required each of us to describe our family in one word.

The thought of such a monumental task almost makes me break into hives right now.

I mean, there’s the positive side:  fun-loving.  Oh wait.  That’s two words.  See?  I’m messing up already.    Okay.  One word answers from here on out.  Cross my heart.

There’s the  not-so-positive: exhausting.  Then there’s the obvious: large.  There’s the technical: blended.  And the quirky: Disneyphiles.  Playful, close, friendly, and snarky, also work. Of course, those words say nothing of our being discerning, energetic and messy.

Clearly, wrapping things up in one tidy little word doesn’t come easy to me.

Kennedy nailed it though.

Her word?

Loud.

Yes.  We are that.  Perhaps above all else.

Loud.

Not sure how great a legacy that is.  But it is what it is.

So what about you?  Can you sum up the entire existence of your family in but one word?  And if so, which word is it?

I took my two oldest daughters to see My Sister’s Keeper at the movies today.

Yes, I’d read the book (and subsequently sobbed my way through the ending mind you).  I’d also seen the previews.  And of course there was the fact that adorable little Abigail Breslin played a starring role; I loved her so much in Little Miss Sunshine that I was excited to see her on screen again.  All of these things were among my reasons for wanting to take my own girls to this movie.

But I have a confession: I had ulterior motives.

I don’t have a sister myself, though I’ve frequently found myself wishing I did.  If you only knew how many times I’ve coveted those sister relationships, when I hear about them through the grateful mouths of my girlfriends.  When I was younger, stories of secrets kept and jeans shared and late night alibis given to questioning parents always made me jealous.  And as the years have changed us, those tales have turned from girlhood frivolities to meaningful bonds: sisters who stand as Maids of Honor in each others weddings and later go on to share in the pushing and panting of childbirth experiences.  They meet for happy hours and sit on the phone each night spilling the day’s exhausting frustrations and tiny triumphs.  And then of course they also trudge through ugly things like divorce and breast cancer and the loss of a parent.

Who wouldn’t want a sister of her own?

My girls are lucky ones.  They each have not one, but two.  Two sisters!

Unfortunately their sisterhood doesn’t always resemble the dreamy tales of the sisters I’ve heard tell.

My girls bicker.  And fight.  They’ve even scratched a time or six.

I admit that I took them to this movie to show them a different side of sisterhood.  A side that I pray they never know firsthand: the loss of each other.

My mom had a sister.  She died well before her time.  Well before any of us were ready to let her go.

In the years since then my mom has told my girls stories of how she used to force her sister to eat pancakes as a form of cruel and unusual punishment.  She always ends the story, though, by saying how much she wished she had her sister, still.

I (thankfully) don’t have any stories like that.

I wish my mom didn’t either.

And I pray that my girls never will.

So yes.  I took them to this movie because I wanted it to paint a picture for them.  I wanted to trick them into seeing just how valuable they are.  Not only to me, but to each other.

Because pain in the butt or not – there’s nothing quite like having a sister.

Or so I’m told.

I know a boy who’s learning to swim.

His kickers are super splashy.

His bubbles are just right.

And when he goes under he closes his eyes and puckers up like a camel.

On the first day of swim class he moseyed to the side of the pool like it was nobody’s business.

Since then, he’s grown timid.

It might have a little something to do with a girl in his Flounder group who screamed like a banshee throughout the entire first class.

Then again it may be karma.  Because I privately gloated that he wasn’t the one screaming like a banshee throughout the entire first class.

A few classes in I had to carry him to the edge of the pool.

And coax him in.

A few classes later he downright refused.  But I made him anyway.  And then he screamed like a banshee throughout the entire class.

I don’t know what changed.

Clearly something did though.

It’s not the water that gets him.  He motorboats and tosses rings with the best of ‘em.

It’s the getting his feet wet.

Maybe that’s the hardest part of learning to swim.

Or learning to do anything really.

Can’t say I blame him.

I can’t swim myself.

And I’m 31.

He’s 2.

He’s learning to swim.

Maybe someday he’ll teach me.

I’ve been saying things lately that make me feel old.

They do more than make me feel old actually.

The fact that I say them is enough to qualify me.

Not five minutes ago, these very words came out of my mouth: “I’m not running a diner here.”

I said it response to Kennedy when she asked if her and her overnight guest could have ice cream.  At nearly 10:00.  As in PM.  I mean, I don’t know about your house, but around here the kitchen is absolutely closed at 9.  Period.

And earlier today I swear I heard myself telling Cassidy something to the effect of, “that’s what happens when you make bad behavioral choices.”

That one didn’t make me sound old so much as just really geeky.

And it’s not just the things I say.  That which I do is also proof.

I’ve taken to shaking my head in disapproval when I see kids on roller skate shoes in the stores.  Or with saggy pants.  Or two-toned hair.

Those freaky piercings in which they insert random wooden hexagons or screws or whatever the heck they are thoroughly disgust me.  As do skinny jeans on otherwise respectable young men.

I refer to the majority of Torri’s iPod playlist as noise (with the obvious exception of her Disney selections, which I highly approve).  And I honestly can’t remember the last time I even casually flipped to MTV.

The other day Jeff was telling Torri that I liked the book she’d recommended so much that I’d kept him up really late because I wouldn’t turn the lights off until I’d finished just one more chapter.

How late? She hedged.

Like, 11:30.

11:30?  Wow.  Move over Farrah and Michael, we’re talking newsworthy here.

See what I mean?  Old.

And I used to be so cool.

Next thing you know I’ll be griping about the bus-stop kids walking through the yard.

Or better yet.  Talking Jeff into hiding one of those little zapper do-dads at the perimeter so they get a little juice pumped into ‘em if they opt for the shortcut.

Yeah.  It’s official.

Send Depends.