Don't Call Me Baby Read online

  Butterfly Kisses,

  Mommylicious

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Chapter Three

  ARE YOU MORALLY OPPOSED TO ALGEBRA?

  “IMOGENE AND SAGE,” FATHER SULLIVAN SAYS STERNLY. ”Ms. Herring tells me that neither of you has posted the first two assignments to your blogs. I hope you girls realize that you’re required to do your homework, regardless of any personal reservations you might have. And let me remind you both that your grades are now going on your transcript for college applications.”

  Father Sullivan leans back in his black leather office chair so far that I’m afraid he’ll tip over, and I won’t be able to laugh because you’re not allowed to laugh at your principal, especially not when he’s a priest and there are Jesus and Mary statues staring directly at you.

  Sage and I don’t say a word. We’ve agreed that we’re only going to start blogging if Father Sullivan threatens suspension. So far, neither he nor Ms. Herring has even sent a note home. We’re going to just continue to hand in assignments typed on paper, the good old-fashioned way. Technically, we’re still doing the assignments; we’re just not posting them to the group blog.

  Luckily, the journal part of the blog doesn’t start for another week or so. That’ll be a whole other battle.

  Our thought is that passive resistance will eventually teach Ms. Herring (and our moms) that we don’t believe in blogging, and we won’t participate in it.

  Father Sullivan takes a long sip of water and then wipes a smudge off his glass.

  “Girls, I personally disliked algebra, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have to take it.”

  Sage gives me her “I’ll handle this one” look, and I don’t stop her.

  She turns to Father Sullivan and closes her eyes as if she were about to make a confession. She breathes through her nostrils, opens her eyes, and points her finger at Father Sullivan.

  “It’s not simply that Imogene and I do not like blogs; we’re morally opposed to blogging. Are you morally opposed to mathematics?”

  “No,” Father Sullivan responds, shaking his head. “The Catholic church is not morally opposed mathematics; we have much bigger enemies to worry about.” He pauses. “Admittedly, I’m not as into technology as the younger teachers, and I don’t really get this . . . blogging.” He pronounces blogging as if it were a word from a foreign language.

  Sage puts her finger down. And again, I have to cover my mouth and suppress my urge to laugh.

  He leans forward in his chair. “But if Ms. Herring wants you two to blog, you will. If I get any more notices that either of you is not blogging, I will call your mothers in for our next meeting. Let’s try not to have another meeting, girls.”

  He pauses and scratches his head. “Aren’t you part of the YouTube generation? So what’s the big deal about posting on the internet? Don’t you kids love doing that?”

  Not when our moms do it for us, I think.

  Sage pushes out her chair. “Thank you for listening to our concerns, Father Sullivan.” She says it so sweetly that only her best friend would know that she’s being sarcastic.

  Father Sullivan smiles, gets up, and firmly shuts his office door behind us as if he’s done with both this matter—and us.

  Once we’re a few steps away, I whisper, “What’s our next move?”

  Sage pretends to wave a flag. “Surrender?”

  “Are you sure, Sage?”

  She picks at her fingers. “Do you have any better ideas? I have to get perfect grades if I want to get into a good school with a piano major. And like Father Sullivan said, our grades are actually going on our transcripts for college now that we’re in the ninth grade. The stakes are higher. We’re not little kids anymore, Imogene.”

  I gently grab her hand so she can’t pick anymore, and we walk toward my locker.

  “Okay, we won’t do anything to jeopardize Juilliard. I promise.”

  “Imogene! I’m not getting into Juilliard!” Sage whines, and I laugh because we have this pretend argument all the time.

  Since Sage is usually the one with the plan, the one who’s always telling me to stick up to my mom, I’m starting to get worried. If she’s ready to call our passive resistance off, then there’s no hope unless I can think of something.

  I take my swimming bag out of my locker. One of the best parts about Florida is that the schools have outdoor pools. You can get sun and fulfill your sports requirement at the same time.

  “Let me think about it underwater,” I say. Ever since I joined Little Dolphin Swim School when I was four years old, I’ve always done my best brainstorming while swimming laps. I’m hoping to swim well enough this year to make the varsity team my first year of high school.

  “All right,” Sage says. “Hatch us up a brilliant idea, my little mermaid, and we’ll meet this weekend to discuss. I’m off to play the piano and get one note closer to leaving this place. Somehow I think mastering Liszt might be easier than dealing with my mom. At least our moms won’t be able to blog about us when we’re off at college.”

  I hoist my bag over my shoulder. “Don’t be so sure that they won’t,” I warn. “Besides, four years is too long to wait. I’ll think of something.”

  I only wish I felt as confident as I sounded.

  After swim practice, I spot my dad’s vintage Jeep Wagoneer waiting in our school’s parking lot. He toots the horn two times and flags me down. It’s slightly embarrassing, but since I usually take the late bus, I’m happy to see him. Typically, my dad works late at his architecture firm, Luden & Cross, so it’s unusual for him to surprise me like this.

  After I get into the car, I give my dad a smile. “What’s up, Dad?”

  He starts up the car but doesn’t put it in drive. “I had a rough day at the office, and I thought picking you up might pick me up.”

  Yup, my dad’s totally corny, like out-of-a-family-sitcom corny.

  But unlike most parents, he’s a truth teller. He doesn’t hide anything from me. Sometimes it’s great to have a parent treat you like an adult, but other times, it’s annoying, because then you have to act like one.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  He hesitates then finally puts the car in drive.

  As we pull out of the parking lot and head toward home, I try to gauge his mood. He gets this one wrinkle above his lip when he’s super-upset. I start to get really worried when I realize it’s there . . . big-time.

  I run my fingers through my wet hair. “Are you okay, Dad?”

  As we drive through historic Naples, the part of town with adorable pastel-colored cottages, expensive shops, and touristy restaurants like Tommy Bahama, I wait for him to answer.

  His speckled gray hair is being blown around like crazy since the window’s down. He rolls it up and looks over at me. “I have bad news. We lost that big deal,” he says. “That big deal” is a project that my dad has been working and bidding on for more than a year—a huge assisted-living development. My dad’s firm was in the running to design and build it. I know this development would have been a life raft for my dad’s company, which has struggled since the last economic downturn.

  I try to put aside my own worries so I can be there for him. I pat my dad on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Dad,” I say. I wish I knew what would make him feel better. There are all these books and magazines (and, gulp . . . blogs) for parents about how to deal with their kids, but how come there aren’t any for kids on how to deal with their parents, especially when the parents are the ones who are sad?

  My dad grasps my forearm lightly. “We’ll be fine, honey. It’s fortunate that your mom’s blog has been doing so well. It’s nice to have a safety net to fall back on. Not every family is so fortunate.” He glances over at me with a forced smile. “And, hey, what’s this I hear about your English class starting blogs?”

  Because I hate m
y mom’s blog so much, I forget that it’s become a business, and that we depend on it for money sometimes. After my dad’s news, I feel torn about the new idea that came to me during our long set in swim practice. But I don’t feel torn enough that I won’t run it past Sage.

  Mommylicious

  “It’s Not Always Sunny in Florida”

  The Hubby, as he’s known affectionately around here, has been having a rough go at work lately. Since I’m a mommy blogger, I try not to focus on him too much in the blog unless it’s about him being Daddylicious. But please, everyone put some good thoughts into the blogosphere for him. We all know the power of positivity. I thank you in advance!

  If you want to read our HOW WE MET story, click HERE. I promise it’s a good one. Think fate, serendipity, and destiny rolled into one. (Anyone know any Hollywood producers who are looking for a romantic comedy plot line?)

  Before I forget, the big news is that it’s Tip Thursday (!!!), which for all you new readers (WELCOME!!!) is the day I offer a parenting tip. After all, the whole reason I write this blog is to share what I’ve learned in this crazy journey called Mommyhood.

  Tip #232: Mommy Does Always Know Best.

  As regular readers know, Imogene’s growing up. Thanks to fellow mommy bloggers at Mommies “R”Us, I know that I’m not the only one with a hormonal teenager. Every year, Imogene comes to BlogHer with me. This year BlogHer is being held in Minneapolis, the hometown of my bestie, VeggieMom! (Thanks, Pampers, for sponsoring our trip! Play. Laugh. Grow.)

  Anyway, at our house it’s all coming to a breaking point, because this year Imogene keeps saying she doesn’t want to attend BlogHer. At first I tried listening to her excuses and seeing if she had an actual reason for not wanting to go. I’m a big believer in “Listen first, act second” parenting. But Imogene’s excuses just did not seem valid. First, she had a lot of homework, then a very important social event, and finally she said: “I just don’t feel like it.”

  Number One Worst Kid Excuse Ever: “I just don’t feel like it.”

  This is the moment when I realized Tip #232: Mommy Does Always Know Best. Imogene will be coming to BlogHer with me. We don’t stop a wonderful mother-daughter tradition and an opportunity to network with our fans and community just because she “just doesn’t feel like it.” Plus, I would be lost without Imogene at BlogHer. It’s my favorite bonding weekend of the year. In four years, when she’s off at college (insert big tear!), she can make her own decisions. But right now, Imogene is under my roof, so it’s still mommy dearest’s call.

  I know when Imogene becomes a mother herself in the years to come (let’s hope the decades to come), she’ll finally understand that mommies do know best. . . . Until then, she’ll just have to deal with it.

  To all the mommies out there, stay strong. Who’s the boss? You’re the boss!

  Butterfly Kisses,

  Mommylicious

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Chapter Four

  THE MOMMY BLOGGERS’ DAUGHTERS

  AT THE COASTLAND CENTER, OUR LOCAL MALL, I FIND SAGE sitting at a table on the perimeter of the food court, drinking an Orange Julius and eating a Mrs. Fields peanut butter cookie.

  “Sorry,” she says between bites and sips. “I was starving. I couldn’t wait any longer—not even a nanosecond.”

  I steal a slug of her extra-large Orange Julius. “No worries, Sage. I’ve had dinner at your house. I completely agree that tofu should be banned, especially after tasting that Tofurky your mom brought to Thanksgiving last year. The pilgrims and the Native Americans would have been majorly appalled.”

  “Is this it? Are we done for?” Sage asks. “Are we going to end our passive resistance and just start blogging?” She pronounces blogging like it’s a word that shouldn’t be uttered in polite company—you know, the type that gets bleeped on TV.

  For Sage and me, sometimes blog does feel like a curse word. “It’s for my blog” has to be my least favorite sentence ever.

  I catch Sage staring at me with the same look she had when she lost the election for student council president last year. (She lost to Ardsley, who ran on a “TV and Starbucks Frappuccino study break” platform, even though everyone knew that the administration would never allow it.)

  I smile. “Sage, you might not believe this, but I actually have a incredible idea.”

  Sage raises her eyebrows since her mouth is now full, and she makes a motion with her hand for me to get on with it.

  My heart starts to race. Somehow I just feel like this idea could change my year—and Sage’s year too.

  Sage covers her mouth with her hand because she’s still chewing. “Spit it out, Imogene.”

  “Okay, okay. If we’re forced to write blog entries about our life, then let’s really write about our lives. Everyone else is planning on keeping theirs private. We know all too well that the point of a blog is to be public—and ours would have to be public. And this is the genius part. Instead of writing generic material like ‘I went to school, and it was chicken nugget day. Score,’ let’s promise to write the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about our home lives, specifically about our moms. They’ll stop blogging about us in no time once they realize how sucky it feels.”

  I hand a piece of paper outlining my plan to Sage. The heading reads “How We Fight Back.” I detail how we’ll both blog about our lives and call ourselves the Mommy Bloggers’ Daughters.

  Sage reads the paper, shakes her head, and giggles. “No way, Imogene,” she says. “We’re teenagers. No one wants us to be honest with anyone. Plus, you’re scared of your mom. How would you ever pull this off? You can’t even talk to her.”

  “Newsflash: Nobody should share their life with the World Wide Web,” I say, performing a 360-degree eye roll. “That’s the whole point of all this. We’re just going to give our moms a taste of their own medicine, or in your mom’s case, health food. All these years, they’ve written about us twenty-four-seven. Now, it’s our turn to write about them. I’m pretty sure that it will be easier to write about them online than it would be to actually talk to them in person. And the bestest part is that we get school credit for it. These blogs are going to guarantee us As in English class and solve our mom issues.”

  My idea sounds even better out loud than it did when I thought of it during the dolphin dive lap. Maybe I used to be a fish in a past life, and that’s why I can think so well underwater.

  I hear a sucking noise as Sage drains the last of her Orange Julius, then hands the paper back to me.

  She tosses her curls over her shoulder. “I’m not so sure,” she says.

  I never even thought about the possibility that Sage wouldn’t go for it—she’s the brave one. “It’s for school. They can’t get that mad,” I add, even though I’m not so sure about that.

  Sage is totally right that I’m a little scared of my mom, but I’m also afraid that nothing will ever change if I don’t do something.

  After all, my dad always says to fight fire with fire. Why didn’t I think of this idea before?

  Ever since I can remember, Sage and I have mostly tried to avoid, rather than attract, extra attention because of our moms’ blogs. This would be going against all that. But maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s not this year that’s going to be different—maybe it’s me who’s going to be different.

  Sage looks at me as if I’m tempting an alligator with a fish. Her eyes are wide open, and if eyes could actually talk, hers would be screaming, This is an epically bad idea—like, even more bad than the time I ate two corn dogs three minutes before going on Rip Ride Rockit at Universal Studios.

  Sage and her talking eyes are probably right. This strategy could be really stupid. I should probably just accept that my mom’s always going to blog about me. She’ll probably even blog about my kids one day. Is there such thing as a grandmommy blo
gger?

  Plus, I probably shouldn’t rock the boat, considering my dad’s situation.

  And if Sage isn’t in, there’s no way I’m going to do it on my own.

  I roll up the papers. “Fine. Let’s surrender. Do you happen to have a white flag in your purse?”

  Sage stands up. “Don’t give in that easily,” she says. “Your mom’s not that terrifying.” She points toward the other end of the food court. “Wait with me in line for Sbarro? I’m still starving.”

  Sage is as skinny as a prepubescent celebrity, which makes sense because she hates healthy food, and that’s all that her mom serves. But sometimes I think Sage goes on total junk food sprees more because she’s angry with her mom than because she’s actually hungry.

  I push my orange plastic chair out and chase after Sage, who’s quickly making her way across the food court.

  We get in line behind a young, blond Lululemon-exercise-clothes-wearing mom. She’s pushing two infants in a double stroller and an adorable toddler in seersucker overalls is trailing behind.

  “I’m not scared of Mommylicious,” I argue, turning to Sage. “It’s just that things are complicated at home.”

  “Do you think I don’t know about what’s going on at home?” Sage asks.

  I stare at the pizza under the heat lamps instead of making eye contact with Sage.

  “I didn’t tell you about it,” I say.

  “I read all about the Hubby and his hard time at work this morning on your mom’s blog,” she says. “I figured your dad lost the assisted-living deal. I know that he was so excited. I mean, he showed us the blueprints five times in one week. I think I almost had them memorized.”

  “It does stink.” I wish that there were something I could do for him. And, on top of everything, I’m sure he hates that my mom is blogging about it. At least, I would.

  “My idea is stupid, Sage,” I say, remembering my conversation with my dad. “Let’s forget about it.”