"Joy, joy, everywhere," she sang. 

And she was right. Robins flit about the front yard. The sun warmed the ground, our bodies too. Flowers bloomed. 

Look here.  

And here.  

Joy, joy, everywhere. 

Back-to-back blizzards, debilitating anxiety and a surprising bout of ugly depression sidelined the daily runs for a spell. 

But I put the jogging shoes back on my feet this past weekend and officially started the three-month training regimen. 

Turns out: I hate running just as much as I thought I did lo those many years ago. 

My passionate affair with pounding asphalt seems to have been a brief flirtation, at best. I thought I was running down the noise of the day, the chaos of the house and four kids. Now that perspective is on my side, I'm fairly certain I was trying to escape the death grip of unfamiliar panic attacks. 

In the interim, I started seeing an acupuncturist and therapist, started medicine for the menopause and started a cocktail of natural supplements. One or all of those quieted the anxiety and, also, rubbed the luster from the running.

The snow mostly melted by Saturday. The weather warmed, the sun shined and the roads filled with weekend warriors on bike and on foot. I was one of them. And I was miserable. Breathless by the first stop sign. Heave ho-ing by the second. Ready to rip my shirt off and head home by the third. 

"What did I get myself into?" I sputtered. 

I pushed myself to the half-way mark. Then willed myself home. 

It was not a pretty or auspicious start to the countdown to race day. 

"It's just one run," a friend counseled. "The next one will be much better."

Only it wasn't. In fact, it felt worse. I bargained with myself the entire 2.6 miles. Make it to the next street and then you can stop, I said. When I got there, I'd tell myself the same thing and do you know? I made it the whole way without stopping, then burst into the house barely able to breathe and so thoroughly disgusted with my shabby performance that I didn't stop bitching about it for 15 minutes. 

I'm not quitting the race, though. I can't. I've been cursed since birth with stubbornness and pride and I'll crawl into the stadium in Annapolis before I admit defeat.

My father used to tell us on relentless, hard climbs to just put one foot in front of the other. It's something he learned in mountain school. Or maybe Army training. Anyway, it's an apt directive for life...  as well as this tedious, ridiculous adventure I've embarked on. 

Hello, Mr. Lincoln.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Einstein.

Seems we have a budding fashion designer in our own house. 

Esme dove into the new stash of construction paper her grandmother brought and, while I made dinner, she made her own paper duds. With royal accessories. 

It left a royal mess.

Check out the details on the shoes. 

She told me they were hard to walk in. I told her high fashion can be painful...

Don't you wish more people in public toilets would remember that last one?

I started thinking about the piece yesterday when I realized Esme is quickly learning another crucial life lesson in kindergarten: people are complicated, and nothing is really black and white so much as shades of grey.

In case you missed it, she confided to me the other night that an older girl on the bus torments her by making her do things she doesn't want to do. Namely, math problems. On the other hand, the girl (I'm calling her Susie), also lavishes Esme with treats and trinkets. 

So, is Susie a bully or a buddy? For Esme, she's a bit of both. But yesterday, she was definitely more angel than antagonist. 

Some background: Esme and her classmates get out early on "Wacky Wednesdays." Back in September, when I was still getting used to the schedule, I completely forgot the early dismissal and didn't make it to the bus stop one day to pick up Esme. 

Luckily, our neighbor up the street walked Esme home. When the neighbor knocked on the door, I was slack-jawed and stupid. "Wait. What?!" And the girl was all like, "Duh!"  

Schooled by a sixth-grader. It feels as bad as it sounds. I vowed never to forget again. 

And I didn't. Until yesterday. 

But dammit, the school confused me. See, Wacky Wednesdays were suspended during part of February to make up for the snow days. This month, though, they're back on. 

Please tell me you're confused too. 

I was engrossed in some bit of reading yesterday afternoon when I heard an unfamiliar voice on the porch. A kid's voice. Followed by a knock. I didn't answer immediately because, in truth, I was trying to ignore the person. I thought the Jehovah's Witnesses had returned to bug me. When they knocked on the door an hour earlier, right after I put the youngest three down for nap, they made the dog bark which made Tobias cry which pissed me right the H-E -double hockey sticks off. 

So, I thought they were back....

Then I realized the kid was doing an awful lot of talking.  "Do you know if there's a key under the mat?" she said. "You have a nice house."

At the same time, I recognized the sound of the bus. 

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

I opened the door and saw Susie -- with her arm around Esme. She walked Esme to the door because our neighbor stayed after school for drama practice.

I thanked Susie profusely before she ran off, bounding back to the bus (which was idling at the corner). God bless the bus driver too who was crossing the street at the time to make sure Esme and Susie were Ok... and that I was home. 

I like to call myself "Mother Moron."

Geesh.

I bought a pot of Gerber daisies for the bus driver and wrote a short thank-you note that I'm going to give her at pick up. Which is at 3:27 precisely, thank you very much.

As for Susie, we'll see what shade she was today.

Susie (of course, I've changed her name) is an older girl who rides the bus with Esme. Best I can tell, she's in second or third grade. She often sends Esme home with treats: bubble gum, a plastic necklace, candy. Some days she gives Esme "homework:" printed words that she asks Esme to trace, instructions to draw different shapes, basic addition and subtraction problems.

Most days, Esme seems thrilled with her older friend. 

Others, she gets off the bus with droopy shoulders and a sad face. So, I wondered.

"Is Susie mean to you," I said. I was sleeping on the empty bed in her room -- on guard against the "trolls and the mice and all the bad things" that she asks me to keep out every night before heading to bed. 

"Yesss," she said with some hesitation. "Some times she makes me do things I don't want to do."

I felt the pit fill my stomach, felt a slow dread creep from my center out to my limbs. 

We spend so much time as parents exulting over the milestones our kids meet: the first time they smile, roll over, walk and talk. We follow them around with cameras and notebooks recording their triumphs. We call the grandparents. We clap and cheer. Tobias just learned to kiss and, the way it makes me feel, you'd think he won Olympic gold in Vancouver.

We forget about the unwelcome milestones, though. The rites of passage that nearly every kid slogs through. The ones that break their heart, shake their confidence or test our faith. The ones no one wants to record. 

The first breakup. The first test they fail. The first time they get drunk at a party. The first time they lie. 

And this: the first time they're bullied.

Esme confided that she doesn't like when Susie gives her math "homework." Probably because she can't do it. And nothing annoys or frustrates Esme more than something she can't do. 

She tells Susie she doesn't want to do it, she said. Susie doesn't listen. She tries to sit in another seat, she said. Susie picks her up and brings her back. 

Turns out, Susie's older brother might not win the Kindest Kid On The Bus Award either. "He said my name in a mean way," she said, then imitated a ferocious, menacing growl. 

Esme's personality outside the house or around people who aren't part of her nuclear six is entirely different from what we know of her. Even my parents, who see and talk to her regularly, have never truly seen her. Neither have her closest friends or teachers. 

So, while she can be a bossy boss of extraordinary proportions with Desmond, Josephine and Tobias, she does not exert herself like that with others. She may give off easy-to-read "get away" vibes, throw fiercely nasty looks or otherwise let people know she'd rather play alone. But she won't say so in the strong, loud, fiery voice we know. 

"Sometimes, I'm afraid to tell people what I think," I told Esme. 

"Me too," she said. 

I told her Susie confused me because it sounded like she did such nice things some days but did mean things other days. 

"I know," Esme said. Clearly, she's confused too. 

"Let's think about what we can do the next time she acts bossy," I said. 

I asked whether she wanted me to talk to our neighbor, a 6th-grade girl, whom Esme rides carpool with in the morning. I thought I could ask her to keep an eye on Esme and intervene if she saw Susie intimidating her. 

"No," Esme said immediately. 

"You know, there's a trick they teach people like me, who are afraid to talk in front of large crowds...."  I said.

"I am too," she interrupted.

So, I told her that we're supposed to imagine the audience filled with people dressed only in their underpants. She laughed loud and hard.  The next time Susie tries to boss you or make you do something you don't want to, I said, imagine you're looking at Josephine or Desmond and tell them - angrily - "NO! I DON'T WANT TO!"

The thought of finding courage by putting Josephine or Desmond's face on Susie's made her laugh loud and hard again. 

I practiced it several times for her, with different bossy Susie scenarios, and every time she LAUGHED. OUT. LOUD. 

I walked her through the steps she should take when anyone - not just Susie - treats her unkindly. We talked about the phrase "killing someone with kindness."

I started there: use kindness to deflate the mean or angry. Next, walk away. And if that doesn't work, tell an adult. She told me she couldn't do that on the bus. So, if she's stuck on a bus or somewhere else where she can't get an adult's immediate help, I told her to get loud. Then get angry. 

Am I wrong?

I realize that in the grand scheme of bullying, being forced to do math problems is about as harmless as it comes. But the incident reinforces a trait of Esme's I knew we'd have to confront at some point: her fear of standing up for herself. It's a trait I share. And continue to struggle with.

I'm allergic to confrontation and fear hurting people's feelings. 

To complicate the story, I know a bit about Susie and her bossy brother because I did my own bit of bullying and browbeating as a kid. It's something I've been grossly ashamed of since I was a teenager. Sadly, we can't rewrite the past. 

I could probably tell Esme that Susie and her brother and others like them act the way they do because they're frightened about something. Or angry. Or feel powerless. But would that help? Would she understand?

Isn't it more helpful to figure out how to empower her to stand up for herself?

I've been puzzling over all of these questions since last night and still can't come up with the answers.

For instance, Elvis is alive. All the other details - like he's sober, owns a karaoke bar in Kentucky and still wears sequins - follow in declining order of importance. 

When Kent and I met, I was about six weeks shy of moving to Chicago to start journalism school at Northwestern. He didn't take my classes but he sure heard everything about them. Later, he didn't work alongside me in my newsroom when I got a job at a North Carolina paper. But he might as well have because I bored - and sometimes fascinated - him with absolutely every detail. 

He listened to me bitch for HOURS about newspaper politics and the politicians I covered. He accompanied me on assignments: Fourth of July parades, news conferences, election night parties. He even drove me around the outskirts of Fort Bragg the day after the 9/11 attacks. 

He's known me for 14 years and we're about to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary so YOU'D THINK HE'D KNOW HOW TO LEAD WITH THE NEWS. 

Alas, he does not. 

(It's not lost on me that I am not actually leading with the news here either but it's my blog and traditional news rules don't apply.)

He was tap tap tapping away at the computer last night, preparing for an early morning meeting, when I went to bed. This morning, when he came to wake me up and let me know he was leaving, I can't recall what he said. But I know it wasn't, "I SAW A MOUSE LAST NIGHT!"

I'd remember that headline.

So, I went about my morning with nary a thought of the mice. I thought Fabian, the mouse slayer, fixed the problem yesterday what with the exhaustive stuffing of every crevice in the house. Did I tell you he used an entire box and then some of copper meshing? He did. 

Unlike yesterday, I wasn't haunted by streaks and shadows and real honking mice jumping at me in the bathroom.

The house calmed down, the kids went off for quiet time and I got my computer out per daily custom. I logged on to my web site -- again, all a part of the ritual - and there I saw Kent's comment on yesterday's post. About the mouse! In the house! Last night!

I should say that in addition to our quick, unmemorable exchange this morning at the crack of dawn, we also traded e-mails. And I assure you, there was no mention of mice in the e-mails either.

I called him at work and got the lowdown on the vermin. He did manage to give me four of journalism's Five Ws: the who, what, where and when of the story. I suppose the why is obvious: it's cold outside and the mice want warmth. And food. 

And to mess with my head. 

If the mouse siege goes on much longer, I tell you what the next headline will be: WOMAN GOES INSANE.

I see mice. Everywhere.

Of course, I only actually saw one. One really BIG one. It scared the shit out of me in the bathroom last night. [Ha-ha. Scared the shit out of me. In the bathroom. It's only funny if you're still in junior high school. Which apparently I am.]

Anyway, I hit the bathroom one last time before bed and, just as I walked in, the bugger dashed from behind the radiator. I jumped immediately to the top of the toilet and the little thing... no, BIG THING... ran to the door, hopped a bit like it was trying to scurry up the baseboard, then realized it was best to run out the open doorway. Into the hall and the darkened beyond. 

I didn't scream so much as take super loud, short hyperventilated breaths. 

Kent heard the barely suppressed cries, saw a shadow streak past the door and thought I threw something out of the bathroom.

What in God's name I would be throwing out the door I don't know but....

I made him turn on all the lights and search the house for signs that the vermin was hiding under radiators or chairs or, God forbid, hiding beneath beds.  

I lay awake for a long time. So long I can't remember when my body finally put me out of my misery and succumbed to sleep. I listened for the faintest rustling, imagined rubbery mouse feet on my face, saw black eyes staring at me from behind the bookshelf. At 4:20 a.m., I pulled the pillow from where it fell on the floor and put it under my cheek. But not before shaking it to make sure there were no mice cowering inside.

I searched the bedrooms and closets in the morning for telltale droppings, found a horrifying number - AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! - then called the mouse guys immediately.

Young Mr. Fabian, a new guy, stuffed copper wool into the feet of every radiator in the house. He filled holes in the foundation outside and in the basement too. He also delivered the bad news: we have huge gaps between the brick foundation and the wood siding. Too many for him to fill today. The good news: he'll be back.

I just Googled my savior's name thinking it might have some significant meaning. It's Latin for "bean grower." It should be "mouse slayer".

So now, three of the four are tucked into their beds for quiet time and I'm typing away at the computer waiting for the rustling, cringing at the thought of a fat furry thing racing alongside the dining room wall. Torturing myself with the shadows of imagined mice. Everywhere.

Thomas Jefferson sure has some nerve: calling my kids barbarous and etching it into stone for the world to see. Who does he think he is?

My boyfriend was a jock. The teacher was a philosopher. 

I learned over the next 20 years that the truth, for me anyway, falls between the two extremes. 

I thought about the two guys and their advice for me this week after I turned down a chance to let the girls walk in a kids' fashion show at Nordstrom. The sales lady told me about the event when I bought Easter dresses for Esme and Josephine. 

"It will be fun," she said. "Do you want them to be in it?"

I have to admit: I thought about it briefly. Josephine loves to play dress up. Esme too, though her outfits lean toward the outlandish while Josephine favors the operatic. Think Tim Burton vs. Walt Disney. 

They would totally dig the chance to put on pretty clothes and strut the catwalk. The sales lady was right. It would be fun.

But....

I couldn't shake the icky thoughts of child beauty pageants - artificial, over-glammed kids and their competitive parents with grossly misplaced priorities. Or the crass commercialization of the affair. Because let's face it: there's a reason Nordstrom puts on the shows and it's not to celebrate fashion or showcase creativity. They want to sell clothes. 

Five minutes earlier, Josephine was fingering dresses on the rack. "I want this one. I want this one. I want this one." The more frills, rhinestones, purple and pink, the better.

I was aghast. Not at our difference in taste but by the gimme, gimme, gimme. 

I thanked the sales lady but declined the offer. "I think it would send the wrong message to them," I said.

I used to be a fashion snob. Used to see it as a silly pursuit of vain and shallow people. Thankfully, I evolved. Surprisingly, it took children and an adolescent to change my mind. 

From Josephine and Esme, I've learned how clothes can be transformative, expressive, empowering. That they can trip the imagination and transport people to different worlds. 

It was another young girl, Tavi Gevinson, a 13-year-old fashion phenom from Chicago, who helped me see fashion can be complex and rich. That designers create art, not just accessories. 

"Dress however you please and embrace rude stares," she told Teen Vogue. "It means that what you're wearing isn't boring."

She blogs at Style Rookie and if you've never heard of her before, prepare to be blown away. By her crazy smarts. Her talent. Her confidence and maturity. 

The point is, I understand that fashion shows can be fun and I would consider myself a wildly successful mother if one of my daughters followed in Tavi's footsteps. But I stand by my decision to pass up the department store fete. 

So, was my high school boyfriend right? Did I over-think it? Or did my teacher get it right and I failed to consider it thoroughly? 

How about we say I struck a happy balance and call it a day? Ok? Done.