I’m going to visit my parents tomorrow, and like a perpetual child, I’m bringing with me two trophies to show off. Technically these items belong to my children, but I am claiming them as my own.

The first is a soccer medal, awarded to Girl for completing the season. I take a good measure of credit for this. When she was curled up in the fetal position, bawling in the camp chair by the side of the field, I stayed Bob’s hand when he threatened to haul her to the car. Actually I kicked him out of the game and sent him to the car. Having a child that sucks at sports is a whole new experience for him. His other four kids are natural athletes, born to compete. This is his only child with my DNA. I didn’t want to yank her out of the game unless SHE wanted to quit. And she didn’t. She was just scared. But this child is no quitter — last night, she pitched a fit until I sang ALL the versus of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” with her. I told her I’d only done it once in my life when I was about her age, singing with my cousin in the back of the station wagon where no one could hear us and beg us to stop. When Girl and I finished last night, she said, “And now you’ve done it two times.” That soccer medal is a testament to sheer hard-headedness, hers and mine.

I’m also bringing Boy’s report card to show my parents — all Bs. I was a goody-two-shoes obnoxious smarty pants in grade school and never got Bs, but I tell you, this all-B report card is manna from heaven. Let’s just say it was a tough year. So tough, in fact, that I asked my sister, a reading specialist, to evaluate Boy for learning disabilities. She graciously did, and he has none. But reading came hard. More than one night I sat on top of him to force him to read for the required 20 minutes. He read aloud painfully with the intonation of a robot. By the end of the year, however, he was reading on his own, silently, swiftly, perfectly. I take no credit for that magic transformation, but I claim the report card in celebration that it happened, at last.