There’s a new little quiz on Facebook, “What kind of mother are you?” I haven’t taken it yet. I know what kind of a mother I am.

- I’m the kind of mother who flips through Facebook while my kids are screaming for macaroni and cheese.

- I’m the kind of mother who can’t sleep all night because the upstairs air conditioner broke and it’s 89 degrees up there where the kids are sleeping, and it’s 79 degrees down here where I’m sleeping, and I can’t decide if I should wake them up and bring them down here to sleep on the floor or leave them to their sweaty but peaceful slumber.

- I’m the kind of mother who will spend $2.50 on a school notebook with a Corvette on the cover when a 90 cent plain black notebook would work just as well.

- I’m the kind of mother who sometimes slips out of the house early in the morning without kissing everyone goodbye, but they think I kiss them everyday in their sleep, anyway.

Wishing that the summer would never end. It stays light out ’til 8:30 and we go down to the river after supper to look for spider holes and crazy ants. The kids take a break from shooting space aliens in cyberspace and revert to cave children happily throwing dirt clods into the murky water. Bob stops talking geek and I shake off the downtown commuter blues.

In less than a month we will trade this for nights full of mandatory reading and math problems. We will fight about getting homework done before bath time. We will fight over TV and bedtime. We will cram gymnastics and flag football in between spasms of work. We will fight.

Savoring these last few days of long sunlight and lazy evenings. Pretending to be prepared for the onslaught of fall. But this time, I’m not ready for the change of seasons. I don’t yet want to be.

A snapshot from our family vacation to Ohio: We are walking through my husband’s childhood neighborhood. Each of us is searching for something different. A camera strung on my neck, I am looking for the house of my dreams, which I spied just down the hill. A new place to fantasize about, perched on a lake with its own private beach. A Southern Living spread come to life far north of the Mason-Dixon, and I aim to shoot it.

Girl is hunting Indian bubble gum. Bob turns her onto it, pulling down a thin twisted twig from a wild grape vine. He calls it Indian gum because legend has it that the Indians used to chew it. It tastes bitter and nothing like gum, let alone bubble gum, but Girl is hungry and baby bear that she is, she roots it out everywhere along the road.

Boy is looking alternatively for snakes, frogs, groundhogs and crab apples that can be smashed on the pavement, because he learns from Bob that that’s what you do with crab apples.

Bob is searching for Snakesville — the grassy hill where he and his pack of wild boys used to catch garter snakes. It’s all overgrown now, unrecognizable to him. It’s hard for him to get his bearings — there’s no trace of it. He squints into the thicket, scouting for the paths they used to take as shortcuts home. These too are grown and gone, just like the children who made them. On the long way back I realize I am the only one on this walk not seeing things with the eyes of a child.

We’re arguing about who will drive the Camry. I want to, not because I really want to, I don’t like that car. It’s gutless and boring — it looks like a member of some nameless corporate fleet. But I want to drive it because I don’t want to worry about other people being inside the car if the accelerator sticks. At least I drive alone most of the time.

Not that I would know what to do if an accelerator stuck. I wouldn’t even realize the point at which, yes, I should go ahead and panic, because even before that point, my brain would be so preoccupied with worrying about the possibility of the accelerator sticking that it would take a while for it to shift gears into a full blown panic. Is it sticking? No, it’s okay. No, no, that feels like it’s sticking, am I slowing down? Ah, okay, the brake’s working, but better be safe and stay under 50 miles an hour just in case. Oh shit! It’s sticking! No, that’s just my foot. Just like that all the way to work.

The whole reason we bought a Camry — the whole reason anybody buys a Camry — is for safety and reliability. I wish I could trade it in right now, today. Drive it to a Ford dealer and exchange it for an F-150. The kind that tows boulders in the commercial during the football playoffs. That one there. The one that promises invincibility. I’ll take some of that, thank you very much.

Toyota, you’re going to have to do a lot to win back the hearts and minds of American moms. We hate being more scared and worried than we already are, especially when it comes to the safety of our families. You just mashed the hottest hot button we have. In fact, I would say that button is permanently stuck.