My friend Kathy Buckworth loves to tell this story about my eldest son who is 11. When we were on the Disney Dream together, my son couldn't find me and he turned to Kathy and said: "Do you know where Emma is?"

Shocked at the use of my first name, Kathy said, "You mean your mother? Do you always call her by her first name?"

My son answered: "Well, that is what Michael calls her."

"Who is Michael?"

"My dad."

My 8-year-old son will be wearing a pink shirt on Wednesday (so will his five-year-old sister, but that's not a stretch) and his schoolyard will be a sea of pink. And it will be beautiful and silly.

It is National Day of Pink on April 13 and students and teachers alike will be wearing pink in solidarity with those who are bullied, different and/or don't feel accepted.

It was started in 2007 by two twelfth grade boys when they saw a grade 9 boy being harassed for wearing a pink shirt - the bullies were calling him gay. The next day the pair handed out pink tank tops to their fellow students and encouraged everyone to wear pink. The move sparked a national, and now international, movement. Just shows how small, unplanned acts can make a big difference. 

The happiest family on the block isn't the one with the nicest house or the most money or the most supportive grandparents. The happiest families consist of two daughters, says a British study.

A study commissioned by Bounty.com (yes, toilet paper) surveyed over 2,000 parents with kids under sixteen asking them to rank their levels of "happiness". The results showed that families with two daughters were the most harmonious, the kids were quieter and they stayed in touch with their parents.

I know we try hard not to judge other parents (out loud); every parent has their challenges and their strengths. None of us are perfect and often when we judge others it is because we perceive similar weaknesses in ourselves.

And then there are celebrity parents. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but so often it feels like they have sold out their kids for their own gains. Billy Ray Cyrus pretty much admitted as much.

I hurt my back a couple of days ago, a rib popped out in my mid-back. (I am sure there is a medical name for it, but that is my lay explanation.) It hurts a lot (I'm typing this standing at the kitchen counter). But it goes away and I know after a couple of days of ice and chiropractic care, it will be fine.

Yesterday was also my husband's birthday. I drove to school to pick up my daughter hoping that the bum warmer in my car would dull the pain a bit. The plan was that I was going to pick her up and then we would go meet my husband for lunch.

Yesterday, I admitted that my 11-year-old has a cellphone and today I am going to do a 180 degree turn and tell you that he is not on Facebook - because I won't let him.

Call me a hypocrite, but I think Facebook is much more dangerous than a cellphone, partially because the cellphone is to keep in contact with me and Facebook is to keep in contact with other tweens. He has friends on Facebook, some of his friends have had profiles since Grade 3, but we have been studiously avoiding setting one up for him.

We got my son a cellphone for his 11th birthday. He is in grade 5. Even as I am writing that down, I can't believe that it is true. He can't even find his socks in the morning and yet he now carries around a piece of technology.

If you asked me two years ago, I would have said only teenagers should have phones and they should pay for them with their own money. But things have changed. Almost all of the grade sixes at my kids' public school have phones. One of our 13-year-old babysitters told me that she sends approximately 100 texts a day, which turns out is the average amount for a teenager.

I wish I had known that fame was lurking around every crib post; that every laugh, burble, fart and giggle had the potential to make my baby a star -- an Internet star for five seconds, but a star nonetheless.

Alas, my kids are too old now to make funny faces when I sneeze or to giggle uncontrollably when I stub my toe. My cats are dead as well so that also crosses that off the list. When my kids were babies, in the pre-viral age, we occasionally recorded them, usually missing their funny and/or profound moments.

There I was, the one who was picked last for every sports team, standing in front of the class with the smell of victory and chalk dust all around me. I had won! I had won the Grade Two spelling bee and victory was sweet.