My sister also has two giant vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and a creek running through the back yard. On her porch is a bench that, when I was there, held three jars filled with different sorts of bugs for her children to study up close. She decorated the bedroom I stayed in with daisies that she picked in the meadow, and after dinner one night we walked through that meadow to pick blackberries that were growing along the road. And in case you’re wondering: no, of course she doesn’t have a t.v.

The whole experience nearly killed me. You see, my sister is living the life I thought I would be living, except for the chickens part, which I find completely overwhelming and a bit creepy. (Even she is opposed to the chickens, and when her husband went on a recent business trip and she was responsible for putting them back in the hen house in the evening, she almost decapitated the rooster by accident. It was such a funny, weird story that I nearly fell out of the car when she told it.) Instead, I am living in a town outside of New York City that is surrounded by highways; in fact, the hum of I-95 is pretty much unavoidable, no matter where you are. When my children aren’t playing sports on an artificial turf—or at the very least, extremely manicured—field, they are playing Wii or watching The Simpsons. (OK, I exaggerate a bit: they do read a book from time to time, when forced by one of their parents. And they can identify a few bugs—at least bees and fireflies.)

So now I am in a full-on existential crisis, fueled by wild blackberries and the fantasy of an existence without I-95 or t.v. Isn’t there some sort of pill I can take for this?

I'm not even talking about teacher gifts, which stump me every year. We routinely fall back on gift cards because I read a New Yorker article by Caitlin Flanagan a few years back in which she basically said that most teachers hate most gifts. So I figure you can't go too wrong with a gift card, particularly if you miraculously convince your child to write a really nice note to go with it, which somehow I managed to do this year.

No, I really mean the convergence of so many deadlines at once. There is the looming end of school, with its attendant parties and bizarre half days. (And can anybody tell me why the last day of school only lasts an hour?). There is the need to get everything in your garden planted before it's suddenly August and you realize you have not put the tomatoes in yet. There is getting kids ready for camp, which always requires last-minute medical forms if you come from a procrastinating family, as I do.

Last Thursday was Middle's last day of elementary school. I walk him to school nearly every day, and as we walked last Thursday I realized that I would never walk him to school again. For just a moment, I felt like I was going to cry. And then I remembered the camp packing (deadline: yesterday) and his birthday (deadline: last Friday), and I snapped right out of it.

But I do wonder: does anyone else out there find June nearly impossible to manage? And what can we do about it!?!?!

9.  Middle is graduating from elementary school next month.

8.  And I have volunteered to be in charge of the production of the 5th grade yearbook, as if we needed further proof that I am insane.

7.  Last weekend we surprised the boys with a top-secret mini trip to Atlantis.

6.  That's right, Atlantis. Who knew you could build a water slide under a shark tank?

5.  Eldest graduates from 8th grade next month.

4.  We are doing several important, giant projects at Real Simple that actually require me to focus and pay attention more than usual.

3.  Which, as it turns out, affects my sleep because my little brain can only handle so much paying attention.

2.  It is late spring and past time to plant annuals and prune and weed and my house is taking on a slight Grey Gardens aspect, without the benefit of my being related to the Kennedys.

And finally...

1.  Baby has learned to say bizarre, hilarious things because he knows they will get a laugh; last night I asked him "Who loves you?" and he replied, "Cookie airplane."  And really, why blog when you can listen to that instead?

1) More money
Pros: less stress, better jewelry
Cons: certain friends and relations may ask to borrow from you, and you know how that goes

2) More time
Pros: less constant rushing which, despite what your crazy--and apparently understimulated--husband tells you, really feels like it's shortening your lifespan
Cons: possible boredom

3) Better hair
Pros: less self-loathing
Cons: none that I can think of

4). Family members who do not have to be asked three times to empty the dishwasher
Pros: cleaner kitchen, heightened (if delusional) sense of control over your life
Cons: having to find something else to bicker about

Never mind that I have given birth to three children. Getting an injection--of painkiller, no less!--into my mouth seemed, in my over-active imagination, to be the equivalent of 20 epidurals, which believe you me were scary enough.

It turns out that I may just be the biggest wimp on the planet. When my dentist came toward me with the needle, I asked the hygienist, Yasmin, if I could hold her hand (I am not kidding). She kindly agreed--until I squeezed it so hard that she remarked, "My health insurance does not cover injuries to the hand" (again, not kidding). And so I let go, but by that point the needle part was almost over.

I did not need to hold her hand in the first place, though, because I discovered that getting a crown is something that I am tough enough to handle. Who knew?

I am not, however, tough enough to handle what comes after getting a temporary crown, which is no chewing gum until you can get the permanent crown. In my case this means three weeks without gum. I don't think I have gone three weeks without gum since I was about four years old.

Ok, spare me the lecture about how gum is so tacky and ugly and all that. I already give myself the same lecture every time I put a piece of peppermint Dentyne Ice (my gum of choice) in my mouth. I simply don't care.

So, to my fellow awful, tacky, addicted gum chewers out there: if anyone has tips on how to survive without gum (and taking up cigarettes is not the answer), I'm all ears.

As it turns out, I am:

1. not qualified to rate whether an outfit is cool or not
2. not encouraged to say things like supercool without fear of extreme embarrassment
3. better off if I say very little, even if my son is the only one within earshot

After this exchange I began to wonder if it’s ever possible to be cool in the eyes of your children, and simultaneously to be a good parent. As the mother of three boys, including one who is a teenager and one who just acts like one, I sometimes struggle with how to behave. Which is ridiculous! But, for example, if eight 13-year-old boys are in my kitchen eating pizza that I have ordered, do I hang around and ask anybody if they want a drink, or do I leave the room as quickly as possible? Maybe it’s because I never had any brothers, but I swear when I am around a pack of teenage boys I revert to my incredibly awkward 13-year-old self, and I don’t quite know how to behave. Which, I fear, will eventually undermine my authority as a parent.

I don’t want to be the giant dork, not-supercool mom because I do not want to embarrass my children. But I also do not want to be the mom that a 13-year-old might actually consider cool, because that would probably mean offering them beer with the pizza. Which is not only not legal but also not cool, no matter how you look at it.

So, my question: can you actually be cool and also be a good parent? Or is it better if nobody thinks you are cool (including yourself), because that means you are doing a good job?