Cocoa With Christine

            For my birthday, Kayla made me a wallet out of duct tape.   So I watched her move all my cards, coins, and dollar bills out of my sophisticated, sleek Louis Vuitton wallet and into a new hot pink duct tape wallet, which would have been completely rockin’ in I were still in seventh grade.               Even though we are all smiles and “happy birthday”s, I have this paranoid feeling that I’m getting played and that someone is laughing at me.   I’m not exactly sure who is sacrificing more- my daughter or me.             I’m not sure why I’m the parent who ends up getting suckered into using all these kiddie crafts.   My husband only wore his puffy paint tee shirt made by our daughter once- and that was to the Daddy Preschool Day when all the other Dads were wearing their kids’ puffy paint tee shirts.   Doesn’t count.               And when my daughter begged him to wear his puffy paint tee shirt another time out in public, he looked into her eager, pleading face a

            I really don't like to brag, but I have great running shoulders;   so my 7th grade PE teacher Mrs. Finley told me as I ran in third to last on our mile run.    Grabbing my shoulders, she arrested them with her eyes and declared, "Great running shoulders!"             So every once in a while, when Won Bin and I chat with friends who are training for octathons or running to China daily, I meekly and modestly chime into the athletic conversation, "I've been told that I have great running shoulders."             You would think that my husband would find great family pride in having a wife with shoulders that   Marion Jones envies.   "My wife has shoulders who's blades are so quick that wind cannot resist them," he ought to be saying with his chest puffed out like a robin.                          But instead, he argues, "There are no such thing as running shoulders.   You run with your legs and feet."