It’s 12:00 a.m., and when most children are all snuggly buggly wuggly in their widdle beds getting lots of shuteye for their big days at school tomorrow, mine is still awake.

Apparently, her class got in trouble today for excessive chattiness and in a brazen show of authoritative take-that-ness, her teacher slammed them with — wait for it — 60 definitions and 60 sentences. On top of science homework and algebra equations, Girl Child’s whole night has been spent with her face stuck in a dictionary and a marble composition book leading up to now, the stroke of midnight. I am not amused.

There are tons of little tips for this motherhood thing that you can only pick up and add to your bag of tricks from experience. My latest one is a gift from Ma Bell herself: my daughter, even in all of her stealthy teen know-it-all-ness, has the volume on the cordless phone cranked up so high, I can hear every word the person on the other line is saying.

Of course, I play like I’m completely oblivious as I walk to and fro in my mom duties — cooking dinner, putting away groceries, plucking hair balls off the carpet — but if I think something’s a-brewing, I’ve got one ear to the phone, just like she does.

So I had to chuckle to myself the other day when the friend she was talking to suggested Girl Child, who was going to be staying home by herself the following evening, have a few people over in my absence.

“Your mom won’t know. We’ll be gone way before she gets home,” Heathen Pal coaxed. 

The best thing about the holidays, besides the food, the love, and — depending on who pulled your name in the family gift swap, the thoughtful presents — is that the close of another year signifies a period of reflection. It’s an opportunity to take stock of our fortunes and be grateful for what we have and who we are. Despite the obstacles that have tumbled across our paths like big ol’ redwood trees, we’re still making it. Still standing.

In all of the hubbub of shredding open toys they’ve been begging for for months but will play with for maybe two hours max, it’s important for parents to ask their kids to count the good things in their lives. You know, the ones that can’t be purchased at a 24-hour Toys R Us. It’s so easy to get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of Christmas consumerism, but failing to count their blessings may come back to haunt them. 

Back at the end of 7th grade, Girl Child was turning into a label groupie. In her limited little world of fashion, it was all about Juicy Couture. I was perplexed, 1) because we were wearing that stuff when I was in school and I wondered how it managed to stand the test of an almost twenty-year generation gap when 2) it’s really not that hot. 

My analysis was blowing in the wind. As far as she was concerned, it was Juicy, Juicy, Juicy. Then it was Polo, Polo, Polo. Before we moved on to the next great American tween fad, I had to nip that mess in the hindparts.

Being fly and fabulous, I told her, is all about having the style to take something from a thrift store or Wal-mart and make it look like something in the window at a hot boutique or swanky department store. Whose name you have slathered across your front or backside has no bearing on how well you dress. 

Remember good news? It came somewhere in between the reports on car bombings and car jackings on the evening news and the top headlines in print or on the web. As happy stories get more and more sparsely shared, we’ve had to do a bit more digging to find the little nuggets of sunshine that put smiles on our faces.

That’s why all of those YouTube clips — the baby who breaks into hysterics when his mama blows her nose, the twins who have a whole conversation in mystery gibberish about a missing sock — get so many hits. People want something to feel warm and fuzzy about along with their political and social analysis.

In the midst of all our complaining about what kids are not and should not be doing, there are some inadvertently making us proud. Here are 7 reasons to have a feel-good moment: a cadre of kids who do the right thing in a mighty big way. 

When you were a kid, were you squirreling away mental notes about what you would and would not do when you became a mom based on what your own mother did? I sure did. I had a running list of no-nos forged from all the things my mama did to pluck my nerves and swore up and down I wasn’t going to put my own daughter through such agony.

I, for example, was going to let my little girl wear whatever she wanted because my mom stifled my fashion creativity. In the 80s no less, when you could basically put anything on and still be hip. I mean, wearing jellies with socks seemed like a fun, easy way to transition my favorite summer sandal into the cold, winter months. I vividly remember fighting for that look and silently vowing to be the coolest, most style-conscious mom ever when she shut me down. 

Me and my grandmother, when we were both babesI think about my Nana every Sunday. I mean, I think about her almost every day anyway, but Sundays are extra special because I spend my mornings in church. That’s how I’ve spent just about every Sunday since I was born actually, minus a hiatus when I was in college and would’ve rather tap-danced barefoot across broken glass than get up early and haul my caboose across campus to go to chapel.

Interestingly enough, that’s the time when I probably needed to have my rear end parked in a pew the most.

Now as a grown woman raising my own daughter, I see how the values and lessons that were drilled into me by my mom — and of course, my Nana — have come full circle as the morals and lessons I drill into my child. And they were part of the fruit that came from a faith-based household where I had no choice but to rise and shine to praise the Lord on Sunday mornings, no matter what I did on Saturday night.

There is nothing like staggering to the bathroom in the middle of the night, barely awake, legs wobbly, and discovering that the last person to use it — which, in this case, would be my precious Girl Child — failed to replenish the toilet paper. Again.

The only thing that can jolt me out of my sleepy stupor in the wee hours of the morning is annoyance. Lucky for me, I’ve learned to keep a secret stash tucked away so that I can teach her a lesson by leaving that paperless brown cardboard roll dangling right where it is for the next time she makes a dash for the ladies’ room.

 When asked why she can’t seem do these basic tasks around the house, she admits that she’s not as enthusiastic about committing them to memory as she is some other things. You know, like fun stuff. Duh Mommy.