Public school started last week, and over the weekend I checked in on friends whose kids started in new schools. Some kids had great experiences, some had bumpy ones. I wrote to one friend, "I knew she'd come home with a smile! She's the adventurous type!"

After sending off the note I thought, I don't have any adventurous types.

I have a mathy type and a couple of anxious ones and an artist and a gregarious dancer. I have a writer and a poetry-lover and a singer and an inventor and several dramatic personalities. I have introverts and extroverts, pessimists and occasional optimists, impatient and persevering kids, a naturally generous one and one who gets jealous easily. I have one with a mood disorder and one with ADD and possibly a dyslexic. But I don't have any children who thrive on adventure and crave thrills.

I'm not complaining. It's kind of humbling how many kinds of kids I don't have: no one's chronically ill  or disabled, mellow and laid-back, flighty, a Queen Bee, a jock, a daydreamer, type-A, a psychopath (whew!), drop-dead beautiful or handsome, craftily manipulative, or a natural networker.

All of which tells me two things:

1. My life isn't as complicated as it could be, and
2. There are a lot of moms out there whose challenges I don't fully appreciate.

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