My daughter was all concerned the other day. "Mom?" she asked. "Do we have any spinach in the house that could make us sick?"

I turned to her and said, "Have you ever, in your life, seen any green leafy thing in our refrigerator?"

She shook her head.

"Of course not. We wouldn't know spinach if it crawled into bed every night and spooned us. Now, if there was a recall of Devil Dogs or Haagan Daz chocolate ice cream or cans of Redi-Whip, then we'd be in trouble. But as long as all the bad stuff involves vegetables, we're safe."

A relieved look crossed her face, and this touching mother/daughter moment was ended with a clank of spoons as we dug into the bowl of raw cookie dough.

Even though I don't enjoy watching movies, I LOVE going to plays. As a kid, my parents used to take us into the city often to see plays, and one I remember vividly is A CHORUS LINE. I was probably in middle school at the time, and I was mesmerized by the music and the dancing and the story and the characters. When I heard it was leaving Broadway several years ago, I was sad. I'd never be able to go back to New York and see if I'd enjoy it as much a second time around.

Well, this morning I learned that the play just came back to Broadway. And now I live just a few hours away and can go to see it. I figure I've earned it, considering my friend, Vangie, and I are taking our daughters to see the Cheetah Girls in concert. Not exactly a Tony award-winning show, but it's a birthday present for the girls. I'm sure A CHORUS LINE will be pure gold after two hours listening to teenaged girls sing about how they're cheetah sisters and they stick together. Sadly, Vangie and I already know all the words to the songs. And we're probably better suited to sing Cheetah Girl tunes than we are to don leotards and do high kicks on stage.

My friend, Melanie Hauser, has just had her book CONFESSIONS OF SUPER MOM come out in paperback. Learn more about Melanie's book at www.melanielynnehauser.com,and check out the blurb below.

Birdie Lee is an average hard-working single mother of two teenagers, PTA lackey, and mild-mannered grocery clerk at the local Marvel Fine Foods and Beverages. One morning, while getting ready for work, Birdie is sidetracked by a stubborn Stain of Unusual Origin on her bathroom floor. Unable to let the stain get the best of her, she tries to annihilate it with every household product she can find –to no avail. Angry, hot, light-headed (and forgetting to turn on the exhaust fan), she makes one final desperate attempt to eradicate this vile, dastardly stain: she loads her Swiffer Wet Jet with every household cleanser she owns, aims, and fires….

And passes out, overcome by the fumes. After regaining consciousness (and reminding herself to scrub the bottom of the toilet since from her perspective — flat on her back — it was looking a little dingy), Birdie realizes something’s amiss. Her ears begin to buzz and her senses are aquiver. Eventually, aided by Martin, her geeky thirteen-year-old son and trusty sidekick, Birdie understands that she now possesses extraordinary powers — superpowers, to be exact. Birdie soon learns, however, that, to quote Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility and she finds herself struggling to balance a new onslaught of challenges, both at home and in her community. While trying to keep her distant 15-year-old daughter’s heart from being broken (something not even a superhero can do), and dealing with her smug ex-husband and his over-achieving new wife, she must manage her job, PTA responsibilities and a budding romance– all the while trying to rescue her beloved town of Astro Park from an evil force that threatens its children.