My mother and I agreed to stop talking about hair in the late ‘80s. Or maybe it was the early ‘90s — there was a lot of hairspray inhalation in those days, so some of the specifics are foggy.

There are people who are born to cook. People who instinctively know the precise moment to add a splash of paprika, when to back off the burners, how to cook squares of dark chocolate into magical desserts without gobbling them all down before they even get started. I am not one of these people.

Some mark this time of the year as back-to-school season. But in our neck of the woods, it’s back-to-camouflage. With just a few greenbacks and minutes to spare at the local Walmart, a person can be outfitted from head to toe in clothes modeled after shrubbery.

The first time I heard of a Diaper Champ, I was pregnant and perusing a list of “must haves” sent to me by a friend of a friend. The author of the list was a woman I don’t know personally, but after reading the first couple of items I was ready to go out on a limb and say that she and I had very different definitions of the concept of bare necessities.

Over a year ago, when I was still pregnant and living in a dream world where raising a child was very similar to caring for a well-trained dog — in that they would eat and drink on an easily-maintained schedule and also fall asleep on command — a friend commented that it would be easy to take our son to dinner in town.

Back in 2009 I tried to keep a plant alive. It was a flower arrangement that arrived at my office for my birthday. After only seven hours of having the special delivery on my desk, a co-worker, who was stopping by for a completely unrelated reason, commented on the flowers.

I bought my son’s first hat when he was about 2 months old. And that’s 2 months old in my belly — seven months before he actually breathed his first solo breath.