I thought he was weaned. I guess I was wrong.

Lori Curley: Why does my son get hungry whenever he sees me? He is far past the feeding stage -- he's 13, but for some reason, he does not need food when he is with his dad. I can leave at 9:30 on a Saturday morning to do some errands, and whether I return at 10:00 or 2:00 or even 3:00, he never has to make himself anything to eat. He does not get hungry until I walk in.

The dog is the same way. The two of them hear the key turning and knock me over at the door. Pawing and whining, "What can we eat? We are starrrrrrving."

My friend, who has much older kids, tells me hers do the same thing. She thinks they are reacting to our mammary glands even though they are drier than some old grape that rolled under the frig. She thinks we have some invisible power over them. If it worked like kryptonite, it might be more useful. I would love to be able to knock him out cold without laying a hand on him, especially at night when I am ready to pass out and he needs me to "quiz him" on state capitals while I whip up some Bisquick biscuits.

I remember looking forward to giving birth because I would no longer have the extra weight to carry; I also remember the day it dawned on me that the "extra weight" still needed to be carried. It seems the feeding problem comes from the same tree of irony. After looking forward to not having to get up in the middle of the night to feed a baby, I find myself getting up to make pancakes for the hungriest teenager God ever made.

Lori Curley, champion mother of two middle-school teenagers, resides in South Orange, NJ. She holds a Masters in Education and has been teaching writing at the college level for 7 years. But can she find a job as a high school English teacher? Or will she pull her hair out first?