For years I wrote a weekly column in The Saratogian in which I often shared the lighter side of the familiar trials of raising two boys. Now one, Dave, is a college grad whose entertainment blog appears on The Saratogian website, for whom bad publicity is any in which his name is misspelled. The other, Joe, is a college sophomore who, unlike his brother and despite being the lead singer and composer of a band in high school, would just as soon not be mom's column subject.

Sorry, Joe.

Last month, he called home one Saturday afternoon to report a bad stomach ache. Must have been bad, to call home. He's in Boston for the summer, teaching music to city kids at a nonprofit organization called the Hyde Square Task Force.

Mother of the Year called sister-in-law, the relative closest to a doctor and the matriarch of a family famous for intestinal ailments, who said their speciality is diarrhea, but suggested Gas-Ex. Joe made the trek to his neighborhood CVS for the medicine. But a couple of hours later, the pain was much worse. His girlfriend came home from work in the nick of time and a trip to an emergency room was in clearly in order.

Long story short, at Beth Israel Hospital, they removed his appendix around midnight, as my husband, other son and I headed to Boston -- arriving just in time to see him in the recovey room. What was amazing was how laproscopic surgery made it possible for him to go home the next day and return to bike riding and tennis less than two weeks later.

Funny how I felt too busy to take a trip to Boston, but had no hesitation about going at 10:30 at night -- especially when Joe said, "Are you coming?" You bet we are, I assured him. How old is too old to want to be at your kid's side?