Today I am wearing three Rainbow Loom bracelets made out of rubber bands. That wouldn’t be a surprising statement coming from an eight-year-old girl or even the mother of an eight-year-old girl. But my daughter is 17. She found out about the Rainbow Loom while she was babysitting, and got “hooked” on making rubber band bracelets (pardon the pun, the bracelets are made with a crochet hook), and then she got me hooked. We bought the basic kit and then invested in more bands in other, less Eastery, colors. My daughter, of course, is more advanced than I am, having mastered the ridiculously intricate starburst bracelet, although it required starting and stopping the Youtube video multiple times. Rubber band bracelets would not usually be high on my list of must-have accessories, but I would take up any activity my daughter and I did together. She is in the process of applying to college, and I have started to tick off all the lasts: the last first day of school, the last Halloween. I can’t begin to think how much I will miss her. Maybe, as a way of keeping her close, I’ll continue wearing my rubber band bracelets after she’s gone. Especially the way cool ones that glow in the dark.