It's the end of the world as we know it

Kathy was one of my favorite co-workers at HP. She was bright, efficient, thorough and kind. She did good work and was enjoyable company. Our cubes were next to one another. I was the single girl with a house and some cats. She was an attentive mom to 3 Catholic school teenagers, building a house up north.

6 months after my Maggie was born, Kathy's 19 year old daughter was killed in a car accident. Jody was Kathy's oldest child, and they were very close. Until tonight, my last memory of Kathy was seeing her at Jody's funeral, crying and holding my hand tight, commanding, "You love that baby of yours!". Her anguished advice has gripped my heart many times over the past 5 years.

Tonight I was sitting in Noodles and Co. with my kids and Tim, and I saw someone who looked like Kathy from across the restaurant. Her hair was longer but the face and mannerisms were the same. She was with her husband Bob. After Tim and the kids started running around the restaurant trying to make the baby laugh, Kathy got up and came over. I was so glad it was her! She looked great, happy and healthy. We hugged and talked about the facts of our current lives, and it was such a joy to catch up even for just a few minutes. I told her about my mom. She told me she is about to be a grandmother. Tim then left with the kids and went to Barnes and Noble, so we hugged and parted and I went to look for my family. Tim, kids and I spent about 45 at the bookstore before heading back to the car.

When we walked back past the restaurant, Kathy and her husband were still sitting at their window table, talking and laughing and enjoying one another's company. She looked up when I passed, and smiled and waved. She looked like a woman content and at peace.

Recent events in my life have been very hard. I have experienced pain that I never knew I was capable of. Seeing Kathy was like a message of comfort from the Divine. Yes, this is survivable. Yes there will be peace.

On the drive home that REM song came on the radio just as Frank was yelling from the back, "I want the music LOUD!". I turned up the volume, the kids rocked back and forth in their seats, and we all sang the refrain at the top of our voices. It was 3 minutes of pure, heavenly relief.

Blog Hiatus

I'm on one. Please send love and prayers for wisdom, guidance and peace.

Work

I feel lucky to have a job. I mean the kind where I get a paycheck! Trust me, there is no shortage of work to be done in my daily life!

My $$ paid job is part- time, and my life has made it even more part-time with all the changes here. My boss just got back from a trip to New York, which I was invited to companion her on. She is blind and she takes a sighted guide when she goes to meetings out of town, which is not frequently. I was also asked to travel with her in mid-June to NYC, but I had a 6 week old baby and just couldn't make it work then either. I would love to have gone both times, but it simply wasn't possible.

I feel guilty that I'm not going to work as much as I used to, and also am missing the $$. But I also feel fortunate to not have to give up the job because my family is going through a challenging time. Barb (my boss) is so patient and good to me, and reminds me that there will be a time when life will "normalize" once again. Here is the website for EDN:

http://www.edn4ministry.org/

Tim said that Charlie said...

...that he feels like he shouldn't be reading my blog. He thinks it is only meant for the eyes of those people I mentioned in my first post. I say, "Charlie, please read!" I'm honored that you want to read it! I welcome anyone who wants to read it. And anybody else who reads here should go read Charlie's blog at right:

OH Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy! http://www.experimentone.blogspot.com/

class reunion

My mom has been planning to go back to Iowa for her nursing school class reunion. It will be held the weekend of Halloween. Today she called her friend Freda to see if she can drive here to pick her up. Freda is coming up Thursday, and they will leave Friday. My mom has chemo scheduled for November 1, so she plans to return to Minnesota on Halloween. If all goes as planned, she will be away from us for more than a week! And what am I feeling? Fear that the house will be too quiet and too empty without her! Fear that I am going to miss her. We haven't spent this much time together (i.e. 4 months straight!) since I was 17, and I think we have both found it to be surprisingly pleasant. It is nice to have an adult companion during the day, who really knows what is going on in my daily life. I think I might actually feel a little lonely while she is gone, which sounds crazy considering the fullness of my days with these little people!

I've also been worried about her getting sick. She had a low energy weekend, not feeling or acting like her spunky self. She also had a cough, so today she got some antibiotics because of the fear of pneumonia creeping into her lungs again. I want her to stay well so she gets to enjoy her time with her school friends, and spend some quality time with my grandma.

Uncle Mike gets sick

For some reason I am being haunted by my uncle tonight. He died in October 2002 of lung cancer.

Mike lived in a suburb of Chicago in a little apartment with shag carpet. He worked at a tool making company as a bookkeeper. 6 days a week he went to work, then came home to his pet parrot. He liked to watch "Whose Line is it Anyway?" and smoke cigarettes. Sundays he never missed mass, and faithfully called his mother right afterward. From what I could tell he was depressed for most of his life, and then never recovered from a painful divorce in the mid 80s.

On September 11, 2001 he got diagnosed with lung cancer. He didn't tell anyone about it until my mom dragged it out of him in a phone conversation in November. She offered to drive to Chicago that day and help him in any way she could. He refused, and she didn't like that. When my mom wants to help her loved ones, she wants to do it right now! Finally after about a month of her unsubtle persuasion, he relented and said she could come to Chicago and check in on him. I'm sure she was there within 8 hours.

She ended up driving back and forth between Iowa and Chicago every 2-3 weeks, whether Mike wanted her to come or not. She went to appointments with him, cooked and cleaned for him, took him out to eat and to movies. She suffered every time she had to leave him and go back to Iowa.

note from Maureen

I have known Maureen since 3rd grade. She is a teacher at a rich american kids' school in the UAE. Here is a sweet excerpt from an note she just sent me:

Please give Tim a big hug for me as it sure sounds like
he is truly the best...do you remember when you broke up with him???
fool!:). I also want you to know that I read your blog every day...and I
send a positive thought to you and to your mom...at a time when you are
probably sleeping. Of course, a big part and a special part of my childhood
was spending so much time with your family, escaping from Mike, eating
dinner and loving your mom because she loved me. I wish I could do
something to help but please know that across the world..someone is thinking
of all of you every day.
love you
Maureen

See why I named my baby after her?

Journal entry 7/23/2004

Mom is now limiting herself to one trip up the stairs per day, as getting up here is so difficult. She is pushing herself backwards one step at a time, using her arms and legs from a seated position. Two days ago Tim went to Home Depot to prepare to install a door in the living room so that she can move up to the main floor. She wants to stay downstairs, and heard the oncologist promise her that chemo will make her legs stronger. Normally I would be pointing out to her that she was hearing what she wanted to, and not necessarily what was said. I see absolutely no benefit to that right now. Hope is what she needs, and I don't plan be an obstruction.

down time

Today was nice because we stayed home. We don't do that much around here, at least not when the weather is nice and there are fun things to do outside. Yesterday it was not very warm outside, but we spent the day with the homeschool gang on a field trip to a farm in Glencoe, MN. We took a hayrack ride through a corn field and learned about different kinds of corn and gourds. The farmer who drove for us was a great teacher, full of facts about the plants we saw, and a natural ease with kids. Kids got to hop off the truck and pick corn and gourds to take home. Then we drove through the pumpkin patch and watched the truck tires smash dead pumpkins. That was the highlight for Maggie, she found it hilarious. We went back to the animal area and fed cows and goats, then held baby chicks. Frank saw a herd (?) of black baby pigs and chased them. Maggie made friends with a little girl who works at the farm, and they played with pumpkins and picked apples. We picked eggs from the hen house to bring home to eat. It was a little heartbreaking when Frank came up to me carefully cupping an egg in his hands, "Mom, can I bring home this pet?" He had just been holding a baby chick in the same way, cupping her and holding her so tenderly. He really wanted a chick to hatch out of one of our eggs! When we were leaving Frank said he wanted to bring his dad back here so that he could pick up all the baby animals too. We will definitely be doing that! Today we cooked the eggs for breakfast, and also made applesauce with Maggie's apples.

www.fallharvestorchard.com

My mom was a little under the weather today. She thinks she is getting a cold, and she has a rattley cough. I'm praying she doesn't get sick, because pneumonia came on so quickly last time and that was mid summer. Good news yesterday was that her back scan did not show cancer in bone. "Just" a jammed disk in her back, which is causing the back pain.

picture

I'm experimenting with posting pictures. I don't get it yet.

I love the above pic because Tim is obliviously looking out the window while the kids take pictures? It appears that Maggie shot this one.

It also shocks me that, although this was only taken 2 months ago, Frank's face looks like a baby's! They are literally growing before our very eyes.

# 11

Oh, and she gave birth to ME!

10 things to love about Carol

1. She is a good cook. Whenever she is well enough to be up and around the kitchen, the down home Iowa cooking is here to nourish anyone who visits. Macaroni and cheese from scratch; pot roast with carrots and potatoes; roast chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and dressing. Most of her cooking has happened in the last month as she has regained so much vitality post pneumonia. Lucky for our tummies!
2. She is chatty and plain spoken. If you spend any time with my mom, you don't have to wonder what is on her mind because you are hearing it! And she doesn't mince words. What you get from her is the real unedited deal.
3. She is a live wire! She has quite a dramatic streak, and she expressed this in her work in intense situations. She loved working as an emergency room nurse and as a paramedic. She knows how to use an adrenalin jolt and jump into the action.
4. She is full of surprises. She is an NRA member who doesn't own a gun. She volunteered for Nader in 2000, then voted for Bush because she didn't want to "throw her vote away". She watches Fox news whenever she gets a chance, but her favorite nightly ritual is to enjoy some "George Bush is a jackass" humor on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
5. She is a hard worker and proud of it. She worked as a hospital nurse in intensive care when I was small, and later she created a pioneering training course for paramedics in eastern Iowa. She and my dad were volunteer EMTs in the small town where we lived, so their free time was spent working and caring for people in medical emergencies. She has also done nursing in a state prison, a city jail, and several hospitals for veterans. Even though she is glad to be retired, I can tell she misses her work.
6. She is a healer. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of her care, knows that her hands are instruments of healing. The source of this gift is her deep compassion for those who are vulnerable and those who hurt. She has a special place in her heart for the very young and the very old. People in these groups who have crossed her path were very lucky indeed.
7. She has a huge, generous heart. She admired her grandfather Williamson because "he would give you the shirt off his back". My mom is the same way.
8. She is a good daughter. Before she came to stay with us, she was living with my grandma in southern Iowa. She has been there for my grandma and my great aunt as they have aged and needed more attention. She worries more about her mom's health than about her own, and she plans to kick the cancer so she can go home and care for my grandma.
9. She is brave and strong. Since she has been with us I have seen her weather difficulties that I didn't think she would survive. But she has survived, and now she is more than surviving. She is enjoying her life! Her strength comes from her faith, which tells her that she is loved and that she will be taken care of no matter what.
10. She is beautiful, inside and out. She was quite a knock-out when she was younger, and she has grown into her upper years gracefully. She is overflowing with love for her family and friends, and she absorbs love with easy abandon. This, I believe, is what keeps her brown eyes laughing, lovely and bright.

Homeschool Gym and Swim

Tuesday is a big day for Maggie, because she gets to go to her swim and gym class at the Y. She has two little girlfriends in the class, and the 3 of them have a great time learning games and swimming together. The girls all have little brothers the same age too, so Frank and the boys are together playing in the gym while the girls are swimming. This is all good as the kids are socializing and learning sports and running off energy, but the best part of this scenario is that I get to spend time with two other homeschool moms who I really enjoy! One of them, Katy, is in our Thursday playgroup, and you can see her blog here:

http://riversedgeurbanacademy.blogspot.com/

The three of our families are also together twice monthly at a Minnesota Valley Wildlife Refuge homeschool class, where we hike with a naturalist and catch bugs and learn about different bird calls. We've had great weather for these classes so far, and I hope we get another nice day when we meet next week.

So we took it easy this morning, no running around, and did our morning routine of getting dressed, making beds and learning around the dining room table. I am so proud of Maggie's writing, she is learning so well and so quickly. Considering that when I was her age I was still trying to write from right to left, I guess my perspective might be a little skewed! I am coming to realize as she learns the complex skills of writing letters and numbers, that one of my biggest challenges in working with this particular child is teaching her how to deal with frustration when her efforts don't immediately beget perfection. I don't know if it is an oldest child issue, but she is so hard on herself when she makes mistakes. We talk about taking a deep breath, taking a break, laughing about how silly it feels to get so mad about a backwards S, etc.

Frank, whose speaking skills have always been good and who has always loved letters, is spending a lot of time with a letter game I got for him at a thrift store for $2.50. He puts all the letters in a special tray in their proper places, names them all, asks for word that the letters start with and then has them climb up a "chica chica boom boom" tree that I drew for him. He can do this for an hour and be completely happy.

After the Y we came home and had dinner, and then Tim spent the evening with the kids drawing and writing at the table. I ran a couple of errands then came home and put the baby to bed. It was so easy tonight, it was a dream. Then I had the luxurious pleasure of spending an hour plus on the phone with my friend Hilary, who is back from Berlin visiting her parents in New Mexico. Thanks for the great talk, Hil!

busy birthday

Today felt like I was in motion non-stop. My mom and I got up and out of the house by 7:45, as she had an appointment for labwork and I had my first visit with an endocrinologist for low thyroid. I've been taking meds since 98 when I learned I was pregnant and that being hypo increased risk of miscarriage, and I've been on it ever since. Just haven't seen a specialist until now because I haven't felt the need, but now I do. Blah blah blah.

Anyway, I dropped off my mom, went to my appt., waited around alot for M.D. and for labwork, then called to see if my mom was ready but she ended up going to the hospital for a blood transfusion. Her hemoglobin is low after every chemotherapy week, and she has received a tranfusion every time she's had chemo. So, then I had to start figuring out how to make this day work because a transfusion takes 4 hours, my friend John was coming to do childcare so I could go to work at 2, but my mom would need to be picked up...?!?! Luckily I am married to the best husband and son-in-law on the planet, so Tim went to a library near the hospital to work with his computer so he could pick my mom up and I could continue on with my own plan A for going to work. Got a little school done before John arrived and I was off to work. When I got home after 5 it was time to get ready to go to birthday dinner, so we got ready and loaded up the van and went downtown to Buca. It was an amazing feast, with friends Francesca, David and John all present at my mom's request. After dinner David took me to Target to get a picture frame for the family photo I had taken at Maureen's baptism party when my brother Mike and family were here from Virginia. This was my little birthday gift for mom. When I got home it was time to get little people into bed, which is easier said than done after a day filled with birthday excitement and sugar. Luckily Tim did most of the work because he is the best father in the universe. And now I have no business doing anything but sleeping while this house is finally quiet. But, I do plan to follow Francesca's advice and write about the things I love about my mom. She will enjoy it, and it will be fun to work on. And hopefully less rambling than what I just wrote.

10-11-40

When my mom goes to chemo and checks in for her appointments, the receptionist always asks for her birthdate. I guess that is to confirm that someone isn't trying to check in for another person's chemo? Since I've checked in for appointments with her and made clinic calls for her, 10-11-40 now rolls off of my tongue as easily as my own birthdate does.

So, tomorrow is her birthday and I feel like I need to do something extra special for her, because when she first came to Minnesota I honestly didn't think she would make it this far. July was a grim month around here, and I am so, so happy that I was so wrong! I feel like miracles have happened here, and we need to celebrate big. We will go to Buca for dinner, and the kids will make a cake for her. My brother is sending something that he got at Circuit City and that he said I am going to hate him for. I've asked my mom what she wants to do on the special day, and she says she doesn't have anything big in mind. Just dinner out will make her happy. Anybody got ideas for me on this?

journal entry 7/19/2004

Last night I needed to get out of the house so badly that I took the baby and just drove around aimlessly, needing to not have kids climbing on me, sick of the unlimited piles of laundry and housework , and especially needing to not listen to mom threaten to "stroke out" while I stand by helpless to do anything for her. (She advised me yesterday that she could "stroke out at any moment" because of the drugs she is on and because of the brain tumors).

when I got back mom was downstairs in her room, afraid to walk to the bathroom because she believed she would fall like uncle Mike did a few days before he died. I knew she was asking me to sleep in her room that night, and I
felt angry and overwhelmed by her neediness. I wanted to scream, but instead I told her "I need to go think for a while", then went to the garage and kicked the crap out of some cardboard boxes. Afterward I sat, cried, and had the following revelations: a) she is not faking this illness; b) she is truly afraid; and c) time is limited. I sat in the hot garage for awhile, staring at the cracked cement and wishing I smoked so I could have a few cigarettes.

After 15 minutes I went back in to make up the futon bed for baby and I. We didn't end up staying downstairs all night because mom was asleep very quickly, and Maureen kept awakening from mom's snoring. I set up the baby monitor so I could hear her (snoring!) in the basement from upstairs. When I got into my own bed I cried a lot, out of sadness rather than the hot frustration I'd felt earlier. Today my resentment for mom and her cancer have lifted, and I'm starting to focus on how I can spend my time with her more wisely. One day at a time?

journal entry 7/14/2004 #2

3:30 p.m.

Sitting in the parking lot at radiation therapy clinic, waiting for mom. I am cranky and a little depressed today, probably because I went to bed at 2 a.m. after Tim and Mom got back from the ER. I don't know how to judge her wellness right now, and I'm not always sure how to help. Like last night-do I make sure she gets downstairs safely and help her get to bed? She said she'd be fine, so I guess I just will listen to her and ask her what she needs. She had a fever just now, but she took a Darvaset which should bring it down because it contains Tylenol. Now baby is starting to cry in the back seat. The kids are really annoying me today with all their needs. Maggie and Frank are at Eleanor's right now, thank God.

How am I supposed to manage all of this? I don't want to spend my last months with my mom being crabby, angry and overwhelmed. She keeps saying she feels bad for disrupting my daily life with her cancer. I say that this would be a hard time whether she is here or far away. They are just hard in different ways. I believe we need to stick together during this difficult time. I really don't see any better options.

energy shortage

Tonight I am tired. Actually my limbs have felt like lead most of the day today. Part of it is that I have not had a full night sleep for a while, not since baby gave it a try a couple of months ago but decided that screaming at 2:00 a.m. is more her style. What do I hear myself saying about this baby lately? "she never lets up!". Also that she is the most beautiful, precious and funny 5 month old on the planet. But, that night two months ago when I slept all the way through and woke up with this feeling like "wow, that went fast, but I feel great!", It was glorious. Scrumptious. I'm really looking forward to enjoying that luxury again someday. I don't know when, but I know it will happen because it happened with the other two babies!

journal entry 7/14/2004

1:00 a.m.

Waiting for Tim to get back from the ER with my mom. She had a high fever (104 degrees ) tonight that came on quite suddenly. She was fine at dinner time, but at the ER they found that she has a very high white blood count so obviously she has an infection. It could be the liver biopsy site, but it seemed clear and there is no way to know.

Things were just getting too easy today. After a weekend of her feeling tired and weak, it was nice to have a pretty pleasant day today with her seeming quite happy and enjoying the kids. At dinner she was cracking up at Frank's questioning that never ends. He got onto the topic of death; whether he will die, who will die first, what if everyone died. She somehow found this hilarious, which I was thankful for. She really loves Frank and his curiosity. It's good to see her enjoy someone so much.

scans

I woke up this morning to the sound of a toilet seat slamming several times against the bowl. Even startled the baby, who was sleeping next to me. Mental note: do homeschool presentation about how to lift and lower a toilet seat without waking up the whole gd house.

Shortly after that I was visited in my bed by two little dwarves who wanted to play with the baby. After wrestling around for 15 minutes, I said "hey, want to go watch PBS kids?!" "YES!"

Then I got up and dressed, put baby in the jumper in the kitchen and started cutting veggies for cauliflower cheese soup. We are overflowing with vegetables from the CSA, which is good but hard to keep up with! I ate a bowl of grape nuts, chopped veggies, and starting figuring how this day is going to work...

My mom has been getting a lot of scans (MRI and CT) lately, and today is another MRI. Her back has been giving her a lot of pain since she has been here, except for that mysterious time when her pains disappeared all together. Perhaps the brain cancer in the stem was shutting down part of her nervous system that allows her to feel pain? Anyway, since head radiation and laser surgery her body aches and pains are back, and now the question is whether the back pain is a sign that cancer is in the bone. I'm crossing my fingers that it is not.

The head MRI last week seems to have been good, showing that the tumors that were zapped with laser are gone, and all other tumors have shrunk.

So now I need to get everyone ready for travelling to MRI at 11:30 and chemo at 2. I think we will end up at a playground and maybe the Y or the library later. Today will definitely be an unschooling homeschooling kind of day.

journal entry 7/4/2004

Since a blog will be my way of remembering this time with my mom, I'm going to post some of my journal entries from the past couple of months. Here is number one:

7/4/04

Mike spent the week in Ottumwa preparing the way for mom to come up to MN to receive treatments. He drove her up here yesterday, and he is driving back to Des Moines to head home to Virginia today. Mom's first appointment with a radiologist is Tuesday. She should get 8 all over head radiation treatments before she can have laser radiation to the brain. Thursday she sees the regular oncologist and I assume she will start chemo that day to treat the liver cancer. I need to find regular childcare for Maggie and Frank because I expect to be taking mom to appointments, probably every day.

pathways

Tonight I get to go have a Raiki session at a place called Pathways in uptown. It is an amazing resource for people who have life threatening illness and their caregivers, as well as for people living with chronic pain. They offer free bodywork and other healing arts to those of us who win the lottery and get to schedule these appointments. My mom and I won the lottery for the two sessions (July-Aug, and Sept.-October) but we weren't home to get the scheduling call last Tuesday ( I had the date wrong in my head), so now we are on the general waiting list. And I got offered Raiki tonight because someone else had to cancel.

http://www.pathwaysminneapolis.org/

comments

I just enabled the comments section so that anyone can leave a comment as "anonymous". Either that or you can get an user id etc, but if you don't want to then just be "anonymous" and sign your comment. Unless you really want to be anonymous, that is!

Tim's mind

Tim just pointed out that the name of my blog has a sexual connotation. I'm going to ignore him since I know my regular readers will not have gutter brains.

why blog?

I've decided to try blogging, after reading Tim's every day, and watching my friend Francesca take the leap and start her own a few weeks ago. I want to use it as a way to record this time of my life that is so intense and so important. I've tried writing in a journal that I keep next to my bed, but that ain't happening because I tend to be asleep as soon as I cross the threshold of my bedroom at the end of the day. Also, I've noticed that my hand doesn't like to write with a pen these days, it is so much work compared to using a keyboard! Really, it is sad but true that I think I am forgetting how to write long hand because I hardly ever it do.

Another reason to blog is that I have seen Tim reconnect with family and friends in ways that he would not have without his blog, and I hope to be able to do that too with my friends near and far who I don't get to see or talk to as much as I would like. Here are a few that I will name in hopes that I can lure them into my blog web:

Hilary, in Berlin, who I last saw walking away from my house last spring, 2 days before I gave birth to Maureen 5/1/2004. Here is an excerpt from an email I sent her 4/30/2004:

"Hilary,

Let me tell you about my day yesterday.

After I spent part of Wednesday night awake with stuffy sinuses (hormones) and small contractions which made me think that the big event was about to happen only one day post due date, I was a bundle of confused emotions looking to be unleashed. I was disappointed I wasn't in labor, pissed that I have to carry this huge weight around on my pelvis for who knows how much longer, and scared about the unknown life/death experience that I am about to enter into. At the heart of it I was hating how I don't get to control this situation, once more the lesson that keeps bashing me in the head to no apparent avail.

Anyway, Tim stayed home from work to hang out with kids so I could rest and hopefully go into labor. So, he took them to a coffee shop and I had this pretty good nap starting at about 11, although the fucking roofers hammering across the street was not helping me, but AGAIN what am I going to do about it? Then around 1 I was lying awake in my bed and I heard someone frantically knocking at the door. Since I'm not well coordinated at rolling my body around after I pass the 190 lb mark, it took me a few minutes to get down to the door. As I opened it I saw two young women, one wearing a cool leather jacket and the other with a bouncy blond pony tail walking away. Since I know that the progressive environmental groups don't start canvassing until early evening, I figured that the Jehovah's Witnesses were just getting cooler and younger than they used to be! I closed the door and went to the kitchen to eat lunch. As I sat at the table eating my pre-labor (HA!) baked potato, I had a strange thought sort of out of the blue: did that little JW in leather kind of walk like Hilary? No, then who would the teenaged blond be? And Hilary would call me if she were going to come to town! It was a nonsense crazy thought. 15 minutes later I went to get the mail, and SHIT I found your note! This is when the unleashing that I so much needed happened: I cried, I yelled, I swore, I went and got in the car and irrationally decided that I would drive around and find you. I went and found Tim at the coffee shop and had a tearful meltdown that made the coffee shop owner start hovering and wanting to help. I then drove around the neighborhood on Chicago looking for Heidi's red subaru, but decided that I should go home in case you tried to stop by again. When I got home I emoted some more, then I realized that once again I DON"T have control of something and I decided to channel my energy into organizing the baby room which was stacked with boxes and assorted crap. This was a good thing, because now that task is complete and I don't have to feel guilty about it anymore...

FYI, I'm still pregnant in case you hadn't guessed that. But today I am more calm and accepting of the fact that the time of this child's birth is not in my hands. And isn't May a great month to have a birthday anyway?" (Hilary's birthday is in May too!)

Carmen, who is way down in Texas and who I get to see for about 55 minutes once a year when she comes to MN to visit family and friends. I need more Carmen in my life, and hopefully this will help get her here!

Angie, who was in Minneapolis in early July and who I didn't get to see because my mom had just arrived here from Iowa and everything was chaos. Sorry I never got to see you, Ang, hopefully things will be calmer next time you are here.

Emily, who lives right here in Mpls. and who was my doula at Maureen's birth, and who called me two weeks ago and I still have not called her back. How does this happen? Also Emily got me onto a Positive Discipline parenting board with her for a while in June (by July I was not doing anything but trying to keep my head above water) and I learned about her secret network of internet friends who she is in contact with every day! I decided that I wanted that kind of network too, but I wanted to invite my friends who I miss and who I love. So, hopefully this blog will be the beginning of something like that.

There are other unnamed beloved friends who will be invited here, and anybody else who finds their way here is welcome. This will not be a guyblog though, and I will be talking about the nuts and bolts of my life as well as my feelings about it all so some of Tim's readers might get bored. Anyway, here goes one big experiment!

definition

sandwich generation n. People who must care for both their children and their parents; people who have finished raising their children and now must take care of their aging parents. Also: sandwiched generation.