If you’re like me, you have a hard time coming up with creative ideas for gifts for your partner. My husband is getting increasingly difficult to shop for. The things he wants are out of my price range.

A neat idea showed up in my e-mail this morning. I receive several e-newsletters, and this one happened to be from About.Com. It gave links for stores that have to do with different disabilities that your child may have, or other charities you may want to help. There are shops for FAS and Autism, pediatric cancer and AIDS, and... more

Here is a fun blog to break up some of the serious tone of my previous blogs.

There is a fun website where you can look up National holidays, and find ones that are a little, uhhh, different.

Here is what we have for February.

• American Heart Month • An Affair to Remember Month • Black History Month • Canned Food Month- you’re kidding, right? • Creative Romance Month • Great American Pie Month • National Cherry... more

It's my Mother-in-Law's birthday today, and we are separated by more than a thousand miles. We are in Wisconsin, and they are in West Texas.

It's been a couple of years since we have seen Jan and my FIL. Life has been very hectic for both of us. With Jan having hip surgery and extensive physical therapy in December of 2005, and us with Sammy being in and out of treatment centers and different therapies, it has made it very hard for us to get together. The last time they saw Sammy, he was probably about 5 feet tall. Right now he measures 5'... more

We were at the memorial service for MIL this weekend, and everyone asked if we were going to foster and / or adopt again. People I didn’t even know were asking about our future children. It sure is funny who pops into memorial services – at least this one.

It reminds me a bit of Harold and Maude. People I don’t know showed... more

This is one of those days you want to curl up on the couch and forget you're a parent or much less a person at all.

First of all, I woke up feeling horrible. I caught Hannah's crud from too much cuddle time with her. It was a feeling equal to being hit by a Mac truck. It caused me to cancel my breakfast with Nancy and her family today.

As we were packing up to leave the hotel, I could not find my car keys. We ripped apart the entire room, and every bag. Still no keys. Luckily, my husband had an extra key, but now I get to... more

It is a little after 7:00 AM as I'm writing this, and I've been up for about 2 hours now. I am NOT a morning person. Hannah climbed in our bed about 5:00 AM because she has a nasty cold.

What does this have to do with self-care? I'll be spending most of the day on the couch with a sick kiddo. This is not what was on my agenda for the day. We are trying to sell our house, and we have a showing this afternoon. My day was to be filled with heavy duty cleaning. Now I'll just be doing it during her nap times.

In our house,... more

Now that I’m well into the New Year I’m getting back on track and fulfilling my commitment to watch a two year old one morning per week.

At the end of last year I agreed to two mornings per week, but it didn’t work out in my schedule, so today I start my new routine of watching the neighbors boy only one morning.

I did this last semester as well while Mommy went to a class, and it worked out well. K gets to play with another little person and they get along – mostly.

Since there is a year age difference, they’ll play for about an hour or so, and then... more

A very big Thank you to everyone who has sent well wishes. Grief is a strange emotion. One minute Hubby and I are laughing, having fun, then poof, a minute later a calm comes over us and we’ll be sad. Very sad.

K is still handling it well though. Jan left a comment that perhaps she is internalizing MIL’s passing in some way - or maybe it is affecting her– but I’m not seeing signs of it yet. I'll keep watching for signs that she is. The... more

MIL passed away yesterday, and K was with us and part of the process.

Loss and grief can be difficult for all of us, and especially for those who've had losses early in life.I worried that having such a loss in her life might send her for a tail spin, but she’s been handling it the best out of all of us.

First, less than two weeks ago, when MIL went into the hospital, it was K who was with me in the car following the ambulance.

Together we were ambulance chasing, and not at all worried as MIL was just in back pain and couldn’t sit in my car for her doctors appointment – so I called the ambulance. K was so excited to watch Grandma come out of the ambulance and was... more

My Mother in Law, who was in perfectly OK, (not great, but OK), health last week, went into Hospice yesterday. It’s a long story, but after going in the hospital for a few routine matters, went downhill fast, and now we are keeping vigil. She hasn't eaten in about five days, so it doesn't look good.

K’s two older brothers, (my Hubby’s first children by a previous marriage) are coming up to visit and see their grandmother. We call these children Uncle’s as they are in their thirties, and K is three, and just doesn’t really understand.... more