Let's Help Moms on Mother's Day!

Three years ago, when I thought about Mother's Day, I just wanted to sigh… So Kate and Guru and I decided to look at it from a whole new perspective. We saw it as an opportunity to help moms in need. While we were figuring out what exactly to do, some awesome readers told us about how they were instead putting together Mother's Day gift bags for women living in a domestic violence shelter in their town. 

We were like: THAT IDEA IS GENIUS. Then we asked them very politely if we could steal it. Of course they said yes. 

So we threw together a Mother's Day party in a week and put together over 100 gift bags for moms in domestic violence and family shelters in Fairfax, Virginia (where we live). Then we did  it again last year. And other readers from all over the US and Canada did it, too. AND IT WAS ALL INCREDIBALLS and it made me ugly cry with how beautiful people can be. 

And Mother's Day was born again for me.

Top Ten Things I'm Ashamed to Admit

I'm sorry for not writing anything for a while. The deal is that my husband has been out of town, I've been taking allergy medication (which puts me back in The Blur and makes me super loopy) and I've been to the pediatrician like 6 times in 4 weeks because of a slew of random stuff. I was going to write a post about being on allergy medication and having sick kids but then 30 minutes later I realized I was staring at a squirrel in my yard and had only typed one word. That word was "salsa" (because I love it and I was hungry).

Then it occurred to me that I'd written about being on allergy meds before (in October 2010). So here it is:
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Everyone in my house has been sick lately, including me. It makes everything impossible. Taking care of everybody and keeping all the trains running on time is hard enough without factoring in that no one is sleeping and everyone is on some kind of medication that only effectively breaks up mucous by turning you into a slack-jawed imbecile who is distracted by shiny things and unable to operate large machinery.

These are ten things I reluctantly admit doing while under the influence of anti-histamines.

10. I watched an entire episode of the Full House. And I sort of liked it.

9. I let my toddler deconstruct an unopened box of tampons so that I could have fifteen minutes of peace and quiet. It may have been the happiest she has ever been.