My oldest and youngest are exactly 3 years, 1 month and 28 days apart.
So right about the time that I was hitting my stride as a new parent of one little boy, I was pregnant with another. Then I had two little toe heads, the youngest just 9 months when I found out that we were pregnant for the third time.

Each time I had gotten accustomed, a new little boy arrived. Simon, the final boy of the family, the icing on the cake, is now one year old. Here's the funny thing, I'm feeling like I want another one. It's just so hard to say goodbye to the baby stage. He's so damn cute. I can nuzzle him and he can't complain or get away yet. But don't worry friends, that decision has already been made. This is our family. My husband has had the "snipitty do da" (vasectomy) done and this shop is closed for that kind of business.

Don't get me wrong, I do not wish to be pregnant ever again, although I am sure that even that will change as time goes by, and I romanticize the process. No thank you, I like having my body back. If it were just a few weeks, from start to finish, well I'd have 10 kids by now, it's just that whole nine months in between.

I try to remind myself that Simon, my sweet little angel will soon be calling me "peebrain" and "poophead" (a few of his big brothers favorites). This helps the urges to subside. Time changes everything I guess, and they are growing like weeds.

I love being a mother and I finally feel like I am excelling at it. Next year Ruben heads off to kindergarten and this will bring many changes, I welcome them. I continue to grow, and I'm learning how to have more fun as a mom, and not worry so much. I mean yes, they can fall out of a shopping cart and get a head injury, we've already crossed that bridge. Lukey ran out in front of a car that couldn't see him coming, thank God I got to him in time, but now that's water under Motherhood bridge.

I can't spend my life awaiting tragedy. Innocent people get killed, crazy things happen, but all in all I have it pretty good. Most days I feel like I'm running a marathon, but at least I know that nothing can break my stride.

I not only belong to, but I am the co-leader of an unnamed mother's group in the Greater Portland area. We have 400 members. As the leader I need to hold my tongue once in a while. But on my blog, I can say whatever the heck I want.

Todays uproar is over our solicitation policy. This has been the bane of many a leaders existence. Basically, when you have the e-mail address of a person you don't know, you must not abuse it. For instance, you do not send along invites to candle parties or the like. We have other venues to put that kind of information. But, we, being human, mess this up on occasion.

Well, just throw that woman up on a cross and stone her to death. You'd think she abused her children, the way members get all hateful toward her. I suppose when you have 400 women on the internet talking about a variety of topics, there is bound to be a few cat fights.

I am of the "keep things in perspective" camp. We are mothers, we have that in common. We are also women. I've never been one of those women that competes with other women. I am very proud of the fact that I have befriended all kinds of women; from my teenage friend who is expecting her first child, to my mom friend who was in her former life an aerospace engineer, ya she was a rocket scientist.

But how we interact with one another, and the mark that this leaves upon our world is indelible, and this my friends is NOT rocket science. We must treat others how we wish to be treated. If you can't do that, then you are out of my group. There are plenty of other groups to join where you can bitch and moan all day long, mine is not one of them.

We have far more important work to do. We make meals for folks staying at the Ronald McDonald house, we are making 250 pies to go into Thanksgiving boxes that will be delivered to families that otherwise would not have a special meal on Thanksgiving. We raised the third most amount of money in the annual Pet and People Walk for the Center for Grieving Children. We donate our time and effort to help many families in need in a variety of ways.

Life is just too short for this sort of thing. Sure we all experience a fellow mother who just gets under our skin, but lets not lose our grace and allow ourselves to fall into cat fighting territory. There are mothers around the globe who would give anything to have enough food to feed their children. I think we could use a little reality check. Let's find common ground and make better use of our time.

In other words, what I wish I could say to them is: SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE AND GET BAKING, we have 250 pies to make by Thanksgiving!

Monday started out a lovely day.
I took the boys down to the Narrow Gauge Railroad and they played happily at the train table while I drank my Au Lait and knit Simon's scarf.
I called my husband just to tell him what a marvelous day we were having.
It was 3:30 when we decided to stop off at Whole Foods (I call it Half Foods because only about half of the foods are WHOLE). I had swiss chard and Simon in my cart. Now let's give you a little background here, so that you will see that this could happen to ANY mother.

A few weeks ago the boys and I were at Target with one of those gargantuan carts that has the build in seats in the front, Simon was sleeping (and can't walk yet) so he was in the cart continuing to dream. The boys were holding on to the sides of the cart with their feet on the under compartment thing-a-ma-bob, while I pushed us happily along. They pretended to be the man on the trash truck, hanging off the sides. If you're clever, you can figure out directly where this is going.

Back to the HALF FOODS story. The boys were running around a bit, not sticking with me, so I issued my warning; "if you don't stay with me and hold on to the side of the cart, then you are going in the cart." In retrospect, I guess this is precisely when my four year old decided to hold on to the cart trash truck man style. I'm was feeling the avocados for ripeness when I heard the crash! I turned around and Ruben was pinned down by the shopping cart, and Simon was wailing. I instinctively grabbed Simon, and pulled him toward me, trying to lift him up, but he is of course he was still strapped in.

That's when I yelled "HELP ME." Suddenly there were several customers around me, one wonderful woman named Diane watched my two big boys while I comforted Simon who was very hurt. He had an instant egg on his forehead and was terrified. Someone offered to call an ambulance, I said yes. Another man went to my car to get the pacifier for Simon. Soon the ambulance people were there.

Here is my moment to interject a story within a story. Have you ever had this happen to you? So there I am fully aware of what has happened, I have Simon in my arms and I'm staring at his pink pulsating egg, and what am I thinking?
I'm thinking that I want to keep shopping, I still want to grab some Meyer's geranium soap and the few things on my list. It must be a defense mechanism, the brains way of grappling and refusing to accept that one moment your family was fine, and the next you are headed for Maine Med.

Maine Med, ohhh the joys. I'm a patient person, but right about the two hour mark I was getting a little pissy. I had not even seen the triage nurse yet. My husband had taken the two big boys and gone to get some food and drive around until I called him with an update. The person that admitted us to the hospital, saw me and said, "You haven't been seen yet?" "Nope," I answered. She told me to go to the triage nurse and ask her if we had been overlooked. Now in the course of the 2.5 hours since the fall, Simon had been acting totally normal. I mean totally. He was crawling, laughing, playing with his dads shoelaces and so on. I was not worried.

I was not worried until the triage nurse. She had asked his name and tried to rouse him, but he had just eaten and was exhausted. Needless to say she did not get a response that she was satisfied with, and she grabbed my bags and said, "follow me." She directs us to a bed where she tells me to sit and hold Simon on my lap. The entire thing took 20 seconds tops, and once I had gotten us onto the bed I looked up, and there were twelve doctors in U shape formation around our bed. That's right about the moment I realized we were in Trama.

The first thing they wanted to do was see my little Simon cry. Well by this time I was worried so I began pinching him to wake him. They were getting a response they liked, he was bawling. To add insult to injury, they had to put an IV in. Well, my little Simon is not little at all, he's 26 pounds of pure love at 11 months. So they couldn't find a vein in any of the usual spots. They tried the arm, for a good solid minute while he lie there screaming. Then the nurse looked for a blue creek in his foot, nothing. She was kind of gazing at his head and she gave me this questioning look, to which I said, "Just do what you have to do." Yup the IV went in Simons bald head, opposite the big egg. He looked so banged up, but my boy was still smiling; well whenever they weren't poking at him.

The evening ended with a CAT SCAN. Of course I knew they would find that he was fine. So, I'm still kicking myself for letting them radiate him, but they assured me that the benefits outweighed the risks.

Six long hours later I was starving. It was 9:00 in the evening, we were all safely in the van headed home. I saw the golden arches on the horizon. Not exactly what I'd had in mind, but then again I didn't want swiss chard either.