I just put a lasagna in the oven. It's Sundays like these that remind me that one day life may get back to normal. Exactly what is normal after kids anyway?
Even parents of adult children still wake in the middle of the night worrying about their kids.

I admit it, I have struggled with finding a balance between self and children.
It seems that I have not yet found it. I long to write again, really write, not just blog, but actually put pen to paper in a quiet spot while sipping a cup of coffee.

But there is just not time for that. I have too much to do to justify the luxury.
Well meaning friends say things like, "You have to take time for yourself." Umm, where is that time going to come from? Unless I just decide that on Monday it's suddenly the weekend again, (kind of like daylight savings time, we'll call it Deserved Sanity Time.)

Why does it have to be so unbalanced? It's like if you aren't in nostalgia mode, pining for the days when your little guy was a baby, then you are right in the thick of it, unable to appreciate the stage you are in. I firmly believe that we as mothers need to ask for more help.

This time I didn't even have to ask, my angel stepmother is taking all three of my kids for three nights, while I Christmas shop and hang out with myself in Camden. My husband is going to Miami for the week on business. I was going to go with him, until I decided I'd really rather wait and go to Quebec City.
I could really use some time ALONE. I think I will just let myself wake up when ever I wake up. I get to be ME for a few days, under the mother me, I think she still exists, although we have some catching up to do.

Here is what I heard on "Deal or No Deal" the other night. A mother was describing her daughter as a mother, ultimately saying why she deserved to win the million. She said, "She is a good mother, she sacrifices herself for her kids."

Let's just take a minute and look that little word up shall we? Sacrifice: to suffer loss of, give up, renounce, injure, or destroy especially for an ideal, belief, or end.

Huh, interesting. So if I injure, destroy, and renounce my ideals, then I'm a good mom. That's exactly what she was saying. Yes, I know what she means, and it comes with the territory.

However, THAT IS NOT what makes me a good mother, in fact I feel like a raging bitch when I don't have time to fill my own well. And so I say to that mother and that mentality, "No Deal, I'll be sleeping in, shopping and putting pen to paper."

Today I am thankful for my children's health.
I went to the open house of the non-profit "Safe Passage" on Friday night.
They work within the garbage dump of Guatemala's poorest of the poor. These are people that live alongside a massive landfill and crowd around each day's trash delivery in search of food or scraps of material that they can sell to a recycling center.

I am beyond appalled. What prompted my interest though, was a dream, well better call that a nightmare. My husband and I were trapped in a foreign city, the walls of which were a landfill. The dream was more complex than that, but it made me get to my computer and start researching.

What I found makes me angry, sad, and sick. It is a cold cruel world out there for millions of people. We have so much to be thankful for.

When I was 23 I traveled to Haiti, another developing country. I am not sure why we call them that because they seem to be getting worse, not better.
I have seen the kind of desperation that exists in the third world. It changes you.

I opened the refrigerator and nearly broke down crying the other day. I was thinking about how easy I have it, and yet I still find something to complain about. I am not alone, the world always has something to complain about. If we aren't busy watching Brad and Angelina, or the latest with Ms. Spears, then we are probably busy consuming. That's exactly how we are kept asleep to the misery of the rest of the world.

I could go on and on. I just thank God that I was born into the life that is mine, because I am the same person as any other person, and so much depends on what card you get dealt in this lifetime.

I hope we each do our part. I made 16 pies for the Root Cellar, part of my Mother's group. Together we made 250 pies. Pies. Pies. That's how lucky we are, even our poor can have homemade Pumpkin pies on Thanksgiving.

If I could ship pies to Guatemala you know I would. I'd just keep on baking until everyone was fed.