I’m glad you are meeting some moms and starting to settle in. It takes so long to start feeling at home. I am really going to try to talk Dale into coming down this summer.

We are really looking forward to having you visit, too. The guest room is all ready for you! Can’t wait and love you, too!

Don’t worry about posting when you feel lousy. If you were to go back and look at my early posts when Dale was in the hospital you would hear whining for real – it’s a good place to vent and if someone doesn’t want to read it all they have to do is click out. It’s your blog now – just don’t forget to put in the good stuff too. I like to go back and read some of the older things. I forget day to day and then I go back and read something from two years ago and what seemed like a mountain at the time has shrunk to a mole hlll. Great for getting perspective :)

Speaking of whining, I miss my Paris friends very much. Glad some are coming to visit next week and that we will be going to Paris the weekend of the 19th! It will be great to see everyone, hope we can catch you too, Dee, if you aren’t too busy.

I often felt at a disadvantage around other moms when my kids were small. Having my first at the age of thirty five didn’t help. It was rare that kids the same age as mine had moms the same age as me so I was like the mom of the moms even though I was struggling with many of the same issues they were.

There is nothing like the pride, worry, love, awe – insert whatever word you want there, that we feel for our own children, but I learned that once they get in school there will always be someone who is better or worse at any given thing. That maternal mama lion thing sits there in us ready to pounce on anyone or anything that threatens our child whether it is an actual physical threat or just a perception about them.

Don’t know if I am saying this right but it comes down to there being as many differences in mothering as there are differences in kids.

I was lucky to have found a friend back then who had similar values to mine, but who complimented me, in that she too was a no nonsense mom, very grounded, and strong in her faith. She could hear in my voice over the phone when I needed a break and would tell me to bring the kids and go away for a few hours. I did the same with her. We also knew each other well enough to know that when the phone all of a sudden banged against the wall, it meant that one of us had let it drop to go rescue a child who had climbed up on the dining table, couch, wherever LOL. I hope you can find someone like that, that will pray for you, understand when you are at your wits end, and laugh or cry with you when you need it. whew – this was a long comment! See why you should post more often? :)