Quick

1.  Busy, busy, busy.  Preparing to drive over the mountains  this afternoon (five hours or so) to get to Grand Junction for Paul's college graduation Saturday morning,where we'll meet Dan's mom and dad and drop off the three youngest girls to hang out with their grandparents.  Then we'll head back to Denver Saturday afternoon to try and catch my neice's college graduation -- or at least the barbecue afterward, with the little boys and Michelle in tow.  Then we may be trying to hook up with a prospective house buyer back at the farm sometime Saturday.  Then, hopefully, a bit of a rest Sunday until Jon and Dominic roll in from Omaha in the evening.  And, Monday morning, we pack the cars and head up to the mountains for five days of family-get-together-shenanigans!  Woohoo!

 I'm gonna need the rest.

2.  Just signed a contract with a realtor, too, so we have to leave the house spotless before we leave on the trip.  Ugh.

3.  Gabe has learned how to play Heads or Tails -- and he is driving me nuts.  Heads or Tails, Mommy?  Heads, I say.  I'm wrong.  Ten minutes later: Heads or Tails, Mommy?  Tails, I say.  I'm wrong.  It wouldn't be driving me so nuts if I got one right every once in a while...

4. Nicole goes for her first OB (Baby!) appointment today and she and Paul will hopefully get to hear our little grandbaby's heartbeat.  What a wonderul moment that is!  I remember the first time we ever heard a baby's heartbeat -- Paul's 22 years ago.  You think you understand that you're going to have a baby, you have a good academic understanding that a little life is growing within you, and you ponder and worry and project what that means.  You think you get it.  And then you hear that little heart and you really get it.  You know it's real.  He or she is real.  Wow. Heads or tails Nicole will cry?

5.  About motherhood, but a completely different take... I wrote a rant about this, but decided not to post it, as I think the fact of the outrage speaks for itself and you can probably guess what I would say without my saying it.  Here's what:  This past Sunday, Mother's Day Sunday, the Denver Post elected to publish on its front page an article celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of "the pill."  This was the only mention of Mothers' Day other than a story embedded  later in the paper that sympathized with the fate of a mother whose son had been seriously injured in Iraq.  God bless her.  And of course there were sales ads.  Happy Mothers' Day, Denver.

God help us.

6.  But, again on Motherhood... I'm thinking about making a small blog called "Mothers' Helper."  I'll only add to it occasionally, as time and inspiration allow, but its main purpose would be to share little tricks of the trade I've learned over twenty-three years and ten children.  I want desperately not to be preachy, but I've been asked to share what I've learned -- and who knows what might help someone else through a sticky spot I had to navigate by trial and error?  Anyway, if you think this would be useful, let me know, and I'll get on it this summer.

7.  This is what roughing it with twenty people for a week looks like.

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