Last Sunday on Mother’s Day, I awoke around noon and was greeted with a fantastic breakfast (that means BACON), fresh coffee, gorgeous pink Gerber daisies (my favorite) and the sweetest little treasures from my children.

Accompanying the gifts from my daughter was a card/drawing she made at school that touched my heart—but also made me scratch my head a bit (see highlighted parts).

It read:

I love my mommy sooooo much! Her name is Janet. She is fun and pretty. We like to go to the mall and buy clothing together. It’s fun! Sometimes she plays board games with me. My mommy is a great cook, too. My favorite meal she makes is tater tot casserole. My mom makes dinner, does laundry and cleans the house. I’m glad she takes good care of me.

Is that not the sweetest thing you’ve ever read? I know. It is.

The only thing I don’t understand why she makes me sound like a housewifey mall rat who favors food from the Michelle Duggar cookbook of white trashy recipes?

Allow me to elaborate…

We never go clothes shopping at the mall. Well, actually, I did recently take the kids with me when I went hunting for a purple shirt to wear for the March for Babies but seriously, before that, I can’t remember the last time I dared to take the kids clothes shopping with me. I’M NO MASOCHIST!

Also? I DID a made tater tot casserole — ONCE — but only because I happened to have all the ingredients and I really REALLY didn’t want to make burgers or meatloaf again. It was okay but nobody seemed all that jazzed about it. Yes, I noted the recipe while watching “18 Kids and Counting”  but hello? Tater Tot casserole? That’s just embarrassing and frankly not the sort of thing I’d want the whole world to know about — not including YOU , of course — because I trust that we will never speak of this again. RIGHT???

It was really very generous of my daughter to say I’m a great cook but just like that business about cleaning and doing laundry? It’s kind of not accurate. I’m a bad cook and I really try NOT to clean or do laundry. Must be wishful thinking on her part… Poor kid.

Don’t get me wrong. I thought T’s card was beyond awesome. She said all those nice things (factual errors aside), which I loved—but you have to admit…it’s comedy gold.

Now that part about being fun and pretty?  TOTALLY TRUE :)

Well,  hello there!

I’ve been engaged in a mad sleep-a-thon. A sleep-off, if you will. And guess what? I WIN. Because I have undoubtedly slept more in the past three days than ANY of you. And that’s why I feel ALIVE! This sleeping business… It really is something to marvel at because when you get enough of it? You feel SO. MUCH. BETTER.

You see, without going into too much detail, I’ve been dealing with an issue that has turned my whole life upside down and this issue, which is not completely resolved as of yet, has stressed me out to the nth degree and apparently, my body and mind revolted and decided I should sleep. And sleep I did. And I feel trés awesome today. HAPPY EVEN!

But? I’m camping with Brownies this weekend and I’m feeling very apprehensive about that. I don’t know why, though. Even last year, when I had both my period AND a raging sinus infection, I still had fun. Well, minus the snoring…

Someone snored like a freight train. I didn’t sleep a wink and my daughter cried because she couldn’t sleep either. So there we are, whispering in the dark about the snoring while she cries and I debate setting my ears on fire. That part wasn’t fun.

Soooo…I went online today and bought some earplugs made especially to block out snoring—a pair for my daughter and a pair for myself. All I can say is they better work because I paid a small fortune to make sure they’re here before we leave on Friday.

And if they don’t…the person with the pillow over their face?  Won’t be waking up the next morning.

On Tuesday April 7th, the world unexpectedly lost a precious little girl named Maddie Spohr, age 17 months. I wrote about Maddie’s passing over on IzzyMom a couple days ago and my heart continues to ache for Maddie’s parents, Heather and Mike Spohr. I can’t even begin to imagine what they are going through right now.

In this dark and sad time, though, the kindness and generosity of people across the internet and around the world (most of whom didn’t know Maddie any more than I did) has been nothing short of awe-inspiring.

People have pulled together to help the Spohr’s web site remain up after being taken down for excessive traffic by the thoroughly uncompassionate Bluehost.

In less than three days, people have given upwards of $25,000 in donations to the March of Dimes, which Maddie’s mom requested in lieu of flowers.

People have come together to form teams to participate in the March of Dimes ‘March for Babies’ on April 25th and raise money in Maddie’s name.

People have put up web pages aggregating all the hundreds of posts about Maddie (scroll way down to see the list).

People have set up a donation site to help with Maddie’s funeral and memorial service costs (donations STILL needed! Details here)

People have spearheaded meal delivery campaigns for the Spohrs so that they don’t need to worry about cooking or grocery shopping.

I’m awed by all the good in the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all you wonderful people out there. You’ve all helped to make sure Maddie Spohr, the beloved little girl with the captivating smile and big blue-green eyes, will NEVER be forgotten.

If you want to help, there are many things you can do:

• Sponsor our Friends of Maddie “March for Babies” team or any of the dozens of other teams from around the country that are walking in Maddie’s name on April 25.

• Donate to help offset the cost of Maddie’s funeral expenses. This would help the Spohrs tremendously.

• Donate $5 towards a gift card for a restaurant in Mike and Heather’s area that delivers because eating is not optional. You gotta eat. Please email me (janet at greenmommedia dot com) OR direct message me on Twitter (@thecaffeinatrix) if you’d like to take part in this. I’ll send a card to them (with your name included) along with a restaurant gift card. I’m hoping to raise a minimum of $75 because everything is expensive in LA.

Also…

A P.O. Box has also been set up in Heather and Mike’s name for cards, gift certificates and the like. The box is located inside a UPS store so packages are accepted as well.

Mike & Heather Spohr
11870 Santa Monica Blvd. #106-514
West Los Angeles, CA 90025

Thank you for your kindness, compassion and generosity :)

Madeline Alice Spohr

You’re at Teaser #4 out of 6. If you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, click on the curtains and follow the purple brick road. OR if you like your surprises to make sense, start at the beginning by going to  Teaser #1.

Either way, all roads lead to awesomeness!

I was going to do the obligatory post-conference recap but really, other than to say I had got loads of lovely sleep, froze my ass off, ate way too much meat, had a lot of fun with my peeps from the “bad” table and beyond, met an awesomelicious new friend, enjoyed all the panels and got some cool stuff, what else is there that would hold your interest for more than two nanoseconds after reading the words “BlissDom09 Conference“? I’m going to take a wild guess and say…not much…because if you were there, you already know it was a good time and if you weren’t, you don’t want to know what you missed and/or don’t care. Am I right?

The REAL unsung hero of Feb 5-8 is my husband. Seriously. Here’s why:

When I got home, my husband had the whole house clean. Like super clean.

And I was a cranky bitch. (in my defense, I started my period the next day)

Anyway, he gets total props because on Friday, he went to lock the door when leaving with the kids and the tumbler and associated screws, springs etc fell right out of the lock and onto the ground. This means he and the kids were locked out. Good times, right?

Before he could fix anything, he had to drop my daughter and son off at a friend’s house to play and then he had to go to Home Depot and get a new lock for the front door.

But before he could get back in the house, he had to break a lock on another door. Then he had to fix the front door lock and then go BACK to Home Depot to get a new (and MUCH BETTER) lock to replace the one he broke while breaking in and then come home and replace that one, too.

Then, same day, he had to pick up the kids, feed them dinner, bundle them up again and take my daughter to a Brownie meeting.

The next day he fixed the dryer which was broken and destined for the curb when I left. I was all ready to begrudgingly throw down for a new one but after some fiddling and general asspainery, he fixed it…for THIRTY BUCKS.

And then he cleaned the house so I wouldn’t have to come home to a disaster.

He dealt with all of that lock business without losing his shit AND fixed my dryer AND cleaned the house AND both kids were in tip top shape…no limbs missing or stitches or anything.

My husband rocks.

Thanks babe, just in case you’re reading this (even though you know you’re not allowed to read my blog :)

I know how you feel, Mr. President. I’m pretty fricken stoked, too.

I really wanted to write something thought-provoking and heartfelt about today but really, it’s all been said already—by every talking head on TV, by every person interviewed and all over the internet. So…I’m just going to keep it short and sweet and say that I’m trés excited and hopeful and extremely proud of our country today.

(UPDATE: If the comments on this site are any indication, women everywhere are crushin’ hard on the Prez. Thanks to Musing for the awesome link!)