That's me. An excellent likeness. Jesse says his older brother put those things on me sticking out of my head and that there is a hole for a chipmunk by my feet. And when I cut his hair yeaterday he threw himself on the floor when he saw himself in the mirror crying ,"I'm not awsome and strong anymore." Sure enough same older brother sticking things into my head had told him his hair made him strong. After some assuring him this was not true I went back to folding laundry downstairs and along he comes and annouces, "You are wight Mom. I am still awesome." Ah, self esteeem.

Meanwhile Grandma is not feeling so great. The gluing of the other vertebrae just didn't do anything. Not better, not worse. I think. It is hard to sort it out since the one thing my mom is not good at is tracking her own pain. She lies to me, she lies to herself. She just can't admit it hurts until it is way past hurt or she is just generally lousy feeling. Unfortunately there has been a lot of that lately. I asked one evening how she was and she said (forlornly), "Fine, I'm just hoping I'll be able to find clean underwear tomorrow." I told her hope was a good thing. Much better than actually letting me know she had run out of clean underwear. I was willing to hope too. She doesn't want to be a bother. She also doesn't want to get out of bed much or go without coffee.

The college girl is back but not without a little drama first (think speeding when your driver's license has expired which you put off telling anyone about because who has time to go to the DMV and they didn't send a notice). Still, and even if it weren't for the babysitting, I miss her alot. Jesse took me ona "flashlight" adventure and we explored the basement and saw "Carowin's bed" and he said he would cry he missed her so (he didn't but it is the thought that counts). And Caleb has started classes -so I have started stressing every Tuesday and Thursday over his getting the bus and getting home and all that. His stammer seem especially bad right now (it has always fluctuated) so when he does call I hold my breath until he gets out that he wanted to know if he could buy lunch... or something that is not really a reason to stop breathing at all.

And then there is my other life not doing laundry and fetching drinks and worrying about children big and small. I spent an hour yesterday trying to print out and save a class roster because Blackboard (tm I'm sure) is the most horrendous piece of software ever devised (excepting the Defense Travel System of course). And then I spent 2 hours in the evening covering a chalk board with numbers and arrows only some of which I had to erase or apologise for. If they only knew! I'm just hoping I find clean underwear tomorrow.