On the Brink of...

a great adventure! At least that's what I keep telling myself. You see, I decided it was time to keep a promise I made to myself a very long time ago. I promised that one day I would write a novel. Well, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I made that promise because I'm pretty sure it's impossible to write an entire novel in a day. So I'm fudging a little and instead I'm going to write a novel in a month. A whole novel. In one month.

I'm sure it sounds a bit nutty to some of you. Or a bit amazing to others. I liken it to running a marathon, except not so hard on the knees. It's the stuff we dream of or talk about or joke about, as in "yeah, maybe someday I'll write a novel". Thing is, someday doesn't ever seem to be today. So Chris Baty and the folks at NaNoWriMo (that's National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated) offer up the opportunity to make the thirty days of November into that "someday". And this year I'm joining them.

If I can somehow get technology to cooperate, I hope to have a word-counter statistics graph posted here so you can keep track of my progress. The goal is 50,000 words by November 30th. If you do the math that's 1,667 words per day, or about one and a half hours of solid writing daily.

I'll be living large in the world of my characters during November. Chasing a dream. Hopefully I'll be one of those who makes it across the finish line. If not, I plan to have fun trying.

Playdate Problems

Yesterday Timid Daughter had a wonderful first playdate with her "best friend". They have long hung out on the playground at school and TD has spoken glowingly of this friend. But an attempt last year at an extracurricular playdate failed.

This school year, despite them not being in the same class, their friendship has flourished even more. So we decided to make another attempt at a playdate. TD phoned the friend and set up a playdate for this past Sunday. On Friday at school we bid the friend goodbye with excited words about the upcoming playdate being exchanged.

On Sunday we arrived home from church to a phone message wondering when the friend should come. I returned the call (merely 15 minutes after it had been left) and got an answering machine myself. I left a message about the time we'd planned originally. That time came and went. I phoned and left another message. Still the friend did not come. TD phoned also and left a message. No friend.

Suddenly memories from several years ago of a playdate gone bad for LMH raced through my mind. She had been asking for weeks to have this friend over. So I phoned and made arrangements. The day of the playdate came and the friend did not come. I phoned the house and left a message. Still no friend. Finally, in desperation to save the day for my daughter we called another friend - her best friend - to see if she could play instead. LMH's best friend could not play because the little girl that was supposed to be at our house was instead at hers. I immediately explained to the mom what had happened on our end. And she shared that they had just called the girl that afternoon and she agreed to come over (even though she'd told my daughter that very day that she'd be coming to our house). Needless to say, both that mom and I decided the little girl who had stood my daughter up for a better offer was no longer welcome in our homes for playdates.

Last Sunday my stomach was in knots over the thought that this could be happening again. After dinner the phone finally rang with a call from the girl's sister. They had gone out for the day, could she come another time? Despite the shakey circumstances, I jumped at the chance to salvage things. And salvage I did. The two girls had the best time yesterday and I hope that they continue to be friends and play together outside of school for years to come. Because I don't think I could handle it any other way.

Any Maids Looking for Work?

Combine one five-day weekend, including a trip out of town, with one laptop in need of a tiny repair that the repair folks turn into a much bigger deal. Result? AMusing Mom is all out of internet sorts.

I function very well with routine. Disrupt that routine and I'm honestly lost. I need to have my Monday through Friday "work week" with it's attendant flow of events. I need to have my laptop environment, complete with flexibility to work at the kitchen table while the Uber-Princess plays in the next room. I need my Simpleology to do list and my inbox folders for sorting email. Otherwise my ability to navigate the complex world of cyberspace and even the simple world of my little home just fizzles.

Enough about my virtual absence. Here's a quick story for you to show that my youngest child still deserves the title "Uber-Princess":

Last night, after a round of torturous room cleaning, which precluded having any dessert, she climbed into bed with a bit of grumbling.

Then she turned her round eyes up to me and said, "I wish I had a maid".

"Why?" I asked.

"If I had a maid, then I could just leave my things on the floor and she could put them away".

Who can argue with that? That's my Uber-Princess... And I think I'd like to be the Uber-Queen.

Nobody's Mom is in 4th Grade

I love that the second grade teachers at my children's school bring out the book Nobody's Mother is in Second Grade during the first few weeks of the school year. It really communicates the idea of personal responsibility quite clearly. And it's a handy tool for me to refer back to when my children want to blame me for something they should have remembered.

Like today, when I reminded my fourth grader that it was her job to remember her flute on Tuesdays for band. Even though I brought it to her last week, I explained that doing so was an act of grace. It wouldn't happen again because...nobody's mother is in fourth grade. She nodded and agreed that it was her responsibility. And I smiled to see the flute grasped firmly in one of her hands as we headed off to school.

Then I stopped to chat with another band mom on the playground. Yes, remembering to bring her flute was an issue with her daughter also. We both commented that: isn't it great that we can pull out the whole "nobody's mother..." line, instead of allowing our kids to blame us. Oh yes, we are both very hopeful that our children are being taught well about responsibility and taking care of the things that fall to them. The load on our fourth graders seems to be getting tougher, but we are so proud of them and confident they'll continue to shoulder more and more responsibility. Definitely, things are going well this school year. Yes, they are!

And this musing mom (who isn't in fourth grade) walked blithely back to her home, glad for the strides her young ones are taking. Glad, that is, until she saw the blinking light on the answering machine.

"Mom, I forgot my lunch. Can you bring it over before 11:30?", came the fourth grade voice.

Now I don't know who Nobody is, but since their mom is in second grade, maybe she could take this lunch to school with her to pass along to my daughter... just so long as she doesn't point out the pudding and fruit snacks that seem to somehow have mysteriously disappeared from it.

Sigh... What grade aren't you in?

I have my music

It took me months of saving my allowance and paper route money to get my first Sony Walkman. It was a cutting edge piece of electronics at the time. Not only did it play tapes, but it also had an FM cassette device for listening to the radio. I had that walkman for years, and in typical teenager fashion, used it a lot.

In recent years, however, the concept of personal music had all but disappeared for me. My "current" walkman sat untouched at the bottom of a drawer, the headphones long missing. Keeping an ear out for babies and toddlers made them unworkable. In fact, even my house radio often stayed silent during the day because so often my children's conversational voices were too soft to hear above the music. I found myself turning it off every time I wanted to talk to them. Then in the evenings my husband would dominate the radio dial. Even if I liked what I was hearing, it wasn't very often that it was my music playing.

But I had no idea what I was missing until this week. I now have an iPod. I don't have much music loaded on it yet, but no matter. You see, I have also discovered Pandora. Oh the joys of creating your own "stations" and listening to music that you had forgotten you liked! It was pure bliss to put in my ear buds the other night and snuggle under the covers with the sounds of Gordon Lightfoot serenading me. I like my iPod and I love being able to listen to my music on occasion. Tonight I'll join my husband in listening to Mountain Stage on the house stereo. But maybe tomorrow I'll plug back in and rock out to Outfield or chill to George Winston.


How about you? What are you listening to these days?

Ta Daaa!

Okay, so I kind of feel like I do when I get a really cute new haircut. There's that whole feeling of "will anyone notice" and "will they like it", combined with the "I don't care, because I LOVE it" attitude. And then there's the surreptitious looking in the mirror, trying to steal glances at different angles, marveling that it's really still me under that glorious 'do.

Yes, it's still me, A Musing Mom, just sporting a new look. The new design was a birthday gift from LMH & Timid Daughter, which I asked for partly for fun and partly because it fits my clutter-free/less clutter gift desires (which totally do not apply to clothes because they hardly take up space at all, right Mom?).

Don't you think George & Ashley of Tekeme Studios did an awesome job? If you need a new 'do - I mean blog or website design, check them out.

Me? I'm going back to stealing glances in the mirror at my blog page.

Shadow Play

GPS for Real Moms

I got a great gift for my birthday from A Musing Dad: a GPS. How awesome is that? No more getting turned around and having to backtrack when I'm trying to find a new place. No more trying to read the MapQuest printout while scanning street signs and wishing my perfectly able-bodied nine-year-old could sit in the front seat and help me navigate. But even better: no more wondering where exactly the nearest gas station would be. I do this even in my own stomping grounds.

I love, love, love the long list of "nearby points of interest" that are available at my fingertips: banks, libraries, police stations (very, very important from a safety standpoint), places of worship... Yet already I find that the makers of the Garmin Nuvi have neglected the item of utmost importance to every mom of preschoolers...the restroom!

Could you imagine how much better life would be if, in that moment of panic when your child realizes they've waited too long, you could respond calmly to the desperate plea of "I have to go potty. Nooooowww!"? Imagine your poise as you deftly tap your GPS screen and select under the "nearby places of interest", the words "public restroom", then select the best option and peacefully guide your child (with the help of the pleasant GPS navigator voice) to the absolute closest public restroom.

Yep, the GPS market, which is already on fire, would fairly explode were they to make that simple modification and market it as a mommy map. Add in places for nursing in privacy, or places to hide a toddler having a meltdown...

You think Garmin will be calling me soon to ask me to consult on this new project? 'Cuz I have a few more ideas. Now if only they'd create an option for locating your GPS device. Where did I put that thing, anyway?

To Mom & Dad

on the Fortieth Anniversary of your entry in to parenthood...

(St. Margaret Hospital, September 1968)

I imagine you there at the nursery window, Mom in a wheelchair, Dad standing behind her. You hold hands tight and stare through the glass at the all-too-tiny baby. She sleeps, safely cocooned within the protective walls of the incubator. Her wispy fingers curl in fists and her delicate chest heaves up and down. Her skin is pale, almost translucent, adding to the fragile aura about her, this October baby come in September.

A nurse sees you at the window and goes over to the glass incubator. She carefully reaches in and lifts the little baby girl for you to see. Almost immediately her tiny mouth opens in a cry and you start in surprise again. She's here. Already. Too soon. You think over the past hours, the past days. Mom-to-be, admitted to the hospital for toxemia, dad-to-be continuing to work. And then THAT day, the day the baby arrives. The messages to Dad that his baby is coming don't get passed along. Mom goes through labor, wondering if he is there waiting, and wondering how her baby will be.

At that nursery window your minds race with prayers for this little preemie. Prayers of gratitude for her wholeness, her health... and prayers that she'll stay safe and well. Prayers that soon she will come home with you where you can hold her and kiss her. But for now...

It isn't at all how you expected. That is your baby. You should be cuddling her, cradling her in your arms. That you can't makes her seem that much more fragile and far away. You wonder about her, this tiny little thing. Will she grow and flourish like all the round, pink-cheeked babies in the maternity ward? Will she play dolls and skip rope? Will she...

After a while you leave. You'll return later, many, many times - sometimes being allowed into the nursery, reaching in the incubator and touching her bitty fingers. But not holding her. Not yet.

You see, for that first month in that nursery, in that incubator, Someone Else is holding her. Some One unseen. He holds her with gentle hands and whispers over her of His plans for her. And years down the road when those hands reach out again, she'll know them... recognize them. She'll grab them and hang on.

This once tiny one, now all grown up, too big for cuddles and lap sitting, still rests in Those Hands. She's glad for a Mom & Dad who took such good care of her in her youth. And she's glad for the hands of a Heavenly Father who held her in an incubator forty years ago and didn't let her go.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Since when do elbows figure into morals?

"Push her back! C'mon, get in there!"

The mom in the lawn chair next to me leaned forward, shouting mightily to her daughter on the field. The opposing player had been running hard alongside the girl as she tried to move the ball down the field. Suddenly her arms came up and she gave a swift, almost covert shove. Our player plunged to the ground, while her opponent took off down the field with the ball.

"They need to get more aggressive out there. Our girls aren't being nearly physical enough," the mom growled.

I watched with my stomach in knots as the more experienced team our girls were playing their very first game against continued to dominate, not by fair play, but by foul.

The banter and angry shouts to stoop to their level of play continued from the other parents on our side of the field. Then the referee blew his whistle to call a player on elbowing.

"Finally!" yelled one of the dads.

This was how our first club soccer game went a week and a half ago. And I find myself in the peculiar situation of having to explain to my daughter about playing clean, but also about following the coach's instructions. In talking to the coach, he basically said it came down to morals (following official rules of soccer which don't allow for elbowing) or doing what the ref will let you get away with. I wonder if this coach will sometimes follow the other team's lead in terms of "dirty play". I've told my daughter to not do anything wrong on the field, but to also follow instructions from the coach (and NOT the parents on the sidelines).

Sigh. It was so much easier when it was just at the park district level. I'm also left to wonder, have we done the right thing?

On the Air

Remember the book, Pampering Gifts? It's a Martha Stewart meets Mary Hunt (Cheapskate Monthly) how-to book that brings a ministry slant to decorating and gift giving. You can see the cover and link to it on my sidebar there to the right. Well, this little book has been huffing and puffing it's way along in the world of book selling. Yes, its the Little Book That Could.

A little update on it's journey: the author will be a guest on Prime Time Chicago (90.1 WMBI) this Wednesday at 3pm. She'll be talking about gift giving on a modest budget - something many of us will be thinking about even more this Fall as our economy continues to slide downward. If you're in the Chicago area, tune in on Wednesday. Outside of Chicago you can listen live over the internet at the WMBI website. Pray for a good phone connection while she's being interviewed (she's having issues with this).

Other book news: Proverbs 31 Ministries will be adding Pampering Gifts to the list of books available through their She Plans web site. Tell your church events planner and women's ministry director to check out this site. LeAnn Rice is working hard to help event planners with articles and resources for every aspect of event planning.

Just a little update, for those who want to know.

Same but Different

Yesterday was the first day of Uber-Princess's second year of preschool. I expected it to be the same-old, same-old, even though I told her to expect it to be different. It was different. She was in the same room with one of the same teachers as last year and a few of the same kids. But instead of sixteen kids and two teachers there were only eight kids and one teacher. Smaller, quieter. No long hug goodbye this year, just a little wave. Instead of skipping out to my car without looking back, I shuffled slowly with many little glances over my shoulder. For a couple of hours I was going to miss my little princess.

The trip to Panera felt the same but different too. Different day, different crowd. Ah, but the red-haired retired man in his neat polo, khaki shorts and loafers was there as usual. The cinnamon bagel tasted the same, but cost more. My regular spot was open, but I went to a table next to an outlet for the first time instead. This year I reveled in the bittersweet taste of freedom, but only briefly, before setting to my tasks.

Last year I was a mom new to those hours without children. I felt like I would get lost in the expanse of free time. Now I know all too well the tightness of their boundaries. I am familiar with where they end. Like many moms, that first year I moved more into the space than would fit. This year it's still cramped and crowded, but I can make my way around to what I need. I see that the space has expanded - just a little. And I wonder if it's enough to move in the things outside the door yet. Or must they wait for next year?

A few hours later, I leave my space, my heart a little lighter. I go back to collect my little princess who grabs my hand tight and looks intently into my face as she shows me the baby dolls and dress-up clothes in her classroom. I pick her up and carry her out of the room, enjoying the little hands wrapped around my neck. I savor being with her. And later that evening as her father tells how she ran out to tell him in a breathy voice that "Keeevvvinn" was in her class again, I chuckle. Already the space is becoming more comfortable again - different, but comfortable.

For Better, For Worse

One of my favorite comic strips, For Better or For Worse, signed off this weekend with this beautiful strip.

But that's not what this post is about. This one is a meme, with the subtitle:
5 Ways Blogging Changed My Life

This meme was created by L.L. Barkat at Seedlings in Stone, who was kind enough to tag me.
Here are the rules:

1. Write about 5 specific ways blogging has affected you, either positively or negatively.
2. link back to the person who tagged you
3. link back to this parent post (I'm not so much interested in generating links, but rather in tracking the meme so I can perhaps do a summary post later on that looks at patterns and interesting discoveries.)
4. tag a few friends or five, or none at all
5. post these rules— or just have fun breaking them

So, here goes:
1. I've found a new object that triggers my Catholic guilt. When my blog languishes from lack of posts, I feel guilty of neglect. Dear readers, please know how badly I feel when you must go for days on end without hearing from me. [Ahem]. Now that I've gotten that out of my system...

2. Before I started this blog I was virtually clueless about the world of blogging. I hadn't read any blogs. I don't even remember how I started finding blogs to read. Now I've got several tabs on my Google home page for blogs. And I enjoy reading them all because of what I learn from them - about life, writing, and the people who blog. Some regularly make me laugh (BatteredHam, Beast Mom), some make me cry (...another chapter) and many I am glad to call friends (Llama Momma, Reconciliation Blog).

3. I spent some time obsessing over my blog posts for the first six months or so. Every little thing that would happen to me would have me thinking, "hey, this would make a great blog post!". Now I just think, "hey, I want to remember to put this in my Christmas letter this year - I'd better blog about it".

4. I've found my voice. Or maybe I'm continuing to find it. A certain style seems to prevail over time in my posts, a way of looking at things, phrasing my thoughts. Blogging has been a great exercise for me as a writer in ways that my paper journal could never be.

5. I've heard your voices. I love that blogging is an interactive medium. I write articles, but rarely hear how they were received by the reader. Here I can hear back from readers immediately (hint, hint to all of you lurkers). It's very satisfying. But not only that, it is so good to be able to learn what other people think about the things I'm thinking about (whether they agree or disagree).

Tagged: anyone listed above who cares to share on this topic, along with Wily Hacker (who could use a new post sometime soon), Beth at A Quest For Relevance, and Breaths of the Heart.

Our New Old Routine

is wearing me out! I hadn't realized how truly relaxed our summer schedule had been until the kids went back to school. I know I hadn't been getting as much work done of any sort, so I was kind of looking forward to the return to routine. I could finally have more time free to "get stuff done".

Here we are: week two of school. I'm up at the crack of dawn to have a quiet time and workout and... Well, I get up and have that quiet time and then get everyone fed and off to school. Then it's back home to finish up move the load of laundry to the dryer and get started on cleaning up from breakfast. Then I fold the laundry, move the laundry upstairs and work on some writing make lunch. After lunch it's time to read to the Uber-Princess before her rest time and then in to my office to make some phone calls put away the laundry and pick up toys. By the time all that is done my watch tells me I need to be walking over to school to pick the girls up. So I do that and after a half hour of watching them play on the playground gabbing with other moms, I head the gang home for the after school routine. While LMH and Timid Daughter work on homework I'm busy working on favors for an upcoming baby shower emptying the dishwasher and fixing dinner.

All too soon the day is over. But that's okay, because I can look around my immaculate much lived-in home while I drink a soothing cup of tea plain glass of non-fat water. By then I'm feeling ready to work on a couple dozen masterpiece scrapbook pages fall into bed.

In Stitches

Timid Daughter is the clown in our family. Most days you can find her hamming it up - either singing some made up tune, bustin' a move or just simply being goofy and laughing at herself. She is one funny girl and she keeps us in stitches often.

This past weekend though, she was the one who ended up in stitches - literally. In the course of nine years of parenting I have never been to the emergency room with any of my children. We've had a couple of x-rays and the normal number of scrapes, boo-boos and illnesses. But no broken bones or other bad injuries. Until Saturday evening.

Timid Daughter scampered across our neighbor's lawn to find us and tripped on their stone steps, gouging out a chunk of her leg. So we went to the emergency room, she and I. And we waited and waited and watched some Olympics and waited. Finally the doctor came to repair her leg. She got three stitches. The worst of it was getting the shot to numb the area. And the second worst of it was having to sit with her leg elevated for a whole day. She was so glad for the next morning to arrive so that she could go back to moving around.

Her comment when I asked the doctor if the white I was seeing deep in the wound was bone?

"Oh Mom, that's just the skin on the inside. It just doesn't get tan like the rest."

Yup, she's still keeping everyone in stitches - except for herself. She's hoping to be done with stitches next week so she can get back to gym and soccer.

Taking Inventory

School resumes here next week. So that means some shopping is in order this week. We've got most of the supplies: pencils by the dozens, reams of paper, stacks of folders. It's the clothes we have left to deal with.

Let me remind you, I don't. like. to. shop. I grew up attending parochial school with its attendant uniforms. Oh the bliss! No early morning clothing crisis there. No long shopping trips. No, new clothes for school to me always meant simply a new pair of shoes.

We'll shop for shoes this week. And of course, that is something this shoe-loving mom can handle. It's all the rest that makes my stomach cramp.

In an effort to, shall we say, streamline the process, I took an inventory of my children's wardrobes today. LMH has seventeen short-sleeved shirts, five of which are brown (and three of which are brown and pink, to be precise). This might sound like an obscene number of shirts. That's because it is! Of course Timid Daughter has her own twenty short-sleeved shirts. They must mate like rabbits in the drawers because I don't remember buying that many.

Other items in LMH's wardrobe?
2 skorts
7 shorts
8 skirts
7 dresses
2 pants
3 warmup pants
1 capris
4 tank tops
5 long-sleeved shirts

And this child comes to me nearly every week to complain that she has nothing to wear!

I share all of this because I am perplexed. My children have plenty of clothes, but nothing to "wear". Their closets are full, but they can't find anything "to match". Do I shop and just add to it? Or do I challenge them to make it work? Am I alone in this wardrobe challenge?

Sitting Next to Bejing

She bowed slightly, then held out her hand.

"I'm Mary", she said. "I'm from Bejing."

She took the seat next to me and we began to talk. I learned that she'd only been here ("in America", as she said) for twenty days, having come with her husband on a job transfer. She came to Toastmasters because it was a familiar place. She showed me a photo of her Bejing Toastmasters group. So similar, yet so different.

Later in the evening she got up and shared briefly about herself and her country. Her words rolled and bumped in a lovely accent. She gestured gracefully as she described some of the traditions in her country. I was mesmerized.

That was last night. Today marks the beginning of the 2008 Olympics in Bejing, China. For the next few weeks, our eyes, our attention will be on Bejing. We'll be watching not only the athletes and their competitions, but also the people and culture of the host country. I imagine we'll all be mesmerized. For a while it will seem as though Bejing is not over six thousand miles away, but rather, in the seat beside us.

Enjoying the Fruits

My kitchen is echoing with the sound of smacking lips. That and a loud "pop", followed by cheers signal one of my favorite times of year:New Year's Blueberry Harvest. Yeah, no champagne here. It's something even better - homemade blueberry jam.

I was thinking as I munched on a piece of toast lathered in fresh hot jam, while cheering for the popping lids: what an increasingly unique experience. Yet my kids hardly know it. They are growing up thinking that homemade jam, salsa and applesauce are "normal".

Here's the thing: canning and making jams, is a dying art. In years past it was a necessity for winter survival. But with commercial canning, it's now become a delicacy. Moms aren't passing the skills on to their kids. In fact, many of my contemporaries don't know how to can and preserve. We're already on to the second generation of losing this homemaker's skill.

I'm doing my part to pass along the skills to my children. Hopefully they will continue it. They certainly have a culinary appreciation for homemade jam and applesauce. And they're developing the know-how.

Enough rambling. If you're a canning neophyte and want to learn how - give me a ring. I'll be more than happy to teach you. And just so you know - it took us all of an hour to put up 5 jars of jam. It was a matter of crushing blueberries and boiling them with pectin, adding some sugar and then spooning into clean, hot jars. Then we put on the two-piece lids, inverted them for five minutes and enjoyed the scrapings from the pan while we waited. Now I'm listening to lids pop and anticipating a few months of yummy blueberry jam.

Anyone else out there do some sort of home preserving and care to share? I'm thinking I'm not as alone in this as I feel.

Vacation Restoration

We enjoyed our week away. Here are a few highlights:
*daily trips to the beach
*lots of bike riding
*campfires, campfires, campfires
*spiders and snakes and bats (oh, my!)

The highlight for my children were all the hands-on nature programs run by the state park naturalists. They got to handle worms (two kinds), hold snakes, explore a creek for such finds as crayfish and waterbugs and snails, see hundreds of black widow spiders and a tarantula too. These are not girlie-girls. Or maybe they are, but they're not the squeamish kind. Thank goodness for them.

The highlight for me were the times of quiet and stillness I found: standing in the woods listening to the birds and the rustling leaves(while waiting for the Uber-princess to catch up on her little bike), standing in Lake Michigan watching the waves sweep in over and over, sitting beside a warm fire as the sun began to rise, sitting on a sand dune watching the sun set.

The commonality in all that for both the girls and I? Nature. We got good and close to it, in our own ways, closer than we can get in our suburban environment. It was good for my soul and good for their minds.

Returning Home

I am back from a week away from home. It was a good break and the R & R did us all a lot of good, but of course home is better. Home is always better.

I think of that this morning after learning of a church friend's departure for "home". Her time away from home - here on earth - was relatively short. But I'm guessing today she is experiencing that great relief and joy of being where she truly belongs.

I brought Leslie and her journey through cancer to you some months ago, asking you to pray. Now that her journey is over, the journey for her husband and 3-year-old son has just become tougher and perhaps lonelier. Please pray for Tyson and TJ.