Oh, what about an audible.com subscription, if reading is hard after the strokes? I like the pandora bracelet idea, too. Hoping that you find the perfect gift. With everything she's been through, I want to send her a gift, too! :)

A visit would be the best gift. :) How about a bird feeder with a way to hang it within view of her window? Browse personalcreations.com for something that you put the grandkids' names on? Garden stepping stones, maybe? They had some cute ones. Does she have a girlfriend to do things with? ...Movie tickets, mani/pedi gift certs? Lunch gift card? We are wimping out and sending flowers to all the moms this year. We've got six of them, between moms and stepmoms and birthmoms. And I just don't have the energy to do thoughtful shopping this year - so flowers it is. Thankfully, no one's allergic, or I'd be a crazy mess!

Ouch! Glad you don't need stitches! I have a friend who ran over herself the same way - only she ended up falling and going under a tire. Eek. She had a broken leg, and laughed about it a lot. At least she laughed. :) ETA: the fact that this happened in front of a driving instructor... Classic!

I'm short. I've always been thought younger. Another later to mothering woman here. And agreeing that around here there's nothing unusual about 40ish new moms, but there is something unusual about a 40ish new grandmother in our area. Must be regional.

Welcome to the world, little one!!! Beautiful.

So cuddly!

Beautiful!!!

Our guy drove an '82 Volvo, with 100K miles on it. That thing was a tank. He loved it. We won't have that option for our next teens, we passed it on to a neighbor in need, when DS got a real car, but it was a great car.

How beautiful!

Yes. Yes, I do.

The maids didn't show up yesterday and we have eleven guests today. First time in our house for most of them. Big deal. Fixed that - maids are here now, but cutting it close. Guests arrive in an hour. Woke up this morning, and no hot water. Lowe's is doing same day installation on a new heater, yep, with our out of town guests here.

My favorite adoption book is the Open Adoption Exoerience. Yes. Open. :) We adopted twice, once privately and once foster to adopt. Both are open. A good foster to adopt program director will have good book recommendations, which is where we got this book rec.

I know what you mean, and I'm the same way. You're not weird. :) Or we both are! I have some music we all listen to together, some I only listen to alone. But DH here is the same way.

This.

Ugh. So you were visited, but told you weren't parked illegally? Do you have any interest in a relationship with this neighbor? We had a mean neighbor till yesterday (yes! She moved out yesterday and we are dancing with joy!) ... In 15 years, I tried various coping techniques, and at one point I'd have said, "go over with a plate of cookies, an apology for making her worried about getting her mail, and ask to work together on the solution." I don't know if I'd say that about your neighbor, but it would've worked on our mean neighbor. It didn't make things perfect, but kept them bearable, and she knew she could call us with concerns instead of jumping to the police. Your call though, your neighbor might not be as harmlessly mean as ours was. (Was!!! Woo hoo!)

I'm sorry, Jean. Hang in there and keep doing the best you can. You have good docs on your side, run with that. The other people... Tune them out. They don't know. Thinking of you, and sending virtual florastor! And hugs.

BlueAir. Get one for each floor of the house, not individual bedrooms - they'll still work. Huge difference in asthma and allergies here.

Our neighbors gave us one - it was very sweet, as we were waiting for our new screen. It didn't hold up for us. We cleaned the area before putting it up, but it kept falling down in places. We do get a lot of wind in that area though.

That is amazing!!!!!!

Yep. You need to see an allergist. While you wait for that appt, see your GP right away and get an epipen. Or an auvi-Q. Next time could be worse.

Thinking of your girls. We have family and friends there, too, but not our kids. You must be so worried!

Another Loft vote. They usually have good petites. :)

Whoa. Repelled.

I did ours about a year ago - almost exactly a year. :) No chipping. I haven't reapplied the wax at all. They've been easy to keep clean - I was worried about that, with the light color we chose, but it's been fine. Annie Sloan says the wax needs to cure for a few weeks - so we were gentle for the first few weeks. After that, normal use (and I'm pretty sure the kids were only gentle for the first day or so!). Oh, actually, I have one area that I didn't wax - the inside of a cabinet door, over our kitchen craft area. Where it hits the cabinet box, when closed, has chipped a tiny bit. But I don't often notice it, due to the location. I just missed that inner door when waxing, and don't care enough to pull out the wax and do it! To be fair, that's the cabinet that sees the roughest kid-use (it's where we keep craft supplies). The waxed inner doors never had this issue, so I'm chalking it up to the lack of wax. (Bad pun!)