Sanity comes in the strangest places

Last week, Mr. MOM, DOM (daughter of MOM), and I had to travel to Mr. MOM's hometown for an unfortunate circumstance. Mr. MOM's mom was sick and not expected to last much longer. As Mr. MOM's brother and his family also live in another city, we all gathered in his mom's 2-bedroom, 1-bath apartment - 4 adults, 4 kids under the age of 5. That many children in that small of a space for more than a week was...well, we'll use the word "challenging." It certainly made me reconsider thoughts of child #2. For this career gal, amusing (and refereeing) several children in a strange setting ALL DAY LONG was exhausting and made me realize that DOM's day care is worth every penny we pay (and there sure are a lot of pennies that head over there).

Mr. MOM's brother has three children, the middle one being a very active 3-year-old boy. With a new (11-week-old) baby in the house, and being in the throes of the "terrible 3s" (no, they don't end magically at 2 years, 11 months, 29 days), he was acting out a lot. So was DOM, but that is for another post. One night, he refused to go to sleep, fighting and screaming the whole way. About two hours later, with the holy terror finally giving up and getting some Zs, his mother emerged from the room visibly shaken. Now, this is a mother of three - a social worker who is trained in child development - and she was beaten. She didn't know what to do with him anymore. So, I guided her to my oasis in the center of the storm: the one place that could always assure me that I wasn't alone, that my child's behavior was not an indicator that some day she would be a resident of a maximum security women's penitentiary:
BabyCenter.

After a half hour of browsing, she felt much better.