Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2002. Mattie was two months old. Though Mattie looks like a peaceful lump here, don't be deceived. At best Mattie would take QUICK cat naps but he was never asleep for long during the day or NIGHT for that matter. Teaching Mattie to sleep was something I will never forget. I was under some delusion before having Mattie that children NATURALLY know how to fall and stay sleep. I imagine most do! But Mattie wasn't one of them! After Mattie was born, we naturally had regular pediatrician visits. I would tell the doctor at each visit that I was exhausted and that Mattie wouldn't sleep! Frankly I don't think they believed me. Most of the female doctors in the practice I found patronizing as it came to the issue of sleep. Until one day I saw the male physician in the practice and he confronted me. He asked me if I was eventually going to teach Mattie to brush his teeth? I thought that was an hysterical question, of which I responded, "of course!" So he said that it was also my obligation to teach Mattie how to go to sleep and practically demanded that I read Richard Ferber's book, Solve your child's sleep problems. I was opposed to ferberization until I was desperate one day and broke down and read the book. It was either that or Peter and I weren't going to make it. Sleeplessness is a wonderful method of torture! After reading the book, I shared the philosophy with Peter and together we tackled it. Yes I would admit the first night was horrible and it took great restraint, but the method worked like a charm. It corrected all of our sleep problems within days. What truly motivated me to read the book was when the doctor told me that if I didn't correct the problem early on it would only get worse and then become harder to manage.
Quote of the day: No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. ~ Charles Dickens
My fellow cat lover, Cassandra, posted a lovely comment to yesterday's blog posting. Cassandra is a family friend of Peter's but I have never met her. Cassandra periodically writes to us along our journey. Each of her emails, as I have told Peter, is usually very insightful, spot on, and sensitive. Yesterday's was no different! Cassandra acknowledged how difficult tomorrow will be for me, but she also brought to my attention another interesting dilemma. Which is if you are a woman and you go out on Mother's Day, people naturally wish you a Happy Mother's Day! Certainly that is nice, but what if you aren't a mother? Certainly some women choose not to become mothers and yet there are many women who are also unable to have children for various reasons. You would be amazed how three simple words when put together have a way of leaving a terrible sting. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY though innocuous to most is quite painful to a segment of us. This maybe one of the reasons I won't go out to lunch or dinner on Mother's Day. The very first year I went out on Mother's Day after Mattie's death, the restaurant gave me a rose and wished me a wonderful Mother's Day! I naturally accepted the rose but there was a great deal of emotion wrapped up into that whole experience, especially when I saw families all around me.
Today Peter and I did another big Walk preparation push. We delivered six boxes of t-shirts to our registration chair. I am so grateful that Christine takes these boxes from me because my home was beginning to look like a warehouse. Christine is another one of our faithful volunteers who has been overseeing registration for us for four years. No easy task but she does it without even batting an eyelash. Christine's son, Campbell, and Mattie were very close friends in kindergarten and through our sons we spent a lot of time together. Christine and I were reflecting on one of their many playdates just the other day. One day, while Mattie was playing in Christine's backyard, he decided to dig a huge ditch. I mean HUGE. So big that I could have jumped into the hole and gotten lost. Needless to say, filling that ditch back up was no easy feat for Christine, but it is things like this that make Mattie memorable. He was determined and yet creative.
After visiting Christine, we then headed to visit Carolyn, our raffle chair. Another dedicated soul who has been doing this role for four years straight. This is a picture of a car load of raffle baskets that were deposited in Carolyn's living room. As our home is getting cleaned out, I am definitely transforming my friends' houses! 
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