Well, it's been a week. Lots of caregiving for MFM. We are very happy she's home but it's playing hell on my sleep. Hello, baby monitor. How I haven't missed you.

We're putting new things in place to ensure her care remains top-notch. Both VNA and a home-care agency will be coming in; VNA for PT/OT and the occasional shower, and home-care during the hours both the kids are out of the house so I can continue to earn some semblance of income. Home-care starts next week and I'm looking forward to the respite. Might even be able to take my ass out for a run. I've missed my bonding time with my iPod and increased heart rate. Also, those 10pm Cheez-Its are going straight to my lower extremities. Time to do something about that. An elder-law attorney is hammering out a caregiving contract so that'll help with the financial aspects of caregiving. I'm ready for a vacation but that's not in the offing.

Lack of sleep and increased stress aside, I'm really really really glad she's home.

I am hoping that her transition home goes smoothly. I am concerned about her footing as it's snowing right now. We'll probably have a number of home meetings this week with VNA and a private home-care agency. Here's praying it all goes well.

It's 3/14, aka Pi Day (and, interestingly enough, Albert Einstein's birthday). In honor, here's a mnemonic that will help you memorize pi to 167 digits; count the number of letters in each word for the order of digits, and every time a sentence ends, that's a zero.

“How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the tough lectures involving quantum mechanics; but we did estimate some digits by making very bad, not accurate, but so greatly efficient tools! In quaintly valuable ways, a dedicated student — I, Volokh, Alexander — can determine beautiful and curious stuff, O! Smart, gorgeous me! Descartes himself knew wonderful ways that could ascertain it too! Revered, glorious — a wicked dude! Behold an unending number: pi! Thinkers' ceaseless agonizing produces little, if anything! For this constant, it stops not — just as e, I suppose. Vainly, ancient geometers computed it — a task undoable. Legendre, Adrien Marie: 'I say pi rational is not!' Adrien proved this theorem. Therefore, all doubters have made errors. (Everybody that's Greek.) Today, counting is as bad a problem as years ago, maybe centuries even. Moreover, I do consider that variable x, y, z, wouldn't much avail. Is constant like i? No, buffoon!”

Hat Tip: Alexander Volokh and Volokh.com

If Twilight is for young adults, then how come the “L” in the title is stylized to look like a dildo?

(Don't believe me? See for yourself!)

Hi all, been a while, yeah, yeah, I know. Been fighting a cold for more than a week; maybe instead I should say it's been fighting me, because that's what it feels like. Work has been slow but given the things going on w/ MFM, it's probably better that way. I do have a call with a long-term client today and am hoping that will result in some revenue generation.

I feel stuck in a bit of a stasis here… I'm not writing, not really working, just raising kids and doing a shitload of laundry.

Monstro and I had our seventh wedding anniversary yesterday and it was fantastic. They celebrated us at church and we got to cut an anniversary cake during coffee hour — even fed little bits of it to each other. Seeing as none of our New England friends were at our wedding, I brought our framed wedding invitation and some of the wedding photos, which were oohed and aahed over, as well they should've been. We'd said we weren't going to exchange gifts — he got a plane ticket for his birthday that about broke my bank, and his Valentine's gift to me of a lovely pendant was over-and-above expectations — but then Lex and I checked out a little antique fair and I ended up purchasing a “Pinkerton Security Services” badge. Monstro's been teaching one class about strikers/strikebreakers and I knew he'd love it. He did. Best five bucks I've spent in a while. Then we went out for the evening — first to a local brown-paper-wrapper store (where I opted not to accept the incoming call from a marketing client), and then to our favorite restaurant, Bistro Les Gras. If you live in Western Massachusetts and haven't been to this place yet, well, GO. Better yet, go on Tuesday when flights of wine are five bucks. We gorged on charcuterie, cheese, bouef, canard, creme brulee and maple crepes with vanilla-cognac ice cream. The Gruet sparkling wine and live classical guitar were truly icing on the cake. Mmmmmm. LOVE this place.

We got home early and had a great remainder of the evening at home. Our sitter was happy to inform us that while we'd been away, Lex read an entire page of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by himself. So, that's excellent.

MFM had her “home assessment” today and it went well. I'd imagine she'll be back home within a week or so. We'll receive VNA services and I'm also going to put some private-pay care into place, so we don't have to be on top of each other all the time.

In other words, so far, so good. Let's hope March continues to go out like a lamb; it did snow this morning, but it didn't stick, and most of our snow has melted away. Hooray!

Mom has been in her new rehab facility for nearly a week and it's SUCH an improvement over the rehab hospital. The staff is friendly and they've really bent over backward to make us all feel like part of the process. Mom is ready to be shut of all healthcare institutions, so that's hard, but she's where she needs to be right now. We'll be having a meeting in a week and a half to review her progress and see what our discharge goals are. In the meanwhile, I'm as tired as I've ever been and when I drop both boys back to their regularly scheduled, NON-vacation-week schools, I will likely cry me a river of relief. Mommy's tired, people.

I have run an emotional marathon the past five days but it has all worked out OK. I visited Mom today at the new skilled nursing facility — she has her own room (!) with a reclining chair (!) and flat-screen TV that is “too small” so I'll bring her the one from her room @ home tomorrow. The staff I spoke with were lovely and conscientious. The admissions director said that she'd heard other complaints that the hospital where Mom had been was quick to call VNA and discharge people to home when they're not ready to go home. “They're understaffed,” I said. “Yes, but even so, we're talking about people, here,” the director of admissions of the Good Place said.

This has been a HUGE education in the importance of vocal and unceasing advocacy for those who are ill and need care. I'm one of the first of my friends to be going through this process and, you know what? It's only going to get more difficult as the boomers gray and become more frail, and skilled nursing (and medicare/medicaid) demand outstrips availability. [Of course, you don't need a whole lot of education to become a Certified Nursing Assistant. “In an accelerated format, CNA training can be completed in as little as four weeks,” according to eHow.com, which might count for why the old-boy senators are working to crush all jobs and loans for people who want to go to or teach at a college or university…]

Long story short (too late), when a health facility is telling you things that don't add up, call them on it. Don't be cowed because they should know more and make better recommendations than you ever could. Don't be soothed by their soothing social-worker voices. They are playing chicken with you and you need to play chicken right back: Be polite but be firm and know that you have your elder's best interest at heart.

Sure, my mom would rather be home, but she knows she's better off where she is now, for now, and has a hell of a lot better chance of improving and coming home safely, sooner. But I still want you to pray for all of us, because I'm selfish like that. Thanks from the bottom of my expatriated-to-Massachusetts heart.

Sweet Jesus I am so thankful for the support of my family, my church, my friends. And I know pride is a sin but I'm really pretty proud of myself for digging in my heels and fighting the good fight.

I'm going to go burn some energy with my Wii Fit Free Step now (ok, in an hour when Biggest Loser starts).

Thanks to you all.

Mom is, at this moment, being transferred to my #1 skilled-nursing-facility choice. Thanks all for your support/prayers/good thoughts. It just goes to show that you CAN fight the system if you're a squeaky enough wheel.

Mom's “real” case worker is supposed to be back from vacation today, so I left her a voicemail at 7:50 saying that Nancy was going to make some calls but left work w/o updating me yesterday, and so I'd like to find out where we're at in the process of getting her transferred to the skilled nursing facility closer to my house. Please pray. I'm pretty shaky today.

OK, now it's time to take BK to the pediatrician because he's complaining that his “ear hurts.” Just in time — Lex finished a 10-day course of amoxicillin last night. Oh pink stuff, haunting my refrigerator, begone!

Wouldn't you know it, the filling-in-for-Mom's-usual-case-worker case worker managed to leave for the day without calling me. Mom's nurse knows nothing about a transfer for Mom tomorrow. Guess I'll be back on the case tomorrow morning. Thanks to all who have commented/emailed with support. Keep praying if you don't mind, we're not out of the thick of it yet. xoxo