One in five children around the world does not have access to the vaccines they need to survive, which means that a child dies every 20 seconds in developing countries of a disease that can be prevented by a vaccine.  

This does not have to happen. There is a very simple solution.

$20 can provide a lifetime of life-saving vaccines for a child in a developing country. The United Nations Foundation with many partners, has a program called Shot@Life focused on global health for children, currently by providing vaccines against four preventable diseases: polio, measles, diarrhea and pneumonia.

In the US, many of us have the option to delay or even deny vaccines, where in other parts of the world, mothers are walking 15 miles, desperate to get their children vaccines so they won’t lose another child to a preventable disease. United Nations Foundation Shot@Life Director Devi Ramachandran Thomas shared with us that in some countries, “They may have very few posessions, but they cling onto their immunization cards as their most precious possession, because it is that important.”

Every child deserves a shot at life. Every child should be able to reach the milestones we look forward to our own children reaching. His first smile. Her first bike ride. His first time reading a book out loud all by himself. Her first cartwheel. Knowing the facts, can we turn a blind eye? We can’t.

I learned about Shot@Life by attending a press event Friday evening, hosted by Monica Sakala of Wired Momma and Anastasia and Gianluigi Dellaccio, owners of the local business Dolci Gelati. They are ambassadors for the program and shared their stories about why they have become involved. And while the event itself was lighthearted and fun, the seriousness of the campaign was not lost on any of us who were there. Children are dying. And we can stop it. But we have to get the word out about how simple this solution is.

Here are a few more facts to know:

• 70% of all unvaccinated children live in just 10 developing countries.
• The Measles Initiative, which vaccinated one billion children in 60 developing countries since 2001, decreased world measles deaths by 78%.
• Polio eradication is within reach — the world is 99% polio-free, but getting that final 1% is critical.

This week is World Immunization Week. Will you join me in advocating about the need to help? Here are some very simple things you can do:

• Educate yourself further about the need and the program at the Shot@Life site.
• Tweet about the program or World Immunization Week using the hashtags #shotatlifedc and #vaccineswork. Feel free to give a shout out to @shotatlife and to me as well @caffandaprayer.
• Don’t know what to say? You can always tweet this post using the short link http://caffeineandaprayer.com/?p=3232 with the hash tags #shotatlifedc and #vaccineswork.
• Keep current on the campaign by following @ShotatLife on Twitter and Liking them on Facebook.
• Sign the pledge on their web site.
• Put your money where your mouth is and donate whatever you can to the cause – remember, $20 can provide a lifetime of vaccines to a child.
• Share, share, share the info any way you can, from old-fashioned word-of-mouth to your personal Facebook pages, to even offering to host your own informational night about Shot@Life.

Very rarely can we actually make a global difference right from our living rooms, but this time, we can.  Let’s do it!

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Disclosure: I attended a press event with other bloggers and members of the media and was provided a PR gift bag. I have not been compensated for this post and everything is from my heart. I believe in this campaign. All statistics cited have been provided by the Shot@Life media kit. All photos are provided by and copyrighted by Shot@Life .

No, I’m not talking about that.

I mean when I looked at him and said, “Hey, two of my friends have arrived at Dulles airport in the past couple of hours and said they saw Discovery on the tarmac. Let’s hop in the car right now and see if we can find a place where we can see it!”

Commence pained look from JavaDad.

Okay, I understand his perspective — he’s tired, he’s almost done eating dinner, it’s raining. He doesn’t like rapid change. It wasn’t previously discussed.

This is my perspective: Ohmygodohmygodohmygod….IcangetMOREpicturesoftheshuttle…..itwouldbesoCOOLto
seeitontheTARMAC!!!  RememberwatchingplanesarrivewhenWEwerekids????
THE KIDS WILL LOVE IT!

See my point?

We were losing daylight fast, there was no time for debate. It was either hop in the car in the next five minutes, or the opportunity was lost. Forever. There would be no do-overs.

I offered him an out — something like, “You can stay here if you want, but I’m taking the kids and we’re going!” With a chirpy voice and a slight frown on my face. Simultaneously being supportive of the fact that he can be a stick-in-the-mud while subtly reminding him that it was this unique brand of craziness that he claims to have fallen in love with way before he had a driver’s license.

Did I mention I was in my pajamas? My bright red pajamas with hearts on them and phrases like “Be Mine” and “KissKissKiss” all across the legs. Not 20 minutes earlier my sinus infection was making me miserable and uncharacteristically ready to snuggle under a blanket and call it a night. Usually I am up until well past midnight, but tonight, I was toast. Thus, the pajamas.

I told the kids to throw on some jackets, grab their shoes and get in the car. I threw on a red fleece and figured that I’d throw caution to the wind and just go in my PJs. After all, we were just going to pull over on the side of the road in the rain — who would ever know I was in my PJs?

We’ve never watched planes at Dulles (IAD) from the road before. We’ve certainly done it from the observation tower at Udvar-Hazy, so I guess we never had a reason to do so from the road. We were surprised not to find a true observation point like most airports have. But we found a narrow shoulder and indeed, saw Discovery, still strapped to the jet.

JavaGirl was unhappy with her vantage point from the backseat on the passenger’s side, so she and JavaDad finally decided to get out of the car and JavaBoy joined them, which prompted me to hop out so I could get a photo of them.

Just then, a minivan pulled behind us and the driver enthusiastically waved at us.

Oh no, surely I am not standing here, on the side of the road in my bright red pajamas and someone who knows me has pulled up?!

Oh yes, not only that, but my friend K. from the Junior League. Now I’ll admit that shamefully, I often show up at school pickup in my “schlumpy mom” look — no makeup, shorts, flip-flops, ponytail or my hair looking a bit flyaway. I shouldn’t, but on those days when the most exciting thing I’m doing is laundry, the grocery store, or writing, I often focus on getting the tasks done in the window between the first and last rings of the school bell more than my appearance, but when it came to my time at the League, I tried to at least pull it together and appear decent most of the time. And I certainly don’t appear in public in my pajamas even on my worst days!

Fortunately, K. had a big laugh over it. In fact, she said some other friends of hers was debating coming but were worried because their kids were in pajamas and moments later, said friends called on the phone to get directions to our vantage point.

They showed up, pulling up in their minivan, parking in front of us. Why not, let’s have a party! Everyone there, you know, with me, in my bright red pajamas… They weren’t even my CUTE pajamas. Or my satin ones. I have special pajamas for when I travel to conventions and have to share a room with female friends and want to appear somewhat presentable. Nooo, couldn’t have been THOSE pajamas.

So K.’s friends were polite but I think were slightly suspicious of this grown woman in red pajamas with hearts. (They are Valentine’s Day pajamas, for goodness’ sakes, they weren’t even the appropriate season! Note to self: Buy some Space Shuttle pajamas.) I tried to redeem myself by sharing our binoculars with them. We swapped space shuttle sighting stories while my children became inexplicably ill-behaved in my SUV. And then when we all decided it was time to pack it all in, K. went to her minivan to find her battery dead.

JavaDad once again shot me a slightly pained look. The Iwasjusttryingtoeatmydinnerwhathavochaveyouwroughtnow look. As we were now wedged between K.’s minivan and her friends’ minivan, we needed to pull out, do a highly illegal but unavoidable three-point turn on the one-way highway exit, and position our SUV so it would face her minivan so we the cables would reach in order to jump K.’s battery. Then, both JavaDad and the husband from the other couple bravely admitted to each other they didn’t remember exactly how to jump a battery and wisely allowed me to look up the instructions in my car’s manual despite the fact that I know this violates the very highest law of The Man Code.

So there I was, in the rain, off Highway 28, reading from page 325 of the Toyota Highlander manual how to jump a battery to two men who were half-listening to me. Gesturing wildly for emphasis in an attempt to get their full attention. In my red pajamas. While my kids acted like wild banshees in the backseat.

Her car started, the men disconnected the jumper cables without blowing up anything or harming anyone, JavaDad once again successfully executed another illegal three-point turn, and we were on our way home.

“That was COOL!” JavaBoy exclaimed.

JavaDad grinned slightly. I think he just may remember why he married me after all.

I pulled my kids out of school to watch today’s flight, and made a last minute decision to rush over to Udvar-Hazy rather than just watch from our front yard. The kids were reluctant to miss school, but once they felt — actually FELT — the air rush over them and saw the underbelly of the jumbo jet that gave it a piggyback ride to Virginia, they understood why I was so insistent. Miraculously I managed to pick the right spot to be directly under it for the first pass of the morning, directly under it, feeling so close that we almost felt like we could reach up and grab on for a ride. In fact, it flustered me so much, I pushed the wrong button on my new camera! I got off a couple of shots, but not the ones I should have!

Thankfully, we had two more chances for an up-close view.

Between flights, I had an opportunity to take some shots of the people who were trying to spot the shuttle.

There were people of all generations in the parking lot, including a grandfatherly gentleman who was also skipping school (“I told my geology professor I was skipping class so I could come here!”) He was clearly as giddy to be there as some of the kids. In fact, I almost think that the excitement factor racheted up in direct correlation with age. Though there were some grumblings along the political front about the future of the space program (one comment I heard, “JFK must be spinning in his grave!”), overall the crowd was united in how thrilled they were in being able to be this close to the action. It was the most well-run event and politely behaved crowd I have ever seen.

I’m not sure my kids fully grasp the meaning of this historic day, but one day they will, and they will thank me for understanding that sometimes, you can learn more out of the classroom than in it. In the meantime, they got to see the beauty of Discovery in the air, not once, but THREE times, hone their powers of observation, (When did the air traffic stop? When did the pacer plane come by? When did the helicopters sweep through, where did they hover? What clues told us when Discovery was coming back by and which path it would take next?) and feel the difference between watching an incredible moment and actually being a part of it.

Incidentally, one of the channels recently ran a series of programs that was co-created by Discovery Channel and NASA called When We Left the Earth: The NASA Missions. I found it so fascinating that I am going to purchase the DVDs and found you can buy them online at Amazon or at Discovery. I think these will help my kids help put today into perspective, and you may find them helpful for yours!

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Associate and have included a link to a product to Amazon.  If you buy a product on Amazon directly after clicking on that link, I may receive a small percentage of the sale. I do not track nor have a way of tracking who purchased what.

• The White House Easter Egg Roll lottery goes live at 10 am.
• Vacation bible school (VBS) registration season starts:
• Pender UMC (Fairfax, VA) is starting earlier than usual this year, registration is now open. Suggested donation is $20 per camper,  July 9-13, 9 am – noon. (Note, their Music Camp registration will be later.)
• Floris UMC (Herndon, VA) has also opened registration, $40 per camper, June 25-29).  They also have other camps such as a preschool camp, drama camp and service camp.

And in case you don’t know it — tomorrow is Dr. Seuss’s birthday… break out your favorites for some breakfast reading tomorrow!

Tonight was the perfect time to put the challenge to the test. The kids had a science fair at school in the afternoon and both had evening activities. Could we pull together a quick, delicious dinner that felt special in under an hour?

You betcha!

Taking our cue from the Bertolli® Frozen Meal Soup Tuscan Style Beef and Vegetable we chose, the kids and I decided on an Italian-themed night. And given our time frame, I opted for every shortcut possible. Right there on the bag it suggested fresh Italian bread. Grabbed that from the bakery section. Added some salad in a bag, already sliced mushrooms and cherry tomatoes into the cart for a quick salad. Then, sudden inspiration hit, and I steered us back to the bakery section and put a tiramisu into the cart.

“Who is that for?” JavaGirl asked.

“For us!” I exclaimed.

“Us? Why? Who is having a party?”

“Just us, we’re having a just-us, family party!’

From that point on, JavaGirl made a point of letting everyone she saw know that we were having a family party that night — who knew that making a special weeknight dinner would make such a difference?  It wasn’t the dessert, we certainly have dessert other nights, it was that we were make an event of things.

Our last stop was the floral department. What’s a special night without some fresh cut flowers?

Magazine ads, HGTV and Pinterest would have you believe that everyone else is eating dinner on beautifully set tables every night, when I would bet that I am not the only mother who long ago turned to easy-to-wipe tablecloths and doesn’t print out custom menus for her family on a nightly basis. We just don’t like to post those photos on the Web.

But it is important to remember to “bring out the good stuff” not just when company comes, but also for family.  Not just for special occasions, but also “just because.” So when we got home, I pulled out the special tablecloth JavaDad’s grandmother embroidered for us a wedding gift, broke out the wedding china and crystal, found some candles, and put the flowers on the table.

Dinner itself was a cinch. The Bertolli Meal Soup can be cooked on either the stovetop or on the microwave and since I was cooking two bags (each bag is meant for two people) I decided to try both methods. Since this particular soup included bowtie pasta, I was curious to see if the pasta would turn mushy in either method and pleased to see it didn’t.

We sliced up the bread, threw the salad together, served up the soup, and unwrapped the tiramisu and placed it on a cake stand. JavaDad poured some wine, lit the candles and dimmed the lights. Voila! A special meal on a Monday night.

In addition to helping us shift our moods and slow down (briefly) between events, though we often take our kids out to restaurants, this gave us the unexpected benefits of making our kids feel special (our daughter particularly kept talking about how pretty everything was) and also an opportunity to remind our kids about table manners (break bread in small, bite-sized pieces, then butter it, eat your soup by pushing the spoon away from you). I am quite thankful to Bertolli for reminding me that a special meal does not necessarily mean one that takes a long time to prepare. It was a simple dinner, perfect for a busy night like this one, and yet with a few very easy touches, it turned into a special one.

Want a quick meal for your family? Find where to get Bertolli Frozen Meal Soups here: http://www.villabertolli.com/where-to-buy.aspx

Share your tips for a special weeknight meal in the comments section!

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Disclosure: I was compensated by Bertolli to participate in the Weeknight Meal Special Challenge. As my loyal readers know, my opinions are always my own and I always tell it like it is, no matter what! My family liked this soup and we’re going to get more to stick in the deep freezer.

Susan is gone.

She fought a valiant fight against what I consider to be a particularly vicious form of cancer — inflammatory breast cancer (“the one without a lump”). So hard, so long, and so well that almost to the end many of us thought she was going to rebound and make it for a while longer. Or as she told me two weeks before the end, that she was just “regrouping.” But there comes a point when you know it is time to say goodbye.  I am eternally grateful to both Susan and her family for allowing me the time to do so while she was alive.

I must pause to say that I’ve been reminded that Susan did not “lose her battle with cancer.” Susan lived longer than expected, and she lived the heck out of every single day. She kicked cancer up and down and back again. It may have ultimately claimed her life, but cancer won nothing.

This is the gorgeous moon that rose over the Metro DC area on the evening of Susan's passing, as captured by our mutual friend Robin (@noteverstill). Her blog is The Not-Ever-Still Life: http://noteverstill.blogspot.com/

Susan is gone. But she is not. She is here. I run into her almost everywhere I go. The evening of the day she passed, her many, many friends were amazed by the glorious moon that rose early and put on a brilliant show. Only to be followed by a gorgeous Snow Moon the night of the visitation. So many of us felt like it was a sign, like she was just smiling her very radiant smile from heaven via the moon, saying, “See, I told you, it’s going to be okay.”

I’ve written more than once about how much Susan inspired me (and continues to do so).  There are so many people who have written so beautifully about Susan that I am not even going to try to sum up her life any better than they have. (See Jean… Amy… Robin… )

I have written and deleted this post several times. Should it be a tribute? A summary of a friendship? An accounting of events? Finally, I’ve decided to simply share a story.

When the Junior League of Northern Virginia was holding a fundraiser to raise money for The Children’s Science Center and put out the call for a Celebrity Scientist, I turned to Susan. Would she be willing to share her story of how museums helped shape her career? Susan, being so Susan, answered that she would be delighted.

Sadly, it turned out to be a day when she was in pain.  The cancer had returned, she just didn’t know it yet. I had begged her not to come if she was in pain, telling her we’d make do, but she came anyway. Because that was Susan. She’d fight through pain to do a favor for a friend and to do something she thought was important.

Dr. Susan Niebur speaking as a "Celebrity Scientist" at the Junior League of Northern Virginia's STEM Awareness Day, an event to raise awareness about the need and raise funds for a Children's Science Center in Northern Virginia. Susan's touching story about how a visit to a museum at the age of three touched the hearts of many people in the audience. (March 6, 2010, photo is my own.)

Without anyone else knowing the pain she was in, she stood behind that podium and shared a story that people still talk about today. Her parents had taken her to a museum in Galveston, TX when she was three years old. After looking at all the astronaut suits, she looked up at her mother and asked, “Mommy, why aren’t there any GIRL astronauts?” To which her mother replied, “I’m not sure.” At the end of the exhibit, you could write a question on a card and drop it into a box, and Susan decided to ask NASA why girls weren’t astronauts, too. And at the tender age of three, she decided that she was going to grow up and work for NASA. And she did.

It was this story I shared with her mother at the visitation, and her mother says she vividly remembered that day. I wanted to share it with her, mother to mother, to let her know just how much that moment in time meant to Susan. Sometimes, as mothers, we forget just how precious those trips to a museum, a library or a zoo can mean. They can literally change a child’s life. Somehow I just wanted to give her mother a piece of her daughter back with that story. A memory of Susan as a little girl. Her father told us, “We taught her how to read at three and then she didn’t need us again!” Oh how, that sounds like Susan. And frankly, like my JavaGirl.

I credit Susan’s story with the success of the fundraiser that night. But I also credit it with planting a seed in my mind that though my son is the one who exhibits the most interest in science, that I need to be sure that I take equal time to foster it in my daughter. It’s not that I didn’t know this was important, it’s just that in the hubbub of parenting, it is so easy to lose sight of things. JavaBoy already wants to be a chemist. JavaGirl currently wants to be a horseback rescue rider. JavaBoy sees everything through science-filtered eyes, whereas I have to work at it just a little more with JavaGirl. She enjoys science, it’s just I have to remember to include her because she doesn’t have a single-minded focus like her brother.

Mere days after Susan’s funeral, we were at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, where I was proud to see the Museum Without Walls partnership between the Junior League and the Children’s Science Center in action on a Super Science Saturday — kids were trying out mobile exhibits with a glee that I know would’ve brought out Susan’s brilliant smile. The Children’s Science Center is still raising money toward a goal of a future permanent building, but now has traveling exhibits it takes to schools and fairs. From there we walked over to the space exhibit, and I took JavaGirl by the hand to show her an astronaut suit in a glass case and explain to her “Miss Susan’s” story.

JavaGirl at the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center just a couple of years older than Susan was when she made that life-changing trip to a museum in Texas. (Photo is my own.)

“You see, when Miss Susan and I were little girls, there weren’t any women astronauts. But now there are. Miss Susan thought it was very important to have more women in science, so not only did she study very hard to be a scientist who worked at NASA, but she worked to make it better for other women to work in science, too. I want you to know that you can be anything you want to be, honey. And that includes being a scientist.”

We walked by an exhibit about exploration on Mars and I said that I knew that Susan was involved with that but that I didn’t know all the details — the kids were pounding me with questions. I was already regretting not having had enough time to ask Susan all the questions I would’ve liked to. When I spoke with Susan about science, it was usually more on the kid level, rather than delving into her career. It had always been my intention to get her together with my kids for a career discussion — she had met them once, but all our kids played while the adults talked — but the timing never worked out. I’m hoping some of Susan’s Women in Planetary Science friends will help me fill in some of the gaps.

At the end of a long day, after she was in her pajamas, JavaGirl came into my room and said, “Mommy, before I go to bed, I would like you to talk to me some more about Miss Susan and science.” I fought back my tears — mixed sadness over losing Susan and joy over a little girl’s interest — and we talked some more.

The next day, while working with JavaBoy on his science fair project for school, I turned to JavaGirl (kindergarten) and said, “Would you like to do a science fair project, too?” She practically leapt out of her chair with excitement. ”Yes! I’m going to be like Miss Susan, except I’m going to be the first girl to do experiments!” (Okay, we still have some history work to do.)

We’ve spent the past several days working on the kids’ science fair projects, and I could swear I’ve heard Susan laughing from heaven a few times, like when I called the chemistry department at George Mason to ask a grad student to explain some unexpected results to JavaBoy, or when JavaGirl came up with zillions of questions of her own. I wore my IBC Research pin to the Discover Engineering Family Day both in the hopes it would open up a conversation with someone, and in a way, to “bring” Susan with me to a day I think she would’ve immensely enjoyed. Seeing so many kids enjoying STEM activities, such as building Lego structures and testing them out in a tsunami wave machine. No matter what the specific discipline, Susan encouraged intellectual curiosity in children (and people) of all ages. I just pictured her standing there, with that broad smile on her face, saying, “COOL!” And wouldn’t  you know it, the “prize” for completing your passport for visiting several booths was a chance to sit and talk to an astronaut.

Susan is gone. But she’s still here. Forever in my heart, my memory, and yes, I believe watching us from above. At times, giggling.

Susan, you are an inspiration always, in so many ways. There are many ways I could have been a better friend to you, but know that I could never have asked for a better friend than you. I miss you.

I have made a donation in her memory to the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Please consider doing the same or making a difference to the charity of your choice. Unless otherwise noted, all photos are my own.

Near and dear to my heart, of course, is the exhibit by The Children’s Science Center, “Engineering in Motion: Physics Playground” which was recently featured at Udvar Hazy.

Additionally, cast members from the show Design Squad will be there demonstrating dance moves and electrical engineering behind a supersized dance pad every hour, on the hour. They will have dozens of hands-on engineering activities, fun design challenges, and lots of giveaways.  Also, the National Society of Professional Engineers will be offering the Design Squad (DS) activity, Pop Fly, where kids will launch a ping-pong ball into the air using a foot-powered lever of their design. At the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ booth (IEEE), kids can explore which materials conduct electricity with DS’s Electric Highway, build circuits that can be easily concealed with DS’s Hidden Alarm, and try out and be inspired by some homemade dance pads, like those created in DS’s Dance Pad Mania activity.  I LOVE Design Squad for the way it inspires kids.

Discover Engineering Family Day at the National Building Museum: MyFoxDC.com

 This event is free from 10 am to 4:30 pm today, Saturday February 18 at the National Building Museum,  401 F Street, Washington DC.  http://www.eweekdcfamilyday.org/

There are many web sites that help parents find local events and family-friendly things to do and I love them all, but newcomer Play Today DC has a very clean sorting interface that allows you to choose the type of activity (i.e. sporting events, performances, educational opportunities and more), the time frame, and location you are looking for. Even better, you can register/purchase tickets right from the the Play Today DC site!  Once you set up an account, your activities are all saved into a calendar on the site and you can export them to several popular online calendars such as Google Calendar so you won’t double-book yourself.  You can share events with your friends via Twitter, +1, and Facebook so they may join you. This site is free, registration on the site just allows you to take advantage of the many features.  Currently they cover Vienna, Oakton, Falls Church, Great Falls, McLean, and Reston. Because the site is so new, I haven’t had enough time to find a way to break it <grin> but so far I like what I see. Being able to view my options, register for paid events, save them to my calendar, share them with friends and get directions all from one place is not only efficient, but helps people like me who are easily distracted by both kids and the computer!  Their FAQs hint at a future Reminders capability, which will make me love it any more.  (Now if only they’d add a laundry and dishwashing feature, we’d be all set, right?)

Want to get a better feel for the kinds of activities they will be letting you know about? Play Today DC is hosting a free Find the Fun Fair at Westwood Country Club in Vienna, VA, February 4, 10 am – 2pm for their official launch, with facepainting, moon bounces, soccer and golf, demos, giveaways and so much more from 50+ local businesses — find all the details here.

Additionally, they are having a sweepstakes on the Play Today DC Facebook page where you can enter to win an iPod Touch (value $199).  If you print the Play Today DC Facebook fan page, write your name, email, address and phone number on the page and bring it to the Find the Fun Fair you may enter to win an iPad (value $499)  at the fair.  See the Facebook page for complete sweepstakes rules, sweepstakes runs through February 3, 2012. (Really, I hesitated to tell you about the sweepstakes because I want that iPad all to myself, but fair is fair.)

Check out the website and let me know what you think — did I steer you in the right direction?

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Disclosure: I will be compensated for this post.  However, as you know, my policy is to “tell it like it is.”  If I don’t like a product, I will not recommend it. iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Corporation.

A happy face mug with a clown wig -- how can you NOT laugh? Photo credit: Microsoft ClipArt Gallery

I saw my friend Susan yesterday (thank you, Andrea, for accompanying me!) I thank Susan and her family for giving me some precious time with her at a time when there are only a few minutes each hour when she is up to sharing time with others. Hugs + Prayers + Love,  ALWAYS. 

Amy from Teach Mama is creating one beautiful @WhyMommy LoveFest  video after another.  Go see them!  Facebook page, Video 1, Video 2, I think more are coming.  Additionally, there are many others struggling with cancer in my prayers, including  Tim L., David B. and those in your lives you  have shared with me privately. One day there will be a cure and the world will rejoice. 

In the meantime, I need a few laughs and who doesn’t, so I’ve decided to link a few things that make me laugh.

20 Things to Share With Your High School and Middle School Student — oh how true.  #18 in particular for me! Who says I don’t give you (or at least link you to) highly valuable content?

Even though this post from Sarah and the Goon Squad is from two years ago, it still makes me laugh when I think about it. Especially because I’ve had so many similar incidents. What is it with women and our refusal to grasp our true new size when we lose weight? I once nearly lost my skirt at a Junior League conference because the waistband was too big an it just slipped right down. Because I’m classy that way. Another Junior League president pointed out my skirt had slid down to my hips so I was showing everyone at breakfast my underwear. I was trying to pass it off as the new gangsta League fashion.

Sometimes when I need a pick-me-up, I wander aimlessly around Pinterest and stumble across a board like this one! (Psst… note the new bright red “Follow me on Pinterest” button to the right there. I’m finding yet another way to be unfocused and to waste time, come join me! Umm, I meant, “I found yet another extremely valuable social media tool that allows us all to be connected and be thought leaders – sign up or you’ll be left behind forever.”) This is a great opportunity for me to give a shout-out to Dumb Mom and her Pinterest Challenge, it’s more fun than housework, paying bills, or any of those other productive things we are supposed to be doing with our time…

The Big Bang Theory always makes me laugh, so discovering that people have put together compilations of their favorite moments is like a fast-food version of one of my favorite shows. I really like from about 2:40 on in this particular clip. Plus it makes me feel really good about the fact that I CAN touch my toes!  <snark>

I hope you laughed, I know I did. Plus it made me forget I started the day by stepping in cat vomit. Now feel free to share some of your favorite things that made you laugh in comments, I always love hearing from you!

Teach Mama, Susan Niebur, myself, and Parentopia Devra at a MomzShare event that raised money for the American Cancer Society. I don't know who took this photo with my camera in order to give them credit.

I really wanted to call this “Cancer Sucks” — a button I’ve seen before, but I’m trying to remember that I expect my children to use better adjectives when they want to resort to colorful language. Forgive me if the parent — and mature adult in me — lapses from time to time during this post.

Cancer really is a thief who robs us — all of us — not only of friends and cherished family members but robs society of so many valuable people. I’m not going to make this a post about statistics. There are so many posts about statistics. I’m just going to say the numbers are way too high and it affects the very, very young, the kinda young, the middle-aged, the lived-some-but-not-enough, and yes, even those who have “lived a good live and are ready to go.” But it’s a terrible way to go. For anyone.

There are so many people I know who have been afflicted that I can’t even keep track of them all. A childhood friend of mine died from it so fast that she was dead before I knew she had cancer. Another friend posted a status on Facebook that she was cancer-free for a year and I didn’t know she had it. I have friends who have been in remission and have it yet again. And sadly, a friend who has chronicled and amazing journey of surviving cancer four times but is currently receiving hospice care as she fights metastatic breast cancer in her spine, neck, ribs, and hips.  If you read my blog or Facebook regularly at all, you know I am talking about my friend, Dr. Susan Niebur, a blogger, mother, and astrophysicist.

I cannot answer for you any questions about “what does this mean” that she is receiving hospice care.  She calls it regrouping. I have done my own share of mental gymnastics around the word hospice and you’ll have to do your own. Susan has done her share of miraculous rallying in the past. What I will say is that many of us are putting together photos into a video for Susan — for encouragement, laughter, and love and we invite anyone who has any way felt touched by Susan and her story (stories?) to contribute. Amy of TeachMama has already written it up and is putting it together so I will simply link to her post.  Just know that it doesn’t have to be fancy — a photo, with your caption added or emailed in or you holding a piece of paper in your photo is all you need.  The photo doesn’t even have to be of a person/face.  It can be a drawing, a piece of artwork.

With so many people coping with cancer, why does Susan garner so much love and attention?

Because she’s so inspirational in so many ways.

As a friend, Susan is “geographically undesirable.” I don’t get to see her very often, in fact, mostly at blogging conferences. And I’ve been a really terrible friend in terms of phone calls and emails because my own personal life has been a bit chaotic in recent months. And yet, Susan is ever-present in my life and always finding a way to touch and inspire me in some way — sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. I’m not the only one who says that — she has that effect on nearly everyone she meets. But what is more amazing is that she is so multi-faceted that she impacts you in more than one facet of your life.

As a Writer/Speaker/Media Superstar

Susan blogs as WhyMommy at her own blog, Toddler Planet.  Then she’s a regular contributor to the Women in Planetary Science blog where in 2010-2011 she conducted 40 of the planned 51 interviews of women in planetary science WHILE fighting cancer. And is one of the 20 women of the Mothers with Cancer blog. And spoke at Blogalicious 2011 despite being in the middle of chemo therapy. Throughout her battle with cancer she has continue to write numerous scientific papers, work on a book about her career with NASA, present scientific papers at conferences with lofty sounding names and is an active speaker on the social media circuit. She makes me feel lazy as a writer. She is inspirational without fighting cancer, but that she does it while fighting cancer just ratchets everything up by a factor of a million. (She might correct my math there.)

As a Mother

Yes, all mothers get tired. All mothers run out of ideas. All mothers sometimes just wish the kids would stop asking questions. But the way she cherishes her children recharges my maternal batteries and makes me go hug my kids, sometimes even when they are asleep, and makes me think that if Susan can be that good of a mother “even if…” (it’s been a bad day at chemo therapy for… the future seems uncertain, she’s in pain that day…) then certainly I can be a good mother no matter what challenges I face. And sometimes she also inspires me to work in a little more science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) into our day.

As an Advocate

I’ve always believed in volunteering.  But Susan has taught me so much about how to choose wisely with how you support an important cause. About “pinkwashing” and that you have to go far beyond “awareness” to actual action. That it is not just enough to TALK about breast cancer but to actually DO something, like she did when she brought partners together to make lymphedema sleeves available to those who could not afford them. And how Facebook memes can sometimes hurt the very people they were meant to help.

As a Christian

Despite “prayer” being in the name of my blog, I don’t discuss my faith much here, but I have a lot of it and yes, I am a Christian. Susan has shared thoughts about faith from time to time and one blog post in particular really struck me and I think about it often — about the life being unfair and yet God keeping his promises. One phrase people use to describe Susan repeatedly is “full of grace” and I think if you read this post, you’ll see why.

As a Friend

No matter what she is going through, Susan remembers to congratulate others on their achievements, reach out to those going through rough times, and share a hearty laugh.  Is she perfect, oh goodness, no — none of us are. Sure, I’ve seen the pain make her cross. (And she’ll probably wince if she ever sees that line – she doesn’t like to be cross.) But she’s awfully close to being perfect. She makes the rest of us strive to be better in so many ways. She forgives me when I go weeks without contact and welcomes my intrusions into her busy life when with all my loud Ariesness I come charging in with my overwhelming boisterous love trying not to crush her fragile body with a hug and my loud laughs. She encourages my clumsy attempts at science with my children. And she is responsive to her many, many, many readers everywhere she writes despite her need to conserve her energy.

Susan is one of the many, many people cancer is robbing this world of. I beg you, in her honor, please go sign up for Avon’s Army of Women today, or find another active way to participate in research or contribute to the funding of research for a cure to cancer. Susan’s cancer is inflammatory breast cancer — a kind that “kills without a lump” but if you choose to advocate about a different kind, that’s fine, too. It all needs to GO.