My guest blogger today is my co-editor, Cheryl Clemens:

I’ve spent the better part of this week in bed dealing with a debilitating case of vertigo. It started in the middle of the night Monday when I tried to get out of bed to go to the bathroom and landed flat on my face. I’ve dealt with vertigo on and off for eight years, but usually it’s not this severe.

Now, spending the past days in bed has made me aware of a few things that have consistently bothered me in the past. So, in preparation for the next time I am sick, here is Mom’s List of What To Do and What Not To Do While She is in Bed.

Use common sense before you ask me anything. If I am horizontal, chances are the answer to whatever you are going to ask me is going to be “no.” No, I can’t drive you to the mall. No, I can’t braid your hair. No, I don’t remember where the Play-Dough is and no, I can’t look for it right now.

Do not come to me to mediate any arguments. I don’t want to hear any yelling, crying or chasing while I’m stuck in bed. Come to me and everyone ends up in their rooms until further notice.

Please stay on top of the kitchen mess while I’m trapped upstairs. Nothing deflates my hey-I’m-finally-feeling-better mood faster than coming downstairs for the first time in days and seeing a disaster in the kitchen. If I come down and see a mess, one of two things will happen: I’ll get angry and you all will pay the price or I will march right back upstairs, get back in bed and wait. Either way, you’re going to have to clean up your mess so you might as well do it in the first place.

And finally, do not ask me what’s for dinner. In case of emergency, there’s always pasta and tomato sauce in the pantry; soup, salad and sandwiches; or takeout pizza.

OK, readers — did I forget anything? Please feel free to add to my list before I post a final copy on the fridge.

It’s vacation time. We love it. We’ve earned it. But it leaves quite a few holes in our blogging schedules for August.

Would you like to be a guest blogger for one or more of those days? We’re looking for moms, dads, grandparents, babysitters, teachers, pediatricians — anyone with a connection to children and family who has something insightful and/or informative to share with our readers.

If you’re interested, shoot me an e-mail at cclemens@patuxent.com with a sample blog that’s under 400 words, your name and your contact information. If you already have a blog, send me a link to it with your contact information and I’ll take a look.

Please don’t send me advertisements for a business or service disguised as a blog.

I’ll contact those we’d like to hear more from in the next week or two. Until then, get your creative juices flowing and I look forward to hearing from you.

Today is my niece and my godson’s birthday.
My niece will be 11 and my godson will be 10. This day reminds me how important it is to have friends and relatives around you when you have your first child.
My sister has two older children and didn’t plan on having any more when she found out she was pregnant with Mary Claire. At the time, I was struggling to conceive my first child, and the news that she was unexpectedly pregnant was a tough pill to swallow. But five months later, I conceived Maggie, and I can’t tell you the blessing my sister’s third, Mary Claire, has been.
First of all, my sister quit her job to stay home with the new baby and was a constant source of support and companionship to me when Maggie was born. After working full time for years, suddenly being home all day by myself with a newborn was a rough adjustment. I spent many days hanging out at my sister’s house enjoying her friendship and knowledge about babies.
It’s also wonderful for Maggie to have a cousin her age, something I never had. When I needed something special for her to do during last week’s invitational swim meet that she didn’t qualify for — I knew a day with her cousin would be just the thing. I hope the two remain close friends their whole lives.
My godson, on the other hand, came seven months after Maggie was born and is the son of my best friend. We spent many days on the phone while she was pregnant and at work, and I was at home with Maggie. Then when Marty was born, Kathy quit her job to stay home and suddenly I had another friend to while away the days with.
Kathy and I still talk on the phone daily about the struggles of raising kids, and our children have grown up with each other. She’s the one who offered to take all of my kids when Chris and I went on a marriage retreat last winter, and I frequently watch her children when she has errands to do. The bond that started between us when our children were infants has grown stronger over the years, and we hope that our children will always remain close.
So over the past 10 ½ years, there has always been at least two people I could call if I’ve had a horrible night with a sick baby or needed a sympathetic ear after a long day with a terrible toddler. I don’t think I would have made it through my children’s early years without my sister and my friend, going through the same thing at the same time.
Happy Birthday Mary Claire and Marty. I’m so glad you both were born.

My guest blogger today is my co-editor, Cheryl Clemens:

Deer have always been a common site in and around our wooded backyard. But this summer a doe and twin fawns have decided to pay us morning visits, and our whole family races from window to window to follow them as they wander the yard, chase each other and eat leaves (and an occasional hosta).

What has struck me, though, is the very different way each fawn behaves and how much it often mirrors the actions of my own children.

One fawn is a real risk taker. No matter where his mother is on our property, this fawn always pushes the envelop to see how close to the road he can get before Mom notices. You can watch him inch toward the front of the house, periodically glancing back to see if his mother is paying attention. And when Mom finally does twitch her tail and take a step toward him, he runs right back to her. All that’s missing is him saying, “I wasn’t doing anything, really!”

On the other hand, fawn #2 stays right by Mom’s side. He never strays more than a foot or two away and whatever Mom is doing, he is doing. If Mom is pulling leaves off bushes, so is he. If Mom is standing still listening, so is he. When Mom walks to another side of the yard, fawn #2 is glued to her side.

Now, I’m no Jane Goodall, but it isn’t difficult to figure out the dynamic here.

“I guess it’s just human nature,” I found myself thinking, only to realize only half of the equation here is human. So I guess it’s just nature, plain and simple. Whether you are a child or a fawn, you’re still going to test your mother and do what you can to step up to and over your boundaries.

And let’s not forget snaps for the doe. Raising twins has got to be hard — particularly when a stop on your morning food outing is my scraggly yard. It makes parting with the hostas a little easier.

Every year on the third Saturday of July, you can find me in a small, wooded picnic area in southwestern Pennsylvania enjoying my annual family reunion.

There can be anywhere from 50 to 100 of us on any given year, and we kick off the afternoon by sharing a huge pot luck lunch. There are games for the kids, a white elephant auction and lots and lots of talking and catching up.

I’ve watched my children as they grown to appreciate this day together. When they are little, the day is nothing more than an opportunity to run around with other kids, play on the nearby playground and sneak cookies and other treats off the food table.

As they get older, they enjoy trying to figure out how each child is related to the next. You hear lots of comments like, “He’s my cousin, but she’s my second cousin twice removed, I think” and “Your grandma is my mom’s grandpa’s sister.”

Finally, as teens, they begin to grasp the importance of the web that connects us all. Whether we talk every day on the phone or only see each other once a year at the reunion, we are still family and we cherish that connection.

From my 93-year-old grandfather, to the newest member of the family (she’s eight months old and, I believe, my second cousin twice removed), it was a wonderful day.

I hope years from now my own children are among the elders at this annual event, and that they’ll truly understand and appreciate what a family really is.

I was so impressed with my 10-year-old daughter the other day.
Her little brother and sister qualified for an invitational swim meet earlier in the season, and she was just a fraction of a second away in her best stroke, butterfly. Swimming is her sport — it’s what she is passionate about and she’s good too. She looks beautiful in the water, smooth, fluid and comfortable. Lilly and Adam on the other hand, like swimming but play other sports. Neither loves it like Maggie.
Maggie set her sites on qualifying too and became frustrated a few meets ago when she added, instead of shaving, time. She admitted then that she wasn’t sure how she would feel if Lilly and Adam got to go to the meet and she didn’t. So I set up a special day for her in case she didn’t qualify, hoping all the while that she would.
Saturday was her last chance. She swam like a champ and when she got out of the water, she was smiling. I thought she had made the time — 18.49 seconds — but when I made my way to the other end of the pool, I learned that she hadn’t. Her time was 18.65 seconds. She was smiling because she had beat her best time and that made her happy.
“Now I don’t have to choose what to do that day,” she told me.
I was so proud. I was  more impressed with how she handled it than I would have been if she had qualified. She proved that she’s not only and awesome swimmer — she’s an even better sport.

“There’s nothing to do and no one to play with!”
That’s my 8-year-old son’s mantra. He’s been known to say it minutes after we arrived home from a fun-filled day.
His life is so sad. I feel really bad for him.
I often tell him I can think of plenty of things to do. His room looks like a Lego land mine went off — he could clean it. He could read. He could put away the laundry or vacuum.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t like my suggestions so he leaves in a huff, goes into his room and shuts the door.
He’s probably not cleaning in there, but he’s apparently found something to do.