You can now find me at http://munchmom.blogspot.com/. My updates will also be posted here, due to the cool new feed feature on Yahoo! 360. Thanks, Yahoo!

Death has been on my mind a lot lately. My parents have had two friends die in the past month. Another is caring for a terminally ill friend. My dear friend learned last thursday that her father is dying of liver cancer. Strangely, having the Munch makes me think about death as well. I see how time is so endless for him, so finite for me. In many ways, he is my replacement. I think about the passage of time - how the first 5, 10, 15 years of his life will always be an eternity for him, as the first 5, 10, 15 years of my life were an eternity for me. And yet for me, the next years will rush by, just as this year is rushing by. It becomes more and more difficult to ignore that this acceleration leads to only one definite, unavoidable destination. Tom turns 40 next year. That is just so hard to understand.

And then I watch the season finale of Six Feet Under. It was wonderful - touching, moving, happy, and melancholy. It was morbid, as always. There was something both disconcerting and comforting in watching each of the characters meet their end. I think David's death was the loveliest. He's at a wedding (I lost track of who's). He looks out into the sunny, late afternoon sunshine bathed field and sees his partner Keith, who has been dead for years, tossing the football around with their adopted sons. Keith smiles and him and David  dies, falling over in his chair. Wouldn't that be a beautiful way to go. This is going to sound corny, but the message that I got out of all of these final scenes was that at the end of they day, the only thing you have is the love you give and the love you receive. The rest just falls away.

Again I think that contemplating death would be much more tolerable if I had some sort of religion for support. But I don't. I wish in a way that I could make this topic more tolerable for my son, when he becomes aware of his own mortality. I wonder if I could bring him greater peace by raising him with some sort of religion. But to do so when I myself can't believe is hypocritical, if not impossible. There is always a chance he will find a spiritual path on his own, in his own way. Until then, I will just have to fill our lives with as much love as possible, so that at the end of the day, we can look back and measure our lives by the love we have given and the love we have received.

Amazing, I have been to TWO WHOLE PARTIES in the last four days. Two whole nights to forget that I spend my days wiping up poop and spit up. It was a glorius, if temporary, return to my former self. I replaced yoga pants and sneakers with fish nets and high heels. I drank beer and vodka and listened to loud music.

The two parties, incidentally, were both 40th birthday parties. They were nothing what I remember from my dad's 40th, which definiately did not include a disco bus or an art gallery.

A special congratulations to dear Brian and Guille, who are now gonna go and get hitched!

I'm getting very excited. I think I have a handle on what to pack for the Munch. I'm a little aprehensive about travelling with a babe, but I think it will work out just fine.

3 1/2 weeks in northern Spain, 2 days in Madrid, one week in Paris.

Here's what I am looking forward to:
* Attending my first Spanish wedding & seeing some people I have not seen in a very long time
* Visiting a corner of Spain I have never been to before
* Staying at one of the oldest hotels in the world (http://paradores-spain.com/spain/pscompostela.html)
* Going to a country that welcomes babies in bars
* Delicious food, wine, and cider
* People-watching
* Walking my ass off in Paris, Munch in tow

Nervous about:
* Easing back into my Spanish - I'm going to be a stumbling idiot for the first couple of days.
* Fitting 4 adults, one child seat, 4 suitcases, 2 backpacks, 1 stroller and 1 travel guitar into our european station wagon.
* Munch tolerating some long driving days
* Munch screaming himself to sleep and disturbing other hotel guests
* Comprenez-vous l'anglais?