And my mom has a "favorite" or "prized" daughter as well. The rest of us are "marginal". Now that we are all grown the favored treatment is not as much - or perhaps it doesn't sting as much as when we were all kids. The favored daughter had to have braces on her teeth because she inherited bad genes for teeth (meaning not her fault). While my other less favored sister had to have braces because she sucked her thumb (meaning she did it on purpose).

My mom could not handle if any of us had the stomach flu - especially if you up-chucked in bed - god forbid you did that. For me it is nerve wracking being around anyone who is sick to their stomachs. I will have to work on my reactions to that with my own kids - I would hate to do to them what was done to me.

I am also going to try and do a better job of taking care of myself by keeping my app't no matter what else is going on. I wouldn't postpone an app't for one of the kids so I shouldn't postpone for myself either.

Good stuff to think about.