Occasionally when the kids are very helpful, we treat them to a meal out. The other day it was Steak N Shake, a favorite for both Cordy and Mira thanks to the paper hats and 50's cardboard cars they can build. A favorite for me, too, for their amazing Frisco burger.

I know eating out is often not a healthy option - it's an occasional treat. But even when they order macaroni and cheese or a grilled cheese sandwich, they often choose a side dish of a fruit or veggie. Cordy is obsessed with salads, so she'll always choose a salad for her side. And Mira often asks for applesauce.

But this time, the restaurant was very busy and they brought Mira's applesauce out still sealed in it's cup. I happened to look at the label before she ate it and couldn't help but stare at what I saw.

Apples, followed by super-sweet high fructose corn syrup and then even more sugar in the form of corn syrup. What the hell? Has this country forgotten that apples are naturally sweet? They don't need to be laced with added sweeteners to convince kids to eat them.

If you want to fix the problem with nutrition for our kids, start by returning to real food. Meat that you can recognize as meat - without meat byproducts as filler. Fruit without added sugar. Foods without artificial dyes added to brighten them up. Real whole grains. Real cheese without added fillers. Ketchup made from tomatoes, spices and vinegar with almost nothing else. Fruit snacks that are actually made from fruit and not "fruit-flavored" snacks.

I'm a child of the 80's. (Well, born in the 70's but most of what I remember was from the 80's.) I grew up with some of the most artificial food out there. Popsicles that were nothing more than sugar water and a whole lot of artificial coloring. Doritos with bright orange cheese powder that stained everything. Snack cakes filled with enough saturated fat for an adult's daily intake. Sugar-filled drinks that matched the bright neon clothing we wore.

Sure, I survived it all, but I can guarantee you it didn't make me any healthier. If anything, it was a big contributor to my later obesity. I also can't be sure my diet of artificially created food didn't shave years off the end of my life, or plant the seeds for later cancers. I guess we'll have to wait and see the outcome.

We, as a society, know better now. Nutritional science has shown that natural is almost always better than man-made and we're thankfully seeing the pendulum swing towards a return to real foods.

However, the one area that is lagging behind is food geared towards our youngest and most vulnerable population, especially in the markets of restaurant foods and school lunches. Food marketed towards and produced for kids still contains higher amounts of added sugar (especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup), added fat, processed and artificial ingredients, and gallons of artificial food dyes.

Back to my original question: why does applesauce need added sugar? The answer is it doesn't, and food manufacturers should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to pump additional calories and ingredients into foods that don't need it. It's no wonder some kids would refuse to eat an apple - when your taste buds have been taught to seek out unnaturally sweeter, brighter colored foods, a naturally sweet apple probably doesn't have as much appeal.

We're letting our kids down. They deserve better than this. And not just the kids who have parents that can afford the "better" stuff - this needs to change from the top brands all the way down to the bulk products sold to schools and institutions. Walking down the aisles of your grocery store, you shouldn't have to look hard for the "natural, no added sugar" applesauce - that should be the norm.

Change is already happening. Schools are being allowed to opt out of pink slime for their government lunch programs and many parents, now being made aware of the issue, are putting pressure on their local districts to no longer use this processed meat filler. McDonald's recently changed their Happy Meals to reduce the portion of fries and automatically include apple slices. (And yes, fast food nutrition still has a long way to go, but that's a great stride forward.)

Companies aren't going to alter the way they do things without a demand for change, though, and that's where we come in. It's our responsibility not to settle for what is being served to our kids. We need to send the message to food manufacturers that we expect better and if they can't deliver we will take our money to a competitor who will put the health of our children above cheap materials. We need to keep pressuring the government to demand the highest standards for school lunches, which for many poor children are the only chance they have at a complete meal each day.

Our children are a barometer of the health of the nation. What are we seeing? An increase in allergies, obesity, asthma, ADHD, autism, behavioral issues, etc. Of course it's not all because of food, but I'd guarantee that if kids were raised on a healthier, more natural diet that the severity and incidence of these issues would be far less. My best example of this is Cordy - when kept away from artificial food coloring, she has fewer outbursts and meltdowns and is more "present" in her daily tasks. Add the dyes back in, and it's like I have a different child.

Look, I'm not trying to take away ice cream, cookies and candy. My own kids would probably stage a revolt against me if I did. I'm just asking that we consider the quality of the ingredients in our food - even the treats - and demand that our food go back to the basics. Ice cream should be milk, cream, eggs, sugar and natural flavoring. Bread should be made with whole grains and not processed, bleached flour.

I don't want to completely ban artificial ingredients and added sweeteners, but in an ideal world they would be harder to find on menus and grocery shelves than foods without them. There is a place for them, but that place isn't in nearly every food product we push towards kids.

Read the ingredient labels on your foods. If there's something on the label that you don't believe should be in that food, or even if you aren't sure why it's there, take five minutes to contact the company and tell them how you feel. Ask them to take high fructose corn syrup out of their applesauce. Ask Kraft to make their mac and cheese without FD&C Yellow #5 and Yellow #6 when the same product they make in Britain is just as brightly colored with paprika and beta carotene.

As for Mira's applesauce at Steak N Shake? I explained to her what was in it and offered to let her have a container of her natural applesauce back at home instead. She happily chose to wait until we got home for the natural applesauce.

When my old job was eliminated, one of the things I vowed to do was become more domestic. (It's back there on that giant to-do list.) In our house, my husband is the cook. Yes, I have two hands and a brain to put together food, but somewhere between gathering the ingredients and removing it from heat, I generally screw something up to make a meal inedible.

Yes, I've actually burned water, if you count leaving water to boil on the stove too long so that it all boiled off and then the pot somehow caught fire.

The one exception is baking, where I tend to be a little better with results, but it can still be hit or miss.

Last week, Ree Drummond, better known as The Pioneer Woman, was in town for a book signing for her new book, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier. A group of us gathered for dinner the night before, where I shared with Ree that I planned to use her cookbook to help me in my goal of learning to cook.

(Amy, Ree, Momo, Wenderly, and me)

When I told Cordy and Mira who I was going to see at the bookstore the next day, they insisted on coming along. Cordy has recently decided she wants to be "a sewer, a cooker, and a mom" when she grows up, and Mira echoed that she wants to be the same, but also a vet. I had planned to go alone, but since they were so excited I agreed.

Ree planned for that same small group of us to meet in private before the big signing. We got to the bookstore 45 minutes before the signing started, and already there was practically no parking and the store was jammed full of women holding Ree's book and lining up to meet her. With Cordy in tow, I was very thankful we could meet in private - she can't handle waiting in lines and crowds make her extremely anxious and flappy.

Of course, when finally given the opportunity to meet Ree and tell her how much they want to be "cookers" when they grow up, my girls clammed up. Well, Cordy was too distracted to say much more than hi, and Mira focused on Ree's necklace while placing her hand directly on Ree's boobs. Mira has a bad habit of trying to get someone's attention by reaching up and putting her hand on someone's belly, which as she's grown has now extended her reach to boobs. Insert my horror in any public situation with her here.

But they did pose nicely for a photo.

Once home, the kids begged to start making food from the book. I put it off until the weekend, and for our first experiment, I picked something to bake: apple dumplings. Baking is my stronger skill, so I wanted to ease into it.

One thing I love about Ree's book (and her blog) is the number of clear photos she has showing each step of the process. When you're domestically challenged like me, this is very, very helpful.

The first step was peeling the apples. Um, wait, how do I do that? I grabbed a knife and muddled through it, ending with most of the apple still on the core and no sliced fingers. I'll call that a success.

Aaron was better at it than me.

But when it came to coring the apples and slicing them into 8 equal slices, I turned to modern convenience:

Hey look, that's easy!

Rolling the slices into the crescent roll dough wasn't hard. Mira asked if she could help, picking it up faster than me.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'...

We poured the sauce/syrup/whatever you want to call it mixture over the rolled up apples and then put it in the oven. The result?

Clearly, this will never be a food blog & I will never be a food photographer.

I gotta admit, it smelled amazing. And tasted pretty good, too.

OK, so it took the whole family to make apple dumplings (minus Cordy, who decided she really wasn't that interested in it, but was still willing to taste test), but it was a good first start.

(Full disclosure: this isn't really a review. I bought the book myself, and while I told Ree I planned to use the book to help me cook, she wasn't expecting any kind of review. But if you ever meet her in person, you should ask her to show you what she can do with the Juicy Fruit app on her phone.)

After all of the drama of last week's visit to the doctor and the following blood draw to test for allergies, I had hoped to report one satisfying resolution to that arc of Mira's story.

Unfortunately, life doesn't seem to resolve mysteries as in novels or neatly storyboarded television shows, with all loose ends tied up and answers revealed.

Waiting for the results, I was focused more on what kind of lifestyle changes we might have to make to accommodate Mira's allergies than anything else. What if she really was allergic to dairy and we had to go dairy-free? Or what if she had inherited the seasonal allergies of Aaron or I, but even worse, and would need to start allergy shots to bring some relief?

I didn't hear anything by Friday afternoon, so I called the office and asked about the results. The doctor we spoke with last week wasn't in the office, so one of the nurse practitioners called me back a little later with the full report.

Of the enormous list of food allergens and environmental allergens that Mira was tested for, she was allergic to...

None of them.

Wait, what?

The blood test showed no measurable allergy to anything in the test. This included about every kind of pollen, mold, and animal that she might encounter in Ohio, as well as all of the common food allergies and cinnamon. However, the nurse practitioner said the test results did show an elevated IgE level, which indicates she's having a reaction to something, we just don't know what.

The next step? Not sure yet. I have to get back in touch with the doctor to determine where to go from here. We may be seeing an allergist, or she may want further tests first. Either way, I need to make sure her symptoms aren't forgotten. Mira's flare-ups are random and she hasn't had a vomiting episode/cramping in nearly a month, but we know it'll happen again. And the eczema on her head is only slowly responding to the steroid treatment.

I'm glad this kid has such an easy-going personality. She was telling her preschool class last week about the blood draw and described it as, "It really hurt, but they weren't being mean. They were just doing what they needed to help me feel better. They weren't trying to hurt me." Mira knows there may be more testing involved, too, and while I'm sure she won't be as brave in the moment, she still says she'll be brave and knows we only want to make her feel better.

That's Mira - the kid rolls with anything life sends her way. Although she'll make sure to remind you of the story of her bravery at least once a day for the next month, usually with some parts exaggerated for dramatic flair to make her the star/hero of the story. Maybe she needs her own blog - once she learns how to write.

You'd have thought the St. Patrick's Day parade was in her honor the way she tells the story.

So, those grand plans I had to get all kinds of things done while I was unemployed? Yeah, well, it's hard to get those done when you're offered a job a week later.

Don't get me wrong - I'm beyond THRILLED to be offered a job, and even more so because I'll be working with a dream team of people at BlogHerAds. It's only a temporary assignment at the moment, but I plan to prove myself as useful as possible to them while I'm there. Or make them realize they can't live without me. I do have some mad skillz, yo.

The grand reorganization and cleaning plan is temporarily on hold, or at best on a very extended, slow schedule. But I did already get one task accomplished. See these cups?

Yes, we could provide drinks for an army. And this photo doesn't even include the sippy cups and kid cups.

These were all the cups cluttering up our kitchen cabinets. The task was to find matching lids for all of them, followed by getting rid of all of the cups missing lids and those that were too worn out to continue staying with us.

After a couple of hours of work, I collected an entire trash bag full of plastic cups to be recycled. Some had no lids, some were lids with no cups to match, and some were older sports bottles and cups from the pre-BPA-free days.

But the results of my efforts were impressive.

What was originally a crowded mess spread across two cabinets is now one cabinet, nicely sorted into kid cups on the bottom level, sports bottles, travel mugs and cold drink cups in the middle, and collectibles on the top row. (With room for more stuff later on the top row.) Success!

Next step? Sorting all of the plastic food storage containers and lids to find matches. The plastic cups were just a warmup to that main event. It might take a few weeks. Or I might scream in frustration, throw them all out and start fresh. We'll see.

Oh, and I did finish watching all of season one of Downton Abbey. So I guess that's two things off the list.

Mira was supposed to be my "biologically strong" child. Cordy inherited my pale, sensitive skin. Along with autism, she also has a sensitivity to artificial food dyes, has to have her clothing in natural fibers and washed in dye-free, perfume-free detergent, requires fragrance-free lotions, burns if the sun even comes near her skin and easily develops a rash. Mira, on the other hand, is neurotypical and inherited Aaron's ability to never burn, but rather just develop an even, glowing tan as the summer progresses. She also seemed to have an iron stomach as a toddler, eating nearly anything with a preference for spicy food.

So when Mira started to develop a few strange symptoms last year, I tried to pass them off as nothing. A bit of a rash here and there, occasional bad stomach aches and other digestive issues that I won't embarrass her future teenage self by writing here. Then she had stomach aches that switched into vomiting, followed by days of practically no appetite. And the rashes continued, to the point of bleeding at times. All of these symptoms lasted a short time and then wouldn't appear for weeks.

In recent months, the rashes and stomach aches have continued. (She doesn't have them all the time - they continue to come and go in patterns of days to weeks at a time.) I had hoped they might just go away permanently with a gentle diet and plenty of lotion for sensitive skin, but nothing has helped. Then last week, a new symptom appeared: scaly patches of eczema all over her scalp. I couldn't ignore it any longer: it was time to see the doctor.

Do you know how hard it is to explain to the doctor why you're there when you have about 10 semi-related symptoms that aren't very serious when considered alone but when put together make Google tell you she could have some terrible disease? And even worse when you're a nurse and don't even need Google to tell you some of the life-altering conditions that could be diagnosed from these symptoms. I tried to calmly explain it all to the doctor, but even she seemed puzzled by the combination.

The doctor is leaning towards a diagnosis of an allergy, but we have no idea what it could be. Environmental? Food? Who knows at this point. She ordered a prescription steroid solution to help with the eczema and sent us right across the street to the Nationwide Children's Hospital lab to get blood for an allergy panel. With this many symptoms, it was decided to skip straight to the blood test and avoid elimination diets and skin tests.

Mira was amazingly cheerful through all of this. She told the doctor all about her issues, acting like it was no big deal. She's lived with many of these issues (off and on) for nearly a quarter of her life, so I'd imagine it is an everyday thing to her.

Getting blood drawn, however, changed her demeanor entirely. I was honest with her about what would happen and she became very nervous as we sat in the waiting room of the lab. She asked if it would hurt, and I told her it would, like a shot does, but only for a moment. Mira has been very brave with shots, so I hoped she'd be OK with this, too.

She wasn't OK with it. As the med tech looked at her arms to find a good vein, she started to get upset and cry. She held still when the needle went in, but sadly the tech missed and spent WAY too long (in my opinion as a nurse) digging in her arm looking for that vein, which I'm sure hurt a LOT. At that point Mira was no longer brave and just wanted away from that place as fast as possible. Even when the needle was removed she continued to cry hard.

So when she realized they had to do it again (phlebotomy is an art, sadly, and you don't always get it on the first try), no amount of stickers, suckers, toys or ponies could persuade Mira to go along with this plan. She cried "Not again!" over and over and tried to get off of my lap to run away. I felt horrible. Holding her down for another needle to hurt her made me feel like I was betraying her trust.

They brought in an IV nurse for the second try, and even though Mira was crying, screaming and not nearly as still as before, she got it on the first try and it was all over quickly. It took Mira several minutes to calm down, and Mira and I both felt traumatized as we left the building.

We'll have the results of her allergy test by the end of the week, and then will decide where to go next, or how we'll have to alter our lives if she does have an allergy to something we're exposed to daily.

However, I can tell you there's nothing wrong with Mira's memory. She remembered she was promised a sticker. And when we got home she remembered I promised her fruit snacks. And a sucker.

The only reason she's smiling is because she has a sucker in her hand.

She also brought up the bribe of a toy, too. We're still negotiating that one.

Aaron and I celebrated our nine year anniversary by visiting the scenic Hocking Hills for three days last week. I found a great deal for the Inn at Cedar Falls (not a review thing at all - bought and paid for and well worth the money) and so we left our city and drove to the hills to stay at our own little cottage in the woods.

Yes, a small cottage in the woods. Although not a very rustic cottage, however:

King-size bed, gas fireplace, indoor plumbing with hot tub - I loved it so much.

But in some ways, it was very rustic. As in, no phone in the cottage, no TV, no internet, and no cell phone service. We were completely cut off from the rest of the world. A chance to get away from technology and simply focus on each other, right?

So we must have looked insane as we sat in the inn's restaurant with our iPhones, connecting to the restaurant's wifi and desperately trying to angle our phones just right to get a cell signal to send out a text.

We might have an itty-bitty internet addiction problem.

OK, so that wasn't all of our weekend. We did enjoy a (fantastic, incredible, amazing) dinner at the restaurant that night (in-between checking Facebook), and back in the cottage we played card games, watched The Muppets on DVD (what? No one said we couldn't bring our laptops if there was no TV!), took full advantage of the hot tub, and enjoyed being together without the kids.

And then on our second day there, the weather switched from pouring rain to brilliant sunshine. So we went hiking. We didn't plan on doing more than the easy trail at one park. Instead, we did the difficult trail at that one, and then went hiking in two other parks as well. Total hiking time was over four hours in the day!We had so much fun, and were in awe of the beauty of nature around us.

Waterfall at Ash Cave - tallest waterfall in Ohio

Hanging out in Old Man's Cave.

More from the trail near Old Man's Cave

Cedar Falls (one of the side waterfalls)

When we got home, we felt out-of-place surrounded by all of our technology again. It was good to be home, but it was an odd transition.

I highly recommend taking your significant other into the woods away from all technology. Well, keep the indoor plumbing and heat, of course, but no connection to the outside world. It's a great way to reconnect, to discover new aspects to your partner, and to laugh at each other as you climb over your partner holding your phone just so pointing out a window to try for that one bar of cell signal.

Totally worth it.

Today is our wedding anniversary. Nine years, to be exact.

We're celebrating by going (mostly) offline for the next two days. (Will we survive?) See you all on Saturday!

I'm taking the elimination of my job amazingly well. Or at least that's what everyone is telling me. People look at me awkwardly, asking how I'm dealing with the news, and I just smile and say, "I'm fine." And then they give me that sad look that tells me they think I'm being so strong in hiding my pain, so I have to follow up with, "No, really! Do you know how much I can get done without my job getting in my way and sucking up all my energy?"

Not an optimist, folks. Just a realist.

But c'mon - if I'm going to be unemployed (hopefully for only a very short while), why NOT plan out all of the projects, chores, and wish lists I've wanted to tackle for so long but never had the time for? I feel like I've suddenly got the entire world in front of me, with limitless directions to take.

Here's just a few of the items I've started writing in a notebook (three pages now, people!) that I can now do with my time, in no particular order:

For home:
Make a greater dent in the laundry, get rid of clothing that no longer fits, de-clutter every room in the house, clean out the garage, put up the shelf I just bought from Ikea, take down the kitchen table & replace with the larger crate for Cosmo (this dog is getting too big), vacuum more often, learn to paint with the help of Pinterest and YouTube, paint a few rooms, get some kind of filing system up and running to keep papers under control, dust (for once), and more...

For the family:
Volunteer for my daughters' classrooms, pick Cordy up from school some days so she doesn't spend 1.5 hours on the bus, take Mira to preschool each day so Aaron doesn't have to be late for work, learn to cook with Pinterest and blogs (I'm trusting you, food-bloggers!), cook meals occasionally without poisoning my family, decorate my daughters' rooms with input from them, help Cordy with her homework, read more with Mira and take the time to teach her how to read, take the dog for walks, make doctor and dentist appointments that I've been too busy to make and then go to them, pay attention when Mira tries to tell me something that is so important to her, listen to Cordy's stories, cuddle with Aaron on the couch and spend time together and not just in the same room, sign Mira up for gymnastics or ice skating and take her to classes, and more...

For me:
Sleep at night again, next to my husband (!!!!), go the gym more, blog more, use my gift cards to have a facial or massage, get acquainted with my sewing machine again and find my way back into sewing, play video games, visit with friends, re-do my blog template, play with my fancy camera, catch up on Downton Abbey (I'm only a few episodes into season one), blast loud music in the living room and dance around like a fool when no one is home, reorganize my Pinterest boards, do something with my Facebook fan page, meditate, read a book or two, say yes to more product reviews for small businesses I want to support, knit, and (you guessed it) more...

Whew!

Looking at that list, I'm kinda amazed at how behind I am on things. I should have found myself a stay-at-home wife years ago to help me get all this done! 

Did you read it all? I admit, it's a long list, and I seem to find new things to add to it each day. And of course there will be a half hour or more set aside each day to check the job boards and look for any opportunities that would be a good fit for me, or network with friends who might know of good jobs. (This has already been happening and so far is very promising!)

I feel so free knowing the long hours of my night shift are at an end. I've worked an overnight shift for years now; seeing the sunshine and enjoying my weekends without being in a sleepy fog will be refreshing. If you've never worked overnights for an extended period of time, you have no idea how it affects your body and mind. No matter how much you try to convince your body that night is day, and buy blackout shades to have some darkness during the day while you sleep, it still knows. Oh, it knows, and hates you all the more for it.

Maybe I'll even blog some of the adventures I've listed above? I've been so removed from the domestic scene for so long that it could be comedy gold.

I doubt I'll get to everything on my lists. But I'm actually excited at having the ability to tackle them.

I had one other amazing experience during Blissdom that I wanted to share, but decided that it needed its own post.

As I mentioned previously, Blissdom was held at the Gaylord Opryland resort, which I often refer to as a city under a Bio-Dome. But ultimately it is a luxury hotel focused on providing high-quality service and creating a memorable experience for each guest.

I've been to Opryland three years in a row now. On my first visit, I remember walking into our hotel room and hearing this lovely music playing. It was similar to what you might hear if you went for a massage at a high-end spa. I looked at our clock radio and discovered it was also a sound machine. And the sound playing at the time was "spa" of course.

After a long drive to Nashville, the gentle wood flute and nature sounds were so soothing that I nearly fell asleep while relaxing on my bed. That entire weekend, I continued to notice how relaxed I felt while that music was softly playing in our room. 

Before we left the conference that year, I asked the hotel where I could get one of those clock radios. They didn't sell them but told me I'd be likely to find them in any store. I copied down the model number, but was never able to find one in stores that had the "spa" sounds. It seems that the model in the hotel room was only made for Gaylord hotels.

The next year, the clock radio in our room was a newer model - replaced after the great flood of Nashville - but the new one still had the soothing spa music. I again asked where I could find one, but nobody had an answer for me. I took down the model number and tried to search for it, but came up empty handed again.

Yes, I know you probably think I'm insane to obsess over a clock radio. And to be honest I'm not as obsessed as I sound. While I'm at Opryland, I enjoy the spa music. Sound can influence our thoughts and feelings, and this particular track soothes my mind, calms my nerves, and lets me sleep deeper than I usually do at home. I occasionally see sound machines at the store and when I do I always check to see if they might have the one I'm looking for. But I don't spend every day in the quest for this particular clock radio.

So THIS year, I once again arrived at Gaylord Opryland and was pleased to find my little happy machine in the room. I joked with my roommate, Lisa, that I might just need to ask Opryland how much they'd charge me if our clock radio happened to be missing from the room at the end of our stay. I didn't want to be a thief (bad message to send to the kids, right?), but I've been trying to find a product like this for three years now.

I turned to Twitter to ask the hotel for help.

And they responded. (Because they're cool like that. And smart enough to watch their Twitter feed during a blogging conference.)

And then I responded:

I received no response after that, and I attended the Blissdom closing night party with the subject no longer on my mind. When we came back to the room, I walked over to the nightstand and switched on the music again, then turned and found myself face-to-faceplate with a second clock radio perched on the dresser, and an envelope next to it with my name on it.

(Photo re-enacted after I'd already opened the card, of course.)

There was at least a five second pause as my brain tried to process what my eyes were seeing. I slowly picked up the envelope and opened it, reading the handwritten card: "Christina, Thank you for following us on Twitter. We hope you enjoy these spa sounds at home. If you need anything, please let us know. Sincerely, Elizabeth, Nick & Tori."  

That would be the point where the excited screaming began. Sorry to those of you staying in the Delta who were trying to sleep at 11:30pm.

I would have been happy to pay for one of the clock radios, but the staff at Opryland took notice of just how much I loved this thing and went out of their way to make sure I had the best experience ever. And they also ensured that I wouldn't have a guilty conscience when returning home to my daughters.

(Kidding.)

(Well, mostly.)

(No, no, really. Stealing is bad, kids.)

So thank you, Gaylord Opryland (Elizabeth, Tori & Nick!), for topping off a wonderful weekend with an unexpected delight. You reaffirmed that there are still companies out there focused on great service, and you've made a lifelong fan out of me. And you're now helping me get some of the best sleep possible, year-round, which any mother will tell you is a feat worthy of high praise.

You'll have to pry this thing from my cold, dead (yet amazingly relaxed) hands.