This Mother's Day, my own mother is in the forefront of my mind.  At the age of 80, she's facing end of life issues with her significant other whom she loves dearly.  I often think and write about love and strength when facing life's realities; today this is a little more real when I think about my Mom.

There are lots of things no one bothers to tell you when you are becoming a mother.  I have a litany of unpleasant little facts of pregnancy and infancy that my friends appear to have forgotten to mention.  But there are also wonderful surprises.  One of those for me was watching my children fall in love with each other.

With Memorial Day quickly approaching, I've been scrambling to put a fun family vacation together for my little family of three - my husband, myself and our one-year-old daughter Alyssa. My problem is defining our new "fun". Before Alyssa came into our lives, vacation planning was easy: we'd rent a beach house with a bunch of friends, beach all day and bar all night. Obviously those days have come and gone. The bar is no place for a baby and neither is a house filled with single middle and upper twenty-somethings.

My 3 year old son and I just got back from a 7 day trip together...alone! Now, my son is a well traveled little boy. And we have traveled together by ourselves since he was about 5 or 6 months old. But this time was different. The last time I traveled with him by myself was on a trip back from LA last May and it wasn't truly by ourselves because a coworker was with us. This time I did not have any additional support while actually traveling.