Weekend odds & ends

• Dh & I survived three (!) full days with Little Great-Nephew, lol -- staying with him while his parents were at work and SIL/his grandma/regular caregiver was at the hospital with BIL/his grandpa. It was fun to spend so much time with him, but also exhausting. After all, as I said to more than few people, he is 3 & 1/2 and we... are NOT!  lol   (It was also WAY too hot & humid to allow him to play outside, unfortunately, but he didn't put up too much of a fuss when we told him he had to stay indoors.)  
• Side effect:  I found myself humming/singing the theme songs from "GoJetters," "Paw Patrol," and "Peppa Pig" in the shower, lol.  I think they are now permanently embedded in my brain...! 
• On Thursday, my brother-in-law was transferred from the suburban hospital where he'd been since last Saturday night to the downtown hospital where his transplant will take place tomorrow morning. 
• Friday morning, dh & I drove SIL down there to visit. Older Nephew (BIL's donor) was already there, having a final few tests before Monday. We all had a nice visit. Older Nephew left mid-afternoon at the same time we did, while SIL remained. (A couple of cousins were coming to visit later that evening, and she hitched a ride home with them.)  It was an emotional goodbye -- Older Nephew won't be seeing his dad again before the operation, and I won't be seeing either of them until afterwards, since I won't be accompanying dh, both nephews and Older Nephew's Wife downtown tomorrow (no room for me in the car!). 
• LGN will be staying at home with his other grandma (Older Nephew's MIL). Not sure how much he understands about what's going on. 
• Prayers, positive thoughts, good vibes, etc., appreciated.  :)  
• I've written before about/linked to articles from a Substack newsletter called "In Pursuit of Clean Countertops" by Sara Petersen. She writes there -- and in a new book called "Momfluenced" -- about "momfluencer" culture and the cult of ideal motherhood.  I've often said that if  you think momfluencers and the idealization of motherhood can be harmful to struggling mothers, consider  the impact they have on the large and growing numbers of us who don't have children (and particularly those of us who wanted children but didn't wind up with them, for whatever reasons). 
• So far, Petersen has never quite taken that extra step. BUT, I was pleasantly surprised to open her latest newsletter and find an interview with Ruby Warrington, the author of "Women Without Kids" -- which I recently read & reviewed here. Warrington is childfree by choice -- she does mention that some women are childless when they really wanted children -- but there's not a lot here from a CNBC-specific perspective. Nevertheless, I think it's worth a read (for both NotMoms AND mothers!). 
• Ruby Warrington also gave a thought-provoking interview to this week's edition of Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper. So happy to see these messages being highlighted in mainstream publications/sites!  
• How about this article from People magazine (of all things)??:  "PhD Grad Surprised with Celebratory Gift Registry: 'We Shouldn’t Only Reward Women for Marriage and Babies'." Yes!! 
• Relevant to some CNBC women: Jill Filipovic on "Rise of the Singles." (Subhead: "Fewer 40-year-olds are married than ever. Here's the good and the bad.")  Surprisingly, "the bad" does not include the obvious (to me) connection that many women who would like to be mothers might never have children because they were unable to find a suitable/willing partner before their fertility ran out. Even so, it's still worth a read -- if you can somehow subvert the paywall (sorry! -- no gift links available). Relevant sample passage:  

If the story was that fewer 40-year-olds are married than ever before, but more of those 40-year-olds are happy, thriving, and fostering new [kinds] of connections and communities outside of old nuclear marriage structures, that would be great news. But that’s not what we’re seeing. Instead, we’re seeing significant upticks in loneliness and friendlessness. We’re seeing greater isolation. We’re not seeing marriage decline and new relationships fill its place. Instead, we’re seeing a vacuum.

Her conclusion?:  

More married 40-year-olds shouldn’t be the goal. Happier and more stable 40-year-olds should be.

• Carolyn Hax, the advice columnist in the Washington Post, generally gives pretty good advice, and often answers questions related to adoption/loss/infertility/childless/free matters. A couple of relevant recent columns:  
• "Holiday recipe? Kids get beds, single aunt gets couch." (From what I've heard in the childless community from childless singles, this does indeed happen!) 
• "No sympathy card for stepmom after stepdaughter’s death."