Is it me, or is motherhood getting tougher in this choking economy. Rob was put on 'work imbalance' after 35 years on the job (which sounds an awful lot like a mental disorder, no?) and although it's been just four weeks, I can feel us ever so slightly beginning to fall apart. Little things like having to raid my son's birthday cache to pay for his new sneakers instead of what he wants so badly he hasn't stopped begging for it- a yomega yo yo with steel ball bearings- "that were even sent on a space ship to study gravity, Mom!"