July 25, 2025

Fun Fact about the Founder and Family

I know I am not the first to mention this issue, but I have sadly reached the age where I sleep with a certain arrangement of pillows because without them I frequently wake up feeling like I’m in traction. And these days calls are becoming more frequent from my parents when I have already headed to bed that lead to me getting up and going downstairs to deal with a need. It reminds me of when I had newborns and honestly, I know it can get much more frequent and a lot worse.

It’s almost time to go home, but we are traveling on an adventure with our kids that is taking us many places back to back to back and has also led us to stay at a number of different places and to sleep in a series of different borrower beds.

Flying does not easily allow for packing a pile of pillows so I have been trying to recreate my pillow pile to no avail. And every single morning on this trip without exception I wake up literally hours before I need to be awake finding that I need to get up right away because of new levels of the discomfort. Without the skillful arrangement of the aforementioned pillows and without a mattress similar to mine at home, I know I am planning to be up early and often throughout the night.

Shout out to just the right pillows and, while we’re at it, to the best mattresses too! The primary caregivers and advocates need our rest and find it frequently disrupted or tough to come by due to other priorities and responsibilities (both expected and unexpected). When we lose we are very unlikely to get a chance to rest another time soon afterward.

When you don’t get to sleep because of meeting another person’s needs it’s an amazing selfless act, but at the same time, it can take a significant toll. May the sandwiched and all caregivers and advocates find ways to get the very best sleep when we have time for it.