title: Calm in My Chaos: Encouragement for a Mom's Weary Soul
author:  Elisabeth Klein 
description: Calm in My Chaos takes an honest look at a mothers world and offers practical advice on common experiences. (<i>WRGN</i> 2004-06-03)
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  IT TOOK EVERY BIT OF MY ALREADY QUESTIONABLE self-control not to constantly
  text and call Sydney for updates. I hadn’t realized how hard her absence would
  hit me. It wasn’t just missing her—though that was certainly part of it. I’d
  gotten used to waking up to her every morning, to seeing her around for meals
  and other ordinary parts of life. Now, I didn’t just have to pass the time
  without her; I had to also constantly reassure myself that she wasn’t in the
  clutches of the Alchemists.
  
  
  
  
  
  “I shouldn’t have let her go alone,” I told my mom the next day.
  
  
  
  
  
  She glanced up from her cross-stitching. It was a hobby she’d taken up to pass
  the time and was only slightly less astonishing than everything else going on
  in our lives recently. “You worry too much, darling. If there’s one thing I
  can say about my human daughter-in-law, it’s that she’s shockingly
  resourceful.”
  
  
  
  
  
  I stopped my pacing. “You re