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good morning hello uh karen thank you so

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much for you know taking the time to

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speak with me this morning

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absolutely good morning

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um

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thing our readers at parenting would

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love to know is

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what is it like to be in space

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it is

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in 2008 on a shuttle flight the

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unfortunate part of that it was a very

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short mission only 14 days

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and i remember the first time we opened

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the payload bay door the space shuttle

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and i was able to to look out

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the back windows of the flight deck it

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it's it's pretty much indescribable um

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how beautiful it is

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and the feeling of floating

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um you know like a superhero is amazing

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and i'm so excited to to do it again

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wow

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uh so your son is very young

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uh how do you feel like

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becoming a mom has changed the way you

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that's a good question i i think i've

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always been somebody who has tried

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worked very very hard to excel at

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absolutely everything i do and i never

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accepted good enough

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and since i've become a mother i've

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realized there are some things i have in

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order to balance

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my life with my family and my job i need

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to accept good enough on some things and

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that's okay and i think i've learned to

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do that and

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you know i'll work to the level i still

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try to excel in in most things i do but

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like i said there are a couple things i

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just you have to say in order to be able

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to spend the time at home with my

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husband and my son i need to accept good

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enough on a few things

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right um

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so

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have you

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told jack where you're going is he upset

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what's the longest you've been away from

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him

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and does he understand where you're

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going

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the longest i've been away from him at

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this point is about five weeks

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and he's three years old so it's really

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hard to tell exactly what he understands

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but we do tell him that mommy's going to

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live on the space station and when he

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sees a picture of the space station he

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knows what it is he knows what a rocket

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is he knows that the space station

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travels around the earth

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he knows that in the space station

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there's no gravity and things float

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um you know and that's the level of a

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three-year-old it's really hard to tell

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if they understand it at a deeper level

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than that but i'm looking forward to

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being there and sending down videos for

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him and showing him just simple things

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like when i'm eating and and when i'm

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when i'm just playing around and

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just sharing that with him

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what does a normal day look like for you

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right now as you're training

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for your upcoming mission and being a

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mom to your son

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well i'm in star city russia right now

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i've been here for a couple weeks and

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we're in the final preparations

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actually we're pretty much done we had

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final examinations which are simulations

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in the russian segment of the space

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station and in the soyuz which is the

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rocket that is taking us up to the space

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station and it's pretty intense

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but i did bring my son here with me and

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i was able to at least spend time with

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him on the weekends in the evenings

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and but now we had our final ceremonial

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events at red square yesterday after we

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passed all of our exams and i have some

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free time that i can spend with my

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husband and my son so it's going to be

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very nice and the weather is great here

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in star city so i'm looking forward to a

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few days of relaxation

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that sounds lovely um

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do you feel it's difficult to manage

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training and being a mom how do you do

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it and do you have any tips for other

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working moms

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i think i think this is almost like when

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you bring the brand new baby home nobody

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really gives you instructions we we go

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through all this training and learning

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from every everything from driving a car

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to the training we go to in college and

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then when it comes to being a parent you

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kind of learn by doing and so i think

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that's what we're doing right now

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one of the main things

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that i try to do now is is not make it a

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negative that i'm leaving um never

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insinuate that there's anything negative

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about what's going on and keeping him

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apart of of the life of that

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that we're leading and and just um it's

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a normal thing

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i see um

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so

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how did your own mother encourage you in

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stem in this question of the honor of

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mother's day and do you have any advice

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for other parents who have daughters

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my mother was awesome in that she let me

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do anything i wanted i grew up in a very

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small town in minnesota

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my mother was wasn't unable to go to

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college

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and so to her she just wanted me to be

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able to do

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anything i wanted she taught me when i

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was really little

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to to sew and to do a lot of the stuff

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that i need to do at home and she always

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encouraged me never anytime i wanted to

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join a sport or do anything academic it

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was always encouraged

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and so i think i think for parents of

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other little girls just let them dream

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and let them their imagination roll and

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do whatever it is that they want to do

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oh if you have any plans for mother's

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day

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do you feel like the distance from your

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loved ones and family feels more

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tangible when you're in space than when

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that's hard to say i know when i'm on

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earth and in a way i can have a video

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conference

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with my son and husband every single day

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when i'm in space i can call them on we

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have an internet protocol phone that i

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can call them every day however video

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conferences will only be once a week and

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i think that's going to be a little

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unusual but i hope to videotape like i

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said some of the things that i'm doing

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and send it down as frequently as

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possible so that they can see what i'm

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doing on a daily basis

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what about the other way around your son

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is probably still setting a lot of

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milestones do you have any agreements

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with your husband for him to capture

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some of jack's first for big moments

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i think i think there will be a lot of

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pictures taken and a lot of video taken

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my son will actually be starting

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preschool in september so i will miss

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his first day of school which of course

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makes me sad but uh but there will be a

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lot of pictures and uh

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and my husband's gonna do a great job of

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of getting him out the door to his first

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um do you hope that he'll follow in your

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footsteps is he displaying an aptitude

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for science

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he actually is displaying an aptitude

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for science he loves he loves to

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understand things he loves to to look

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things up we'll go to google and he'll

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say he wants to look up an animal and

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he'll tell me i will probably in a 15

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minute period of time look up about 20

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different animals

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he loves the planets he loves to talk

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about the planets he loves dinosaurs he

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loves looking at on his cars and trucks

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he'll he'll look down at the wheels and

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say we need to fix this or we need to

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so i think he definitely has an aptitude

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and i wouldn't be surprised if he ends

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up in some type of a technical field

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when he's an adult

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great um and aside from your son

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obviously in your family what creature

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comforts are you going to miss most when

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my bed i think is an important one um

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although although you know i was only in

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space for two weeks on my shuttle flight

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so i'm not sure i ever became

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very very comfortable at sleeping and

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without gravity but from what i've heard

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from other people it becomes extremely

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comfortable

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so so maybe in a couple months that

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won't seem so important to me

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another thing is coffee in a cup we

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drink our coffee in bags and

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my morning coffee coffee in a cup i

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think i i will probably miss

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right

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what is do you think the biggest

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misconception regular people have about

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oh gosh

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i think we are just normal people you

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know it's so hard when there's somebody

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that you see and you only see a small

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portion of them

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and

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have very very normal lives with normal

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families and we just happen to be in a

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job that is

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an extraordinary job and you know we're

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so lucky to be able to do it

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and now what do you think is your

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oh

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you always wonder if you're doing the

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right things for your children i think

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and you know i have struggled with is it

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is it a good thing for me to leave my

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three-year-old for six months

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and you know after going through in my

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head for a long time this is a dream i

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had since i was a young child myself

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and i don't think i would be setting a

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very good example for my son if i gave

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up on my dreams so

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so i think that's one of the biggest

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things and it's going to be really hard

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to say goodbye to him next week

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i see well thank you so much karen it