Note

Mike put this nice letter up on Facebook the other day.  I needed it that day.  He always seems to know when I need something and just how to make me feel like I am doing a good job.  This being a mom thing is quite the job and sometimes I have to be reminded that it is the most important one. 

The other day when I got home from work and crashed through the door, met a wall of jabbering little monkeys, and tried to make my way into the house with one attached to each limb (and what seemed like five or six following behind), I stumbled into the kitchen to find Becky in there, where she always is when I get home. She smiled at me, eyes tired, homework/backpacks/lunch boxes/dirty socks up to her elbows, dinner on the stove. She asked me about my day, and I of course start talking. While I jabbered on about this thing or that, I found myself watching her every move. She kind of floated around the kitchen, mixing, cleaning, getting plates from the cupboard, breaking up a fight, cleaning up a spill, picking up a sad little one, and keeping my world running, all while not taking her eyes off me as I talked about my day.

Have you ever known someone who moves like a ballerina and a ninja at the same time? Someone who can teach, scold, love, guide, help, and lead, all in the same breath…the same sentence? Have you ever known someone who clearly has yet to get what she really wants or deserves, but convinced you that she believes she has it all? Have you ever known someone who so silently makes the world go round, but never takes an ounce of credit for it? Have you ever known someone who you would rather stare at than all the works of art or sunrises you could find, someone who everyone else can see is ridiculously beautiful, but who hasn’t ever noticed for herself? Have you ever known someone who is personally responsible for pulling you through the mud that made you who you are, but gives every lick of credit right back, and then has the gall to tell you they are so proud of you? I have. So when you read the sweet posts of happy funny kids and this circus life of this household, don’t forget that it only comes on the back of the most selfless person I know. Becky I know that your world has been put on the back burner for ours. I know you sacrifice everything every day to live in the often mundane circle of life that will forever (at least seemingly) include messes, lunch boxes, crumbs, laundry, dateless date nights, laundry, regularly single parenting, super early workouts, laundry, boogers, coughs, calls from the school, laundry, late nights alone, and a resume that says “stay home mom” (but should say accountant, CEO, training agent, armed guard, day care worker, business owner, and husband’s backbone) …and there is no way that I could appreciate it anymore than I do. We have the luckiest kids in the world, thanks to you. We have a pretty amazing life, thanks to you. This is the life we have, the life we chose, and the life we are going to wake up to for the next long time. I am going to do everything I can, though, to help you know that this is the life I love, thanks to you.