Family is the best!

I spent the last two days with my family, and I am feeling so grateful to have such a large and loving group of people to be related to. My sisters are my best friends. Their children are best friends with my children. We all get together and just really enjoy ourselves, even two days in a row. We are all different in many ways... In fact, I'm pretty sure if we weren't related we would have never become friends, but we all love each other, respect each other, and want to spend time together.
Also, I'm really grateful that we live back in the Sacramento area where we live close enough to our families that we get to enjoy their company when ever we want. It has been a huge blessing in my life to be back near family after living elsewhere for more than 7 years. Yahoo!

My MIL

Today, I am feeling extra grateful for my super awesome mother-in-law. Ever since I met her, nearly 10 years ago, Kelly has been great to me. Better than you could ever hope for from anyone, much less your mother-in-law. She has always treated me like the daughter she never had, long before it was clear whether I would ever actually become that daughter for real. She loves me, respects me and tries to do everything in her power to make me happy. Sometimes, she'll slip me $50 (or more even) and tell me to go get a manicure or buy myself some shoes. She is so awesome.
Kelly loves her grandbabies, and I feel extra lucky that my kids are her only grandchildren. She dotes on those two like you wouldn't believe. She adores my two little ones, and they adore her in return. She's always calling (but not in an annoying, intrusive way) wondering if there is anything they need (diapers? clothes? anything, please???) and when she can babysit for us next. We go up there at least once a month to hand over the kids and literally take naps all day while she takes care of the children. In between naps, she waits on us, prepares special meals for us, and is just generally wonderful.
Today, after returning to my in-laws from a nice little afternoon date with my husband, Kelly says to me, "You know, I think it's really important for you and Landon to have more time to be alone together. I'd like to give you at least 2 nights a month for date nights. It can be any day... even in the middle of the week... just call me up and I'll come down and keep the kids for you." We live about 45 minutes away, she works super early in the morning, and here she is telling me to call her ANY TIME so I can have some selfish time with my husband. Now that is love.
I sometimes joke with Landon that his mom likes me more than she likes him because she is just that wonderful to me. I'm incredibly blessed that I get to be the daughter she never had.

Not to be redundant...

... but I have a great husband. I am very grateful for Landon and all he does for me. I've been sick... feeling pretty craptastic, and he's done all that he could to help me feel better. I'm so lucky to be his wife!

The funny things kids say...

I spend much of my time alternately laughing my butt off or feeling really frustrated. Such are the highs and lows of being an at-home mom. As I was laying down with Mason this afternoon to begin his nap, we were singing some songs together. His newest favorite goes like this:
Here's a ball for baby, big and fat and round.
Here's the baby's hammer, see how s/he can pound!
Hear the baby's music, do-da-do-da-doooo.
Here's how the baby plays peek-a-boo!
Here's a big umbrella to keep the baby dry.
This is the way the mama rocks the baby-bye.

There are little hand movements that accompany each line of the song, and I think that is part of what Mason loves about this particular song. Anyhow, we finished singing it together and then he asked to sing it again. I said I wanted to sing a different song, so he then told me that I forgot some lyrics of the first. Then he sang the following, pretty much to the same tune as the song above.
"There's the tricky chicken who tricks the baby.
Then the mom gets mad and kicks the chicken."

That just cracked me up. A lot. So the song got more elaborate (Have I mentioned that Mason is a bit of a ham?). Next, the song involved the chicken pecking the baby and doing other mean things, but it always ended with the mom kicking the chicken. I'm not real sure why that is... I don't recall ever kicking a chicken, or doing something that would otherwise indicate that kicking a chicken would be the correct response to such a situation, but the mama was definitely kicking that tricky chicken.

I'm so grateful for the many little moments when my kids make me laugh and laugh.

my mom rocks

I love my mom. She's real great. I feel grateful for her every day. And here are just a few reasons why:
1) She raised seven kids, basically on her own.
2) All seven of her kids love her and want to be near her.
3) She is very patient.
4) She always has great advice, but she never offers it unless asked.
5) She is very thoughtful.
6) She is very gracious.
7) She knows a little about everything, a lot about some things, but has no problem acknowledging when she just doesn't know the answer.
8) She is super chill, but also very dependable.
9) She is very humble about her many talents and great intelligence.
10) She isn't afraid of hard work.
11) She loves my dad and stuck by him for the last 41 years (and believe me, if that were all she'd ever done, it would be enough!)
12) She is a great friend to everyone.

Landon often tells me that he hopes I will be more like my mom when I grow up. Coming from Landon, that is a huge, huge compliment for my mom. But I have the same aspiration for myself!

Second, Third, or even One Hundredth Chances...

Yesterday was "Parents' Day" at the rehab facility to which my brother was recently admitted. The facility is in San Francisco, and my mom felt like she should be there since they don't allow much contact between the patients and their families in the first fifteen (or so) months of their programs. Now, my mom isn't exactly old, but she doesn't drive much in cities these days and was recently in an accident (other driver's fault), so I offered to drive her down to SF. Landon and I enjoy going to the city, so we decided to go have a fun day wandering in the city with the kids. All of this is mostly back story, so anyhow...
My brother will be 35 years old in October, 7 years my senior. He is the middle child, number four of seven kids, and I think that his position in the family explains who he is to a degree. I also think the fact that he was the baby of the family for more than four years before a younger sibling came around explains something about how he's "turned out." At any rate, my brother started smoking pot at age 9 and has been in and out of correctional facilities since I can remember. He was expelled from junior high for selling no-doze to other kids. He never graduated from high school, and I'm not even sure he got the equivalent of a tenth grade education. After running away at age 17 because my parents wouldn't let him get married, my parents relented and allowed the marriage. He and his first wife were both drug abusers, plus she had a history of mental illness. They eventually had two kids, but my brother has never been a stable part of their lives. When the kids were five and six, my brother's wife was killed in a tragic if not unusual car accident, and my brother stepped up to the plate for the first time in my memory. He wasn't using, he was working hard at a legitimate job, and tried his best to be a good dad. He remarried. His life was pretty stable. They were building a house on my parent's property. They decided to have another child. Somewhere in the middle of this, though, he started using again. Within a week or two of the birth of his third child, he disappeared. Soon after, he was arrested again.
In all the insanity that ensued, my parents took legal guardianship of my brother's two older children. My brother served his sentence and got out of prison. My parents let him stay with them for a while to help him get on track and be near his kids. Eventually, they asked him to move out so he could become independent and self-sufficient. He didn't do so great, and was back in prison not long after leaving my parents' home. After he got out of prison this time, my parents decided not to help him. In fact, they told him he wasn't welcome at their home at all. He never really had any stability during this period and was arrested again, with the worst offenses he's ever committed. Fortunately for my brother, a woman who advocates on behalf of people like my brother, who have a long history of drug problems and other arrests related to that problem, started working on my brother's case and pushed hard for him to go to rehab in lieu of more prison. Somehow, in the more than 25 years of drug use/abuse in my brother's life, he has never before been in a drug rehabilitation program... lots of time in correctional facilities, just no rehab. The local DA was not so keen on allowing him to go to rehab, but the judge allowed it, and after nearly 8 months of waiting and making deals, my brother was transferred to his rehab program.
The thing is, I stopped allowing myself to care much about what my brother was doing years ago (around the time he threatened my life). Like everyone in our family, I was sick of the years of being disappointed, worried, and flat out scared. I decided there was no reason to hope, and have just had no strong feelings about anything related to him, his life, or his future. That was until yesterday morning.
Before we left to take my mom to San Francisco, I started researching the program my brother started. I had heard that they have a very high success rate (in the 85% range, I believe), but didn't give it much thought. The program he is in now though is amazing. I cried and cried as I read about how it works and why it succeeds. It's unlike any other program I've heard about, and for the first time in many years, I felt hope for my brother. And it was nice to feel that way.
So today I am very grateful for the second, third or even one hundredth chances that God gives us to learn the lessons we need to learn. I hope that my brother finally finds his true value as a man and feels the love God has for him. I hope that he learns how to live life free of drugs and alcohol abuse and how to be a person again.
The program is called the Delancey Street Foundation. Check it out. It's amazing.
www. delanceystreetfoundation.org

The things we don't notice until they're gone

Landon has been suffering with back/neck pain since I've known him. Turns out he has a congenital deformation of the spine in c5 or c6 (I can't remember for sure). I know he is often in pain, but he just deals with it. What else can he do? He's been hurting pretty badly for the last several days, and it's made me think about the many things I take for granted because they are constants in my life. Not anything new or necessarily exciting, but certainly blessings. Today I am grateful for the many things in my life that continue to work/do their job/exist despite me not noticing them.
- my health
- my amazing body (producing milk is my super power... what do you do?)
- my intellect
- my talents
- my air conditioner
- my heater
- my electricity
- my home
- my computer
- my internet connection
- my favorite books, shows and movies
- the food in my fridge
- my super awesome car
- Landon's job

This is a greatly abbreviated list, I'm sure, but Landon's football game is about to start and I promised I'd keep Mason out of his hair so he can enjoy it.

Thanks to God for all the many blessings in my life!