Good to be Me

Today was good to be me, and I am going to brag about it, 'cause if you can't brag in your blog, where can you?

A few months ago I doula-ed for a sweet couple. The dad had cancer and was literally days away from having a bone marrow transplant when the couple delivered. He was dealing with the side effects of his chemo treatment and was generally not at the top of his game in terms of his ability to support his wife through birth. To top off the whole cancer thing, toward the end of the labor he got very sick and shortly after the birth (which was fantastic... great OB, great nurse, of course great doula...and most of all mom did an amazing job) he had emergency surgery to remove his appendix. Yowzers.

Anyway, what makes that a cool-to-be--me thing is that I got the sweetest mail today. It was a note in a pretty frame that reads:

Dear M,
Thank you for bringing comfort to me and peace to my husband during the birth of our son. My husband says that hiring you was the best decision we made for our labor. I especially appreciate your guidance throughout and your additional support afterwards, since my husband was unable to be with me. May the Lord bless you for your kindness towards us and continue to bless your ministry as a doula.

How cool is that? I have had a few tough births recently and have been feeling a bit guilty that I was away from my kids a bit more than I prefer (admittedly I prefer not to be away from them at all...). I am still planning to cut back, but receiving this note today really did remind me why I do it and to continue with my commitment to God to leave my doula gigs in his hands and allow him to use me in whatever way as he brings me expectant couples.

Why else is it cool to be me? I have been married to Super B for 14 years today. Yup, he has put up with me that long. We didn't do anything special for our day, we are often lame like that, but our kids were super cute. They made us a full dinner complete with napkins wrapped around our silverware, a table center piece, and name placards for the seating assignments at the "formal" room table. They also composed a special song and dance and gave us coupons to redeem for such things as "we will stop fighting with each other", "sleep in", "no chore day" etc. The dinner was good too, and they really did cook it all start to finish including some chocolate chip crepes for dessert. Oh, and we received a trophy (it looked suspiciously like a soccer trophy won by Reese...) for being the best parents. Not a bad anniversary at all!

LIfe in 200 words

I think the last time I managed to get on this computer to type anything in my blog I was bragging about how Dalton was sleeping so well. Hmmm, that will show me not to brag. Shortly after that post we went through a grueling period of sleeplessness. It seems to have abated quite a bit, but out of fear of starting another season of extreme sleep deprivation, I will say no more about how much better he (we) are doing.

So beyond learning to live on coffee, it really has been a fun few months. Let me recap, not in any particular order (except the lice and head shaving incident, those were sequential).

I turned a year older
kids finished school
Super B finished school (CPA stuff)
Wes started going to speech therapy
big boys had lice (should I admit that on a public blog?)
big boys got heads shaved
I taught a bundle of childbirth classes and attended a bunch of births
D got 2 teeth the day he turned 6 months and 4 more the day he turned 9 months
Ashby had her ballet recital
Ashby read all the Bluebonnet books
Ashby got a perfect score on her TAKS test
Reese's soccer team won 2 games (1 better than last season!)
We all flew to Greenville to celebrate Easter
Dalton learned to sit up, crawl, go up stairs and eat anything and everything
Dalton started solids right after he turned 6 months starting with avocados
I bought 50 avocados at the store b/c they were on sale and Dalton likes them so much

So you can see we have been busy, if not productive.

Summer is now here, kids are out of school, and I am hoping not to melt as Texas summers are not my favorite experience. Lots of fun on tap though for upcoming weeks and I am looking forward to time with kiddos, family vacations as well as doing a lot of VBS hopping.