Mother's Day Thanks

Jen has been requesting that I make a post on the blog for quite a while now, and finally asked specifically for a Mother's Day post. So I thought I'd make a post about why I'm thankful Jen is (among other things) the mother of my children. Hopefully I can avoid the saccharine tones that lace most greeting cards.

First and foremost, she is a good mother, and by that I mean she is good at all of the "motherly" things. We all know that parenthood is a daunting task, and she does much of it by herself when I'm at work. She manages to keep 4 kids from killing themselves and each other, destroying property, and causing noise complaints. On top of all that, she finds the time to cuddle, comfort, encourage, reward, laugh, play and be a friend in addition to a caretaker. We have 4 happy and healthy children, and I can't imagine our children looking back on memories of their childhood and mother with anything but fondness.

Jen is a Registered Nurse, an occupation that confers certain benefits. We always have medical staff in the house, which proves valuable on an almost daily basis. I'm thankful she has a job not only because it adds income and gives her a chance to get out of the house two days a week, but because on those two days I get to be more involved than I usually am on the other days. Most days I enter the house just as we're sitting down to eat, and then Jen starts baths while I clean up the kitchen. The system works well, but it means I don't have a lot of face time with our children (especially Quinn, Jake and Claire). On the days Jen works, I get a 30-minute trip to and from daycare with everyone, and that helps fill the gap of "quality time" between weekends.

Finally, I'm thankful Jen is the mother of my children because she's my wife. I asked her to marry me because she is kind, compassionate, beautiful, wonderful person and now our children get to love her and enjoy her too. Her bond to our children reinforces her bond to me, and for that I personally am truly thankful.