This one's for GGma

Several weeks back, right in between two sets of friends visiting for week(plus)-long stays, I came home from work and walked through the hallway into the bathroom. Of course, there were stray toys underfoot, at least several (likely dirty) articles of clothes scattered in the bathroom, and I sat on the toilet and smiled to myself. This is what happiness is. A warm cozy home filled to the brim with all that family entails - complete with bath toys migrated out into the hallway past the bathroom, leftover kiddo pants on the floor from the last bath, and even a stray ball in the corner of the hallway bathroom.

Of course, a couple scant hours later I was remembering (and perhaps regretting!) those thoughts as I sat in the bathroom comforting a little girl getting (rather & repeatedly) sick for the first time in her life... Hmmf, I thought to myself, guess that shows me! She was a trooper throughout, and bounced back even the very next day, accompanying us out to do final cleanup in the fall garden, before she passed her sickness on to me, and I didn't bounce back quite so quickly!

Seriously though, this little family makes me so happy. Even with the occasional late night ER trips, snotty nose kisses, all night fussiness, and occasional puking episodes. Because throughout all of our everyday, this little family of mine makes me happy and content in that deep down warms your very soul sort of way. Not to say we don't argue and have bad days! We are only normal humans after all :)

Its things like random legos in the kitchen, hair clip flowers in the laundry machine, hair elastics on the back porch, that make me so happy for this little on in our lives that makes us more than just 2 people with too many dogs, but makes us a family. This little girl in our lives is the future, and today, and yesterday, she makes us so much more than the sum of our parts were before her. These are the things that keep us going even on the bad days, even when things happen before their time.

GGma, this one goes out to you. You read every post, and I often posted more regularly than I might have otherwise because I knew that these glimpses into Little M's life meant the world to you. I know this is a post you would have loved, because I know you felt the same joy to be with your family, and I'm sorry I didn't write it even a week ago, so that you could have read it. I consider myself lucky to have married into your loving family. We'll never forget the time we spent with you at duck camp this year, and are so glad that Little M got to spend as much time with you as she did. We miss you, and miss all that you were to our little family, and the larger clan that you were matriarch to. Gone but never forgotten.