More stuffing - Less filling...

Dallas Stars, on the ice after the game.

I got to thinking last night about the last day of school pizza party. It had been raining here for two days. That meant that we couldn't have the party on the playground like we did last year. Most classes were having their parties in their class rooms. The problem with that was....they had already cleared the desks out of our class rooms. That meant all the kids would have had to eat on the floor. So they decided we would take over the cafeteria. The problem with that? Graduation finished up 10 minutes before our party. Ten minutes to go and there were still families in there. Ten minutes to go and there was nothing but rows of chairs lining the cafeteria. We had to get all the chairs folded up and moved out. Tables down. Get all the party stuff in there. My husband and I were there, so we jumped on it. Getting chairs moved and getting tables down.

I will eat your face! Zombie style...

Last night I was thinking...when our children look back on their lives the one thing they won't be able to say is that we weren't involved. Or that it was just one of us. Or only sometimes. We're in there. And not just with school stuff. We're in their lives. We're together. We are out there modifying our lives to make things easier on Tyler. We are out there doing our best to UNDERSTAND Tyler. We engage our NT daughter. We do things constantly as a family. We express love and show support. Words can be so empty if they are not followed up with see-able actions. We are a family of action. We DO things. As parents we DO things. I have never missed a single baseball game for my son. Have there been days I didn't want to go? Sure. Did I go anyway? OF COURSE!

Player & Coach - My Loves!

Looking back at my youth...my parents....my family...were  not involved. We were not a family of action. We were not a family of support. We were a family of having things. We were a family of avoiding each other. My parents never went to any of my school functions. In fact if it took place after school hours I walked myself back to school, did my function, and then walked myself back home. Not because my parents were working. They were sitting at home. We went to countless theme parks. Which we would then do virtually nothing together. The things we would do together was always done with dread. I can tell you one thing, no one ever broke out into a game of laser tag with me when we were moving. I cannot say I have a single happy memory as a family from my childhood. Do I have happy memories from my childhood? Lots! I just can't say I have one of my family doing something together and we were all happy.

Funny faces at Oktoberfest.

I decided as a youth that I didn't want to become an adult who had "things". I didn't want "things". For all the "things" I had growing up I nor my family were happy people. We try to balance our kids out between giving them the wants and letting them go a healthy amount of "without". We try to show them what matters most. We try to show them how to put value on the proper things. Value isn't the broken toy, but the person in whom you're mad at about the broken toy. We do our best to pay attention to the needs of our children. To who they are. What they are telling us. What they aren't telling us. We do our best to give them no reason to ever feel like we don't love them for who they are. That they have nowhere to turn to. Do we get some things wrong? Sure, but everyone does. Likely though....the things you think we are doing wrong are the things we are doing right.

And I think it works for us...

We are family!

**The way one learns to parent is by watching those around them. They either say "Oh, I like this parenting so I will mimic it." OR they say..."Oh, I do not like this parenting, this is what I won't do!"**