Family Values

You hear that term bandied about a lot lately. Mostly by Christian fundamentalists who want to stop stem cell research or some other ridiculous bullshit.

This is not what I am talking about.

I'm talking about the REAL family values. The ones that probably really only apply to YOUR family - the things which bind you together and that supersede all the other needs and wants of the world.

For instance, my husband and I have been a family a long time. Much longer than we've had children. Before we had children, even before we thought we couldn't HAVE children, when it was just US together we were a family. We did FAMILY centric things, such as 4th of July parades, festivals, coloring Easter eggs, carving pumpkins etc.

And when we had kids, we never stopped - in fact we just did more.

This is 99.999% because of The husband.

He works so hard to make special things special.

But one of the most remarkable things, to me, is how he never makes presumptions about our children. Most people would shy away from choosing an exhibit from the Louvre as their father's day outing. After all, busts by Houdon are not usually the cup of tea for the 5 and under set. But he doesn't assume that they won't like it.

He also decides, upon learning that Lil Satchmo thought the big COOKIE at the mall cookie shop was just decoration, that a BIG COOKIE is just the ticket for his father's day treat.

Because while father's day is the day we take time to say WE LOVE YOU DADDY - in fact, when practicing real Family Values - we say it every day.
And he shows he loves us every day. From special ordering a book he loved from his childhood - Norbert Nipkin to share with his own boys, to taking us to local landmarks so we can learn and appreciate the local culture of our new home. And yeah, the Varsity rules - omg chili burgers yum. Ask me how many gallons of Orange Pop we consumed........

But I digress.

Being a family, means focusing on the bigger YOU - the YOU that is five people, not just one.

It means finding the strength to hike around the Zoo Atlanta for 4 hours when in fact you probably only have two hours of energy in you - because the bigger YOU really wants to spend lots of time there.

It means buying your wife a new bra in every color they come in vs.
just ordering her one or two like she was expecting. Yes.....he really did that recently. I now have more beautiful lace bras than I have probably owned in my entire life.

It means staying up till all hours of the morning researching potential houses, checking for predators, comparing all of the houses features so we don't waste our time looking at houses we won't want.

Being a family, and practicing the art of being a family, is what true Family Values are.

And my husband, is a Master.

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He asked me to conclude the post I wrote about our Zoo Trip by saying that THIS was his favorite thing he saw at the zoo. He still makes me blush like a teenager sometimes. I love that man.