Gratitude Month Begins with Erik

Well since I'm pretty bad at remembering to blog (though things are looking up, lately), I'm not going to do the daily thankful thing on here, but I do have a lot to be thankful for, and would like to expand on those topics, so I'll just sprinkle in my gratitude posts amongst my sporadic other posts. ;)

On the very, very, very top of my list:

I am thankful for my husband.

Erik works so hard for us. He's up at 5:30AM for PT (he got up at 4:30AM when we lived in HI so he could beat the traffic) and he gets home between 6 and 7:30PM, and helps me get the kids fed and in bed. He then retreats to the family room computer to work on his homework, and doesn't crawl in to bed until midnight or later. Although this schedule isn't permanent, it is permanent for the rest of our time here. He'll get a bit of a break when he goes back to Thailand this summer, but in order to get school done as soon as he could, he has to go with the flow of this hideous schedule for about 7 more months.

I'm grateful for the home he provides, the food in our tummies and the clothes on our backs. I'm sure it's a burden to know he has all these mouths to feed on his own, but he never complains and never makes me feel like I work any less than he does.

Even though I've complained, I'm grateful that his hard work affords me the opportunity to stay home with our kids. I may not be worthy of the task, but I can't imagine anyone else spending this much time with my babies.

I am grateful that he's strong enough and brave enough to have put his life on the line for our country multiple times. I am grateful for the times he's survived things he wasn't so sure he was going to. I'm extraordinarily grateful that he has no long term "side effects" of these experiences.

I am grateful that he's smarter than I am. And I'm grateful that he thinks that I'm the smarter one.

I'm grateful for the great care he took of me while I was recovering from having Piper. I didn't get experience that with him when I had Grant and it felt good to be taken care of, since I feel like I always do the care-taking around here.

I am grateful that he's such a sweet dad. And I'm everso grateful he helped me create these ridiculously sweet babies.

I'm grateful that he pushes me to go to church. It makes me feel like I'm living with my parents again sometimes, but I know it's the right thing to do - even though I'm really tired and would rather sleep in while I have the chance.

I'm grateful that he's hilarious and makes me laugh every single day.