Thanksgiving thoughts

Well, it's been a busy week around here. My parents were out here to visit, which is always nice. The girls especially like having them around, since they've missed Grandma and Grandpa a ton since we moved out here. It will be even better when they get moved out here and can see the girls every couple of days instead of every few months!

I'm really happy about that. Family was something that I felt like I kind of missed out on growing up. It's tough to be close to people that you only see once a year around the holidays when everything is chaotic anyway! So I was really happy that we were in Laramie, just a mile or so away from my parents, and the girls would have a chance to grow up around them and get to be close to them. It was hard for me to decide to make the move to Missouri and that was a big part of why. But it was much easier when my parents said they would plan on moving somewhere in the Missouri-Tennessee area to be closer to all their grandkids. Heck, even if they had gone to Nashville, that would be close enough to make the trip in a day rather than the two days of driving it takes to get out here now. But, if they end up with the house they're going after now, it'll put them 10-15 minutes away, which is maybe as far as I have to drive to get to work - and that will be nice - for the kids, for them, and for us.

Having them around always gets me thinking about stuff like this, and Thanksgiving has made me think about it even more. I'm glad to have them around and to get a chance to know them more. I didn't get to know them as much as I could have growing up, especially my dad, since I was spending so much energy just trying to get to know myself and figure out who I was, but it's been nice the last several years getting to be an adult and deal with them as roughly equals rather than inside the parent/kid dynamic. It took me a few years of being out on my own and not being around them to really appreciate them simply as people rather than always thinking of them as "parents".

And none of us are perfect or even close to it, but when I hear about other families and what other people went through growing up, it always makes me remember just how good I had it and lucky I was to have the parents I did. We didn't always get along great, though we got along just fine far more than we didn't; we didn't always see eye-to-eye; I know my name is on a fair amount of the gray hairs up on their wizened heads. But even when I was being punished or didn't agree with them, I always had an understanding that they were doing what they thought was good for me. When so many parents don't keep that in mind as the primary motivation for being a parent, it makes me smile to know that mine always did.

I'm never all that good at vocalizing this kind of stuff and talking about it. I just have these thoughts and I've never had a good outlet for them, so I'm trying to take advantage this blog for stuff like this, since I've always been able to write better than I can speak.

So that's my Thanksgiving thought for this year - Thank you for being good parents and looking out for me without stifling me. It wasn't an easy job to do, but you pulled through admirably.

While I'm at it, I have more to say. I need to say Thanks! to Kim too. It's one of those things - I tend not to write about her or my thoughts about her on here. Mostly because I see her at home all the time and I feel like I say most of the stuff I think about to her. But when I really think about it, I don't. At least, not nearly enough. But, she puts up with my crap and manages to do it (mostly) with a smile on her face. I'm not an easy person to live with, but she always finds a way to get through it and make the best of it. So thank you for being my wife and for putting in the work it takes to keep our household and our life functioning in their own little way. And thanks for putting up with me and not smothering me in my sleep when I snore! :)