Thankful

I think when you've been married for a good amount of time, coupled with the busyness and stress of life and kids and work and activities, it's easy to let common manners and courtesy towards your spouse or children go out the window. I remember growing up rarely hearing my parents ever say thank you, or please, or even I love you. I suppose you could attribute some of that to the culture, but at the root of it, it was just a genuine lack of appreciation for each other.

That feeling of entitlement so quickly and easily creeps in. I'm entitled to feel this way. I'm entitled to have my spouse do those things because that is their job. I'm entitled to not say thank you because they didn't say thank you to me. I'm entitled. Even as a young child, I remembering vowing that I would fight hard to make courtesy and thankfulness the natural fiber of my future family.

10 years into our marriage and four children later, it's a daily fight to remember that vow. That feeling of entitlement is always bubbling under the surface, and it takes effort and grace to keep it there. But I do hope that our kids are growing up realizing that "thank you" and "please" are not just reserved for strangers or acquaintances. I hope that they hear it and say it often.

So yes, I just wrote a blog about my husband. But I don't want my thanks and appreciation to be limited to special occasions and big moments. So thank you that you took the kids to school this morning so I could run. Thank you that you are currently using your day off to paint the outside of the house. Thank you that you are taking care of Selah so I can go out to lunch with girlfriends. Thank you that you put up with my crazy, bordering on violent, ranting yesterday because our wretched cable provider dvr (ahem...comcast sucks) failed to record the glee episode. Thank you.