Wordless Wednesday: let me thru

Defining Family

Last week I had pick up my nephew, well maybe I should say DH's nephew. So that in itself is the whole point of this post. I don't think in terms of his and mine. DH has 3 nieces and one nephew. I have 3 nieces and a nephew. We have been together for 17 years and none of the nieces or nephews were around til after we had been together so they have all always had the both of us. We don't think about them as belonging more to one of us. They are are family. That is how we see it.

So back to picking up my nephew, Ravebaby and Spongebob are both in the same gymnastics class and they love being in the same class. As part of getting them in the same class, I agreed to pick up Spongebob as needed. Last week was the first time I had to pick him up from school instead from my mother-in-laws house. I figured I would have to show ID. I figured I would have to be on his pickup list. My SIL did not have me on her list so they made a huge fuss about calling her and copying my ID. I didn't really think too much about it until I talked to my SIL later. They had never done that before. Never had they questioned a person picking up her child. Then my SIL reminded me why they questioned me, I am not black.

Funny how I had forgotten that. Funny that to me the family connection is obvious. I had Ravebaby with me. I had a half-black kid with me and my last name is the same as Spongebob but I'm not black so how can it really be okay for me to pick him up? I totally forgot.

People want things to work they way they think they should work. Black with black, white with white, Mexican with Mexican or at least Latin of some sort. It's not that they view it as bad just not their everyday. Maybe they talked about me and my family after we left, "Spongebob's aunt it Mexican, ewww.". I don't know. I don't care. He is my nephew and your suspicious mind is going to make us late for gymnastics, let's go lady!

I guess DH would have the same trouble if he had to pick up one of "my" nieces or nephew. I know people want a designation. They want a box to check. People want to know am I talking about the black ones or the Mexican ones. Sorry, we are just a family. Assume what you will just remember that assuming makes an ass out of you and me.

Family Fun Facts

Inspired by The Feminist Breeder, here are fun facts about my little family:

1.  Audrey sings all the time.  Her favorite songs are Thumbkin, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and If your happy and you know it.

2.  Audrey likes to call DH by his first name.  He hates that!

3.  Audrey sings for Boob.  To the tune of Shave and a haircut

4.  We are a wheatless family that loves pasta!  DH's spaghetti is the best ever!

5.  I have baked more in the last two years of wheatlessness than in 8 years of married life prior combined.

6.  Audrey calls my dad "PiPa" and my mom "Buea," we have no clue where she came up with them.

7.  Snoopy and Jasmin love Audrey but they miss being our babies.  Jasmin does not love it when Audrey takes her by the tail and tries to spin her.

8.  My dad is addicted to Netflix and streams at least one movie a day.

9.  Audrey only likes PBS cartoons.  It's like pulling teeth to get her to watch anything but Caillou and Barney.

10.  Audrey loves to rock out.  She likes to play on any instrument, especially her daddy's Fender guitar.

10 years of wededness

Dec 28, 2001, I married DH. So we are celebrating 10 years of marriage. I think we have both worked our asses off when it comes to staying married. We both look at marriage as a job. Like any job, you have days that are wonderful and days that are off. Days were you can't believe you have the privilege of being with this person for the rest of your life and days were you can't believe you are giving this person the privilege of being with you for the rest of your life.

Marriage is marriage. We both have said that divorce is off the table. We will make it work or die trying. I find this mentally has worked very well for us. When times have been hard I don't look for the out; I don't toss out divorce to get my way. I know the bad times are not forever. If we work at it the good times will come back around.

I think the best advice on marriage I ever got was to "move away from home and learn to cling to each other."  I've heard it from couples who's marriages/relationships didn't make it. "We just did learn to depend on one another. We always turned to other people first.". So DH and I moved to Virginia in July of 2003. It was the best decision we ever made! I had to trust that DH had my back because I had no one else. We became a family. I know that if we hadn't have made that move we would have been divorced a long time ago. So even though we are back in Texas and back with family, we know that our first family is now each other.  Home is where we are and family is us.

Senior Prom '97

So today I celebrate 10 years of marriage.   They have been everything DH promised they would be: good/bad, sickness/health, rich(relatively speaking)/poor, funny/sad and so much more than I could have or would have thought.  The gift of our Audrey 2 years ago and the addition of Snoopy and Jasmin 3 years before that just added to the love in our family.   I think we both would like to expand the family with a few more children but we're learning to let God be in control and just enjoy the ride.

So to DH:  I love you.  I thank you for everything.  We've gone from 16-year-olds with nothing but dreams to 33-year-olds with a real family of our own.  I know we don't always see eye to eye but as long as you're willing to work at it I'm willing too.  I promise you I'm more stubborn and will always win at the "willing to work at it" game.  We celebrate 10 years of marriage but I hope that when we are looking back from our 50th that we'll see just how stupid and childish our views of ourselves were and how we have finally grown-up.  I look forward to many more years of dancing and singing and in general embarrassing of Audrey.  I pray that God blesses us with more children.  I can't wait to see the things that God has in store for us.  Love you always, Martha