Love Exactly.

**Warning: sappy Valentine's post below**

Love, to me, morphs over the years. It begins with the fireworks. The flowers and candy and hand holding stuff. The proclamations out loud of "I love you". Later it becomes more..because words aren't always reality. The longer it lasts the more it changes and deepens.

It is about learning how to be true to yourself yet being able to belong to someone else. He knows me as I know myself and I know him better. We accept each others faults because they are so much a part of who we are as a whole. When he looks at me he sees past my expression to what I am really feeling. His eyes to mine..soul to soul. Always as if we are the only two in the world.

Laughter and tears often intermingle with us. One first then the other. Picking each other up when we stumble. Learning as we go....leaning on each other. Everything swirling around us and nothing for certain except you are for me and I am for you. Exactly love.

The Treehouse Club

Apparently I am never right. Everything I say is debated and contradicted and naysay-ed. There are a gang of girls that simply find fault in all that I do and say. three blond girls that look a lot like me. The ones I feed and clothe and hug. My Children.

Sometime when I wasn't looking they took a time out form sibling rivalry and came together to form club called Mom is wrong and we can't let her get away with it. Here is one conversation that pretty much sums up the whole motto of the club in a nutshell.

The 12 year old: "Mom, why didn't we ever have a tree house??? You know, like Arthur (the AARDVARK) and Franklin (the TURTLE)...they had awesome tree houses. I have always wanted a tree house."

The 6 year old chiming in: "OH YES! Little Bear had one too AND the Bernstein Bears actually lived inside a big tree house."

ME: "Well we don't actually have a tree big enough in our yard to put a tree house in...and umm well you guys are not fictional animals that talk."

12 year old: "Well Mother their tree houses were always out in a forest in the very biggest tree with the greenest leaves and the best berries."

ME: "So are you saying that you want ME to go out in a forest and find the best tree and build you a tree house ???"

All 3 girls: " YES if you loved us YOU would!"

The 10 year old: "BUT she won't. She never does anything we want her to do...SIGH"

ALL nodding in agreement ((..while they sat in their warm house, eating a home cooked meal, watching cartoons, wearing their Uggs )).

If I hadn't been so amused by the absurdity of the conversation I might have been a little hurt.

If You Play in the Big Leagues...

I remember playing dress up as a kid. I would put on a lacy white gown and a veil and it would be my wedding. It was either that or I would play mommy. I would have baby dolls cradled in my arms or in the plastic carriage. I would feed them and change them and love them. I was always one scenario or the other ... sometimes I would still be in my wedding gown and move on to the mommy part. It was all I ever wanted. Love. Babies. White picket fence. The Big League.

The problem is that those absolutely wonderful things come with a lot of pesky details. There are jobs and mortgages. Children that aren't plastic. That have real cries and real poop along with distinctive personalities and opinions. Responsibilities galore. Fights and dates. Crying and laughing. Good and bad but all details. They take energy and time. Sometimes the details muck up the big picture. The important parts. The only parts that matter in the end. Love. Commitment. Respect.

Sometimes those details become too much and start to make you feel like the weight of your world is set square on your shoulders. Whether you crumble under that weight depends on so many things. It depends on being able to wade through all those details to get to the life stands still moments. The moments where time seems to freeze and you remember why you wanted all this stuff in the first place. When your child reads a book to you for the first time. When your husband holds your hand a little tighter and tells you that you are his forever. The days that your child demonstrates all those qualities that you painstakingly tried to teach them. Those moments that become an imprint in your memory. A testament to being a family. Which to me simply means having someone you love as your partner and raising children to be respectful, happy people.

What I have learned in all those years since I used to dress up in that over sized white gown and play family with such ease is that it certainly isn't...easy. In fact being a family is anything but easy. It takes lots of perseverance and work. It is hard and intimidating but anything worth having is worth working hard for.