Job #1, check.

There's a jar that sits on our kitchen table marked "Family dinner questions".  It's been a staple of every dinner for a couple of years now.  We fill it with questions that provoke conversations (not the standard yes/no answers I got way too frequently before the jar appeared) and it can only be done when we are all at home (hence, a complete family conversation).  The questions are anything from "if you could create your own school, what would it be like?" to "if you could invent your own ice cream flavor, what would it be?" to "what do you think your parents were like when they were kids?".  Simple questions that often provoke some giggles and sometimes some disagreements.

The other night, the question was: "Who do you trust the most and why?"

Unanimously. 

Simultaneously.

And within a breath of the question being read.

"Mama."

I'm not much of a smiler.  I'm not much of a blusher.  Hell, I'm not much of a self-prider.

But I was all three in the minutes that followed.  Honestly, I'm feeling all of it as I write this.

My people aren't hurting in the love and support categories.  They are all incredible human beings, and that means they attract those kind of people to them.  My girls are surrounded by people who would, and have, dropped everything to help them.  There have been times when I felt the failure of doing the wrong thing for these, my completely right daughters.  There have been many nights when I broke under the pressure of trying to keep up with their needs and dreams.

And the moments when it is shown to me that they don't mind my frequent missteps flabbergast me every single time.

They trust me.  Most of all.

They have options, and they choose me.  They have evidence of my complete ineptitude, and they choose me.  No one has ever done that before - chosen me.  And I cannot imagine a better veteran victory.

These girls don't always like me.  They may not always respect my dinner choices.  They could, one day, not pick me for driveway soccer.  But they trust me more than anyone else on earth.

I must be doing something right.