I found this photo of my mom that I took on the day we moved from our old house on Brookhaven Drive to our new house (well, new to us but 100 years old) on East 8th street. I was in the 7th grade. All I cared about was meticulously transferring my Paula Abdul posters in a Trapper Keeper to my new closet door in my new room, and confirming multiple times that the Nintendo would work in our new house. I did not care that my parents had done all the tireless work required to find a family of four a new house to live in. I didn’t care, because I just didn’t know. They made it seem so easy. Look at my mom right here, so deep into the moving process that she’s up to the part where you pack the food. She probably even reminded my dad to drink that last sip of orange juice in the fridge because she knew he would be annoyed if she poured it out. She definitely rolled her eyes while doing so. She had probably just days before done something like allowed 9 prepubescent girls to sleep over and scream at the top of their (our) lungs until 5 am, then after 1 hour of sleep made everyone breakfast. Or finished sewing my sister and I some kind of amazing couture outfits out of any fabric we wanted from the sewing department of Wal-Mart (it was spelled with a dash back then, I wonder why they changed it). She never said a curse word, and barely ever raised her voice. She’s so full of love. She will probably make a snarky remark or point out one of my grammatical mistakes in response to this, because she never wants to admit to her amazingness. But all I know is that any of the patience I have with my own kids today comes from her. So a million times, thank you mom.