He sure is a character!!!

We always were really big on teaching the kids good manners. A "Please" and "Thank You" go a long way after all. The teenagers, recently forgot to use them with Mom and the evil Mom I can be would flip it around and not give in to them. Can be done super easy actually, like when the one asking me "Can you pick me up?" and the answer he got was "Maybe" until I got the "please, Mom, can you pick me up?" or the "I need...." that was disturbing and instead was left hanging mid air until it was turned into a "Mom can I PLEASE.... " yup can you please, may I please, could you please all those work and they better be ended up with a Thank You!

I may seem like a pain with it, I may even seem "old fashioned" but we do believe in Manners and such to this day. We were raised with them, we raise our kids with them. Where am I going with this? Not where you may think....

A funny little anecdote to this may just be recently at Band Camp. Even so the boys may not care that we drove 1.5 hours to visitation day and bringing real food or realize it in that exact moment, getting this phone call hours later really meant the world in it's own way.

I hear the NFL theme song coming from my phone and I know, it's the little E. I answered and said "Hello" E: " Mom, the cookies you brought me, is there Peanut butter in them"

M: "yes!"

E - screaming in my ear: " Victor, you can't eat them, they have Peanut Butter in them"

E:" Mom, can you make them without?

M:" yes"

E -again screaming in my ear: "Victor, the next time she makes them , she will make them without Peanut Butter and than you can have some"

-- whilst I can see the biggest smile on his face because he will be able to share with his friend--

E: "Mom, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR EVERYTHING! love you, bye"

the phone went silent, he already had hung up and in a way, I was really glad that he did hang up on me so fast because the tears puddled up in my eyes so fast. The sound of sincere appreciation and the tone of his voice told me he meant every last syllable of "Thank You so very much for everything!"