10 Nicest Things People Have Done for Me

Let me tell you something. I’ve led a pretty charmed life. It seems like things always work out well for me, and I always have lots of people always eager to help me with anything I need. I’ve been very lucky and very blessed, and this is in no way a complete list! But here are 10 things that immediately spring to mind:

1. Our neighbors coming over on the spur of the moment the other night to watch our kids while we rode in the ambulance to the hospital with Pablo. We barely know these people – only to wave and say hello, and borrow tools from each other once in awhile. We don’t even know their last name! Yet, they came into our house and shooed us off, and helped Kayley put the little girls to bed, and then read them stories when they were upset and crying. Pretty cool.
2. On my birthday last year, I was going out for dinner with a bunch of moms I know locally. It was just a mom’s night out thing, and not to celebrate my birthday. Most of them didn’t know it WAS my birthday, I had thought. Still, though, they got me gifts, cards, and had the staff sing me Happy Birthday. I was so happy! It was one of the best birthdays I’d had in a few years!
3. Right after we had our second set of twins, our mothers of multiples club that I belong to got donations from the club members of diapers and wipes and stuff, and someone brought over a HUGE care package for us – over 500 diapers, CASES of wipes, baby toys, several meals for us, along with stuff for ME, like a Target gift card and some pampering Bath & Body Works type stuff. It was mostly just stuff being passed along from their own twins that they didn’t end up using, but it was invaluable to us! I didn’t have to buy diapers for a few months! Five hundred diapers lasts awhile, even with newborn twins. It was one of the sweetest gestures I’ve ever been been the recipient of, and it’s one of the biggest reasons I do so much for the club now – designing and maintaining the website, working the sales, etc.
4. When I moved out of K’s dad’s house, I was sort of on my own in doing so, and my friends all rallied around me, helping me get moved, tracking down a new bed and desk for me, and getting me all set up in my new place. One couple bought me a cordless drill as a housewarming gift so I could put together my new furniture, hang curtains, etc. Another couple quickly unpacked and set up just enough stuff that it felt homey my very first night. They got my TV hooked up, hung my chili pepper lights in the kitchen and set out my cookie jar and Kitchen Aid mixer, and put the sheets and comforter on Kayley’s bed and set up all her toys. It was all very sweet, and really warmed my heart.
5. Any number of collections my friends have taken up when I was getting married/having kids. My girls always have my back!!
6. In the spring of 2005, I was trying to figure out how I was going to manage my life with two sets of twins, and I found a big, badass quad stroller online. At the time, it was over $500, although it’s come down quite a bit in price since then. I knew there was no way in hell we could afford something like that, since at the time we were paying THREE mortgages and barely keeping our heads above water. My girlies from a message board quietly gathered up donations from among themselves, enough to “get us started” toward our stroller. They encouraged me to blog about it too, and so I posted the story on my blog, not really expecting anything. I was stunned when the donations started pouring in – $5 here, $10 there – within about three weeks, we had more than enough to buy that stroller. The day it came UPS was the biggest thrill for me! I got it assembled and couldn’t WAIT to go somewhere with it! Having that stroller really changed my life, granting me freedom that I NEVER would have had without it. For close to two years, I went shopping several times a week, pushing that bigass stroller and pulling the shopping cart behind me. I am woman; hear me roar! The kids are too big now for me to use it much – I just don’t have the strength to push all of them in it! If we all go somewhere as a family, we take it and Paul pushes it. It actually makes me sad to not use the big stroller – I loved the security in knowing that all the kids were safely contained. And I swear to you, every DAY, I said a little “thank you” to everyone who sent money for us to buy it!
7. Michelle/Felicity from Did Someone Say Chocolate/Brighter Days sent me a big box that came FedEx the day before our wedding two years ago. All my girlfriends were here helping me get ready for the wedding and we set it aside, thinking, wow! I wasn’t expecting any wedding presents from folks in Bloggersville! We all sat down the day AFTER the wedding and opened it up, fully expecting a set of towels or something. It was something so much greater, though. She sent us a big box of twin girl clothes that had been donated to their church, which they weren’t able to use. These were NICE clothes – Gymboree, Children’s Place, Baby Gap stuff in brand new condition – dozens of matching outfits. We are JUST NOW using some of them, because most were sized 4T. Mallory wore all the jeans, and now I’m excited that the girls will finally get to wear them! You know how I am about matchy match clothes for my girls! It was SUCH a kind gesture for her to think of us, particularly at a time when we really needed it. I was so touched by it!
8. My parents’ neighbors have a couple of kids who apparently get tired of their toys quickly, because they are always sending over practically new toys to my mom and dad’s house for them to pass along to us.
9. My father-in-law giving me his (barely used) Palm Pilot when he heard I wanted one. Because I have such a busy life that requires a gadget to schedule it, right?
10. Kayley’s dad going above and beyond doing stuff to help my kids. He certainly doesn’t have to do that, and it would be perfectly understandable if he wanted nothing to do with them. But he’s the kind of guy who cares about my kids because they’re Kayley’s siblings and, dare I say, he cares about them just because they’re MINE. They think “Kaywee’s Daddy” is a pretty cool guy, and that’s a great thing, I think.