I married into, quite possibly, the biggest family of worrywarts I have ever met in my life. I’m often amused by how stressed out my husband or my mother-in-law will get themselves over things I consider trivialities. And, I admit, I catch myself being judging about it sometimes — my brain wants to believe they’re doing it to themselves a-purpose, rather than accepting that it’s part of their mental make-up.

Well.

I AM a lot better at accepting that fact now — I believe in loving the whole person, and the whole people of my family here are pretty spiffy folks. And while yes, I am human enough to be vexed by their ‘problems’, I remind myself that I’m not prize pig myself and that they are VERY patient with me. And on the whole, it’s a good set of relationships with a lot of love and support.

There’s one area of support that my mother-in-law has been needing lately, and that’s tending to Lilbit. It’s summer break here in the United Kingdom, and the thought of just the two of them for the six weeks had stressed her out to a point of… well. It stressed her out to a place that wasn’t that happy. So I came up with a viable solution — I could work from her house again. It’s not an issue to me, and I knew that just being in the house would do her brain a lot of good. And I must say that things seem so far, so good thus far today!

It’s also a trial run for something we’ve not run past her yet — we’re back in consideration about trying for another kiddo. We tried last year to no success, so we’d kind of gotten to a meh point on the subject. Then I started thinking about my physical health and how I will be better once my body quits having periods, which made the NEED ONE MORE BABY kick into overdrive. If we can’t catch, we can’t catch and I’ll opt for a hysterectomy, but I hope we do. And part of the supporting my mother-in-law in watching the kiddos so we can work was, of course, me planning to work from here to support her supporting us. So hopefully this will put her brain in a happier place, and not make her fret about the future of the business — we’re trying to push her husband into retiring/slowing down, and we don’t want her to think that us having another child would interfere with us getting work done.

Anyways, I guess the point for me is that it’s edifying to know that giving another person support doesn’t necessarily mean doing anything to rob my spoons. It pleases me that just being physically present can do so much for my mother-in-law’s peace of mind, same as her presence in my life and that of my husband do the same thing. Maybe it doesn’t cost anything ’cause it’s a part of my life now? I know that there are certain things and people whom I grind activity with to a point where socializing with them or doing them goes on the zero-spoon list. Whatever the case, I’m glad I can do it.

I hope everyone is doing well.

<3