FHVN!!!!!

I wanted to start out sharing a childhood memory. I have so many, but I am going to try to single it down. I have been thinking alot lately about the way I parent. I like to think I am doing a good job, but who really knows. My one big hope for my children is that they will have good memories of growing up, with me as their mother. (I really do have other hopes for them, but this is a big one.) I hate to hear people talk about their horrible childhood and how it is the reason they are doing drugs, robbing, whatever. (I think it is a poor excuse for making a bad choice. ) So anyway, I was looking through some of my pictures, we had recently taken the kids to the coast for a family reunion on Dwight's side. I myself, have many memories of going to the beach with our family. But one thing in paticular stands out in my head. It is thinking of my dad scrubbing our feet off before we could get into the car. We always had a clean car, it had nearly white seats. We could never eat in the car, we would have never left trash in the car, or our clothes in the car, or our backpacks, or even our shoes. (These are all the things that are currently in my car) I remember making fun of dad for making us clean our feet off. He had a can of gasoline to wash off our feet with, incase we had tar on them from the sand. But then, as I was going through these pictures from our trip I found this one that Dwight took of me and Calvin.
Let me explain..... we had taken the kids to the beach that day, as we had the day before. It was cold on the beach, so everyone was just playing around in their clothes. When we got back to the house, I noticed that all my kids were COVERED in wet muddy sand. I really didn't want to have to clean it out of the carpet or the tub, or the washing machine. The beach house we were staying in had a hot tub on the side yard. So I had an idea to have the boys strip down to their underware, I would hose them off, then they could quickly jump into the hot tub to get warmed up. Then while they were in the hot tub, I could hose down their clothes. It was BRILLIANT! I thought, anyway. Dwight decided to capture the moment. And now looking back, all I can think was, "so dad washed off our feet. He never made us strip down and hose us down." Aren't I doing a good job at being a mom? I should maybe write a book.