Mama's girl

Another part of my not so perfect family is my mom, Gigi. Her real name is Teri, but almost everyone calls her Gigi, even my friends and their kids. She lives about 2 miles from us. When I had Addison, Andy was deployed and she took a job at Ft. Drum so she could be close to us and help me with the baby. Andy was apprehensive when he first heard my mom was going to come live near us.  I need to give him a TON of credit here.  If I found out that my in-laws were coming to live near us to ‘help’ I would have thrown a royal fit and threatened to move.  He has since learned that this was not such a bad idea.  She helps more than I can even describe.  She cooks, cleans, babysits and even helps keep my sanity (sometimes).  After selling our house at Ft. Drum in one month in the worst housing economy ever (a huge shock to us) we moved in with her because a house was not available on post.   Andy was deployed so it was just the kids and I (Addison and Drew at the time).  During this trial, we learned that we CANNOT live together but close is awesome!  When we moved to West Point, she applied for a transfer, got it, and moved with us.  So here we all are. 



Since we are not so perfect, there is a flip side to this…  She is not so perfect either and this leads to some bad stuff too.  Don’t get me wrong, the good FAR OUTWEIGHS the bad, but it is still there.  Just like the rest of my life.  She works full time and is tired at the end of the day.  Relaxing with 3 wild kids around is not always that easy.  On a bad day/week, she is really cranky.  Don’t go near her (maybe this runs in our family).  Gigi comes over almost every night.  Like I said earlier, Andy is gone most nights for work or school so it is nice to have her here.  I am sure she likes eating dinner with us instead of alone.  The kids also like her more than me.  This has been confirmed by all of my children.  Gigis don’t always follow the mom rules and this leads to my kids favoritism.  I am okay with this.  She is pretty awesome.