Metamorphosis

My alternate title would be "Butterflies and Funerals."  Or, "The Hungry Caterpillar", not by Eric Carle.

Harriet led us on a big adventure through the life cycle of a butterfly.  I had promised her that I would get her something very cool for trying out for the school talent show since she had been so brave and so crushed when she didn't make it.  In an effort to not add any more toys or plastic to our house, we went for a live gift.

We ordered the Painted Lady Butterfly habitat in the mail which came with a coupon for live painted lady caterpillars, which we then ordered.  It still feels weird to me that you can order live animals to be delivered to your mailbox.  The order form asked for a phone number so that they could call to tell you when they would be delivered.  I was waiting for the phone call, but should have been more vigilant in checking the mail right away every day.  At 5pm one day, we discovered a hot little box of caterpillars in our mail box - no phone call!  We prayed that they hadn't gotten too hot and would live.  We took really good care of them and followed exact instructions.  Thankfully, all 5 caterpillars did make it.  No funerals yet.

Being a biology major, I had an idea of what I had gotten myself into, but I was still surprised at how much work this project really turned out to be.  You have to be committed if you want to raise butterflies in your house!

Here's the photo tour.  It's long.  The whole thing took about a month.  Harriet bonded with these little critters and we took tons of pictures.  (She is the butterfly girl after all - you should see her bedroom!)

the caterpillars come in a self-contained cup with complete nutrients.  this part was easy.  we just had to make sure to keep it out of direct sunlight and A/C

 

The caterpillars spin this web kind of stuff.  It helps protect them from predators when they spin it on a leaf in the wild.

 It was so cool to watch them become attached to the top of the cup and hang down very still.

 We were surprised to find out that they do NOT spin a chrysalis.  (Yes, it's a chrysalis, Eric Carle!  Not a cocoon!!) Their skin splits open from top to bottom and the chrysalis is inside and kind of folds around the caterpillar.  Wild stuff.

 The chrysalis becomes iridescent.  So cool.

They do NOT stay still in the chrysalis.  I had to move the cup a few times and every time I did it, 2 of the chrysalises went wild and crazy with shaking.  Another defense mechanism.  I'm just curious how it is able to move because the caterpillar becomes liquefied inside the chrysalis while the dormant butterfly DNA takes over and starts forming the butterfly cells.  Nature is really freaky cool.

(this is a really blurry picture, but if you look closely at the little black spots, you see that they are caterpillar segments.  This was also new to me... the caterpillars molt off body segments to go from 16 caterpillar legs to the 6 legs of the butterfly.  I never thought about that before.)

Time to move them to the butterfly habitat so that when they come out of the chrysalis they aren't in a tiny cup.

The first butterfly is born!

 

 and... a few more.  They guarantee that at least 3 of 5 will turn into butterflies.  All 5 of ours made it.  We must be butterfly geniuses or something.

 It took about 2 days for all the butterflies to emerge.  Then about 2 days later...

 they mated.  "got stuck together"  Butterfly _ _ _
Oh my gosh.  Seriously.  I guess when you only live 4 weeks, you've got to get a move on it.

The instructions say to keep dropping sugar water on fresh flowers like dew.  After going through many piles of sticky wilted flowers we decided to switch to orange slices.  That was much better.

But, we had 5 butterflies - definitely an odd man (woman) out.  It was pretty obvious that we had 2 sets of mates and a 5th wheel.  I thought they seemed to be a little mean to the 5th.

I wondered how long it would be before they laid eggs.  Turns out, not long!

 (the eggs are the tiny blue dots on these flowers)

 Harriet spent lots of time on her way in and out of her room, stopping to hold her butterflies.

 Guess how long it takes before the caterpillars hatch?  Not long.  I kept reading that I had a week on these things (laying eggs, hatching, etc), but they always seemed to happen in less than 5 days.  One day Harriet woke up and yelled "they hatched!! and they're all over!!"  The baby caterpillars were tiny enough to crawl through the mesh of the butterfly habitat.  They were all over her dresser.  She carefully picked up each one on the edge of a paper towel and put it in a caterpillar container.  She was pretty determined that none of them would die and none of the eggs would be wasted.  I tried to have the biological conversation with her - that especially tiny animals, like insects, lay many many more eggs than will hatch and many many more caterpillars hatch than will survive to adulthood.  She wouldn't have it.  She wanted to save every single one.  They were her baby butterflies.  Oh dear, I could see us at the top of a slippery slope.

look how tiny!!!!  barely bigger than a speck.

The instructions say to release the butterflies a few days after they emerge.  Harriet knows they live for up to 4 weeks so she thought it would be good to keep them around long enough to meet her cousins coming for the family reunion in 2 weeks.  This is how we ended up with eggs and caterpillars.  I'm thinking the early release might have been better, but it was cool to see the baby caterpillars too.

 The tragedies started right before the cousins started coming.  One butterfly (whom she named Flowr) was found fairly still on the bottom of the cage.  We thought she was dead, but discovered she was just starting to die.  I really didn't know if this was going to be the worst idea I've ever had - to let Harriet raise an animal and now watch it die, but figured it might be good practice for things to come in a household full of elderly pets.

She gently took care of Flowr for about a day.

She tried to release her but found that she was too weak to fly away.  We didn't want her to be eaten by a bird after all that, so we kept her in a safe spot away from the other butterflies.  She finally did die and we had... yes... a butterfly funeral.  (There is a beta fish buried in our old yard in Salt Lake.  What can I say.)  Cousin Janie had arrived by then, so the 3 girls went to the front yard (the only place we have dirt,) and buried her in the flower bed.  Harriet was stoic and seemed to be ok with it even though she was sad.

Harriet, Grace, and Janie's makeshift memorial.  

We decided we didn't want to watch any more of them die, so it was time for release even though the rest of the cousins weren't here yet.

Harriet named each one.  We released them one at a time so she could hold them all.  Luckily our neighbors have a really nice flowering bush that crosses our fence line, so we let them go near it and they hung out there for a while before fluttering away.

R.I.P. Flowr
Farewell to Orange (who had a broken wing tip but was still able to fly away), Sweet, Sugar, and Flutter

And, those cute tiny little caterpillars?  Well, we aren't very good at baby caterpillar care.  The entire nursery has died.  Quite the circle of life lesson here.  I might be a tiny bit relieved that none of the baby caterpillars made it even though it would have been cool to see them grow up into those giant caterpillars we got in the mail.

Eclipse

And no, I'm not talking about a lame vampire book.  This is about a real, actual, solar eclipse!  I know, I know,  it's not fresh news.

I'm totally behind on blogging, but I've got to sneak a couple of lost posts in.  

Let's see, this was back on May 20th.  I know most people either saw or heard about the eclipse.  We were pretty excited about it at our house since Albuquerque turned out to be exactly in line with the eclipse and we would have the best seat in the world for it.  The kids are also totally into "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and there is an eclipse in the show that they think is pretty cool.  So, they (especially Harriet) couldn't believe we would get to see a real one.  We wish we had planned ahead a bit and just ordered our own eclipse viewing materials, but figured we'd head to a common place and get to see it.  How many nerds can there be in Albuquerque?  We figured it would be a relaxed and easy thing to do.

 

(cool "Earth" hot air balloon)

The Albuquerque Balloon Museum was having a huge event to come and watch it and were handing out free eclipse glasses if you paid to get into the museum.  Doors open at 4pm, eclipse due to happen at 6:30pm.  We got there at 3pm only to find a line of about 3000 people waiting in a line wrapped around the sun-scorched parking lot to get in the doors.  That line did not move.  They were ACTUALLY selling the tickets out of the ticket booth with only 2 people working like it was just a normal lazy day with a few visitors.  CRAZY.  They had no idea there were that many nerds in ABQ either.

(kids trying to stay under the sunshade)

We stood in line in the hot sun for over 2 hours.  David went to his car and got the reflective sunshade out and we took turns holding it over the kids so that they wouldn't burn into little crispy critters.  We started to worry that we wouldn't get glasses or that we wouldn't even get to the front of the line before the eclipse started - it's not like you can see it later or somehow the moon is going to wait for everyone to be ready.  In this world of being able to do everything in an instant or pushing pause and waiting til your convenience, it was kind of awesome to be completely at the mercy of the universe's time clock.  No speed up, no pause, no rewind, no replay, no same thing same time next week.  It will happen once. exactly. when it happens.

Finally, we actually made it to the front of the line.  By some miracle, they still had some glasses left.  We had some time left to make our way through the museum too, and check out the live feeds they had going inside that were streaming from different telescopes aimed at the eclipse.  

But, let's face it, you kind of just want to see it with your own naked eyes.  Well, not too naked, of course.  I may be a little more blind after taking a few too many sideways glances to see what it looked like without the glasses. 

We had planned to possibly get some food at the museum, but they only had one vendor and the line to get the overpriced gourmet pizza that the kids wouldn't eat anyway was as long as the line to get into the museum.  They started melting down and begging for dinner.  I couldn't blame them, I was starving too and the snacks we brought were losing luster fast, but we made them push through and be ok to wait (until 8pm!) for dinner.  We thought we had it made.  

Then... JUST as the moon was moving right into center position, Harriet announced she had to pee and it could not wait (of course, we had 20 minutes previously had the "does anyone need to go to the bathroom?" conversation.)  What incredible timing Harriet.  Wow, the universe aligns and you have to go.  I told her that I would rather have her wet her pants in my lap than miss the eclipse that we had struggled for hours in the heat to get a chance to see and likely won't ever see again.  She couldn't believe I was serious, but I WAS!  She did end up being able to hold it just long enough to see the "ring of fire" as the moon came to the center.  It was just a tad spooky to notice that it got darker and cooler as the moon came across to the center.  We took it all in as much as possible and then we high-tailed it for the bathroom.  P.S.  If you ever want to use a public restroom and have the whole place to yourself despite 1000's of people at the event - go right in the middle of a rare eclipse.  You could hear a pin drop in there.  

Ahh... the celestial events this summer.  Only a few weeks later Venus was set to take a trip in front of the sun before sunset, so we kept those eclipse glasses handy and got to see it take it's path.  That was pretty cool.  I resisted the urge to get play the Police song lyrics "There's a little black spot on the Sun today...."

Grace wraps up 3rd grade

Grace, student of the month:

End of year class party:  

 (Grace, with friends, Jason, Ethan, Ricky)

(they have a red-eye fix, but nothing that takes pizza sauce off of teeth.  oh Gracie...)

I'm going to miss working with these kids.  I have been going in every week since Christmas to do a little advanced math class with Grace and 4 others.  They are so great and so excited about learning.  They begged me for more math every week and begged me to have quizzes and got excited when I said we'd be getting to fractions.  They will be like the kids I used to teach in AP chem if they keep going.  I had 3 girls in the group.  I hope and pray that they will continue their enthusiasm for math and science and won't be struck down by the mysterious middle school virus that makes the girls quit taking math classes.  Wow, onto 4th grade!  

Harriet graduates from kindergarten

David hates using the term "graduation" for anything but high school or college.  I guess he thinks it needs to mean the end of something, and the end of something lasting longer than a year.  But, really, graduate just means move up, or move on.  (I have a nice picture of a graduated cylinder in my mind.)  Harriet has definitely given kindergarten all she's got and is ready for 1st grade!  She is graduating her guts out.

Oh my goodness, this kid has come so far this year.  I kind of already mentioned a lot of it in her birthday letter.  But, I'm still in shock at how advanced she has become compared to how she started the year.  I'm floored with her reading.  I can't believe how she has taken off with it and now just reads books to herself for enjoyment.  I'm really so thankful for her teachers this year and for all they have done to nurture her, motivate her, and push her forward.

So, her kindergarten graduation was really an awesome day for all of us.  I think it was harder on me to see her finish kindergarten, than to start it.  I really officially have BIG KIDS now.  No one little here any longer.  We've got little people with adult teeth who can read here folks.

The kids read a poem about kindergarten.  Harriet had the 2nd R.  I wish I had videoed the whole thing, but I just grabbed the last of it with Harriet.  I can't believe she stood up and did this!  Another thing she would have never done 9 months ago...

 This picture says it all!  Look at that cute little monkey with her teacher!

The teachers hosted a big lunch for the kids after the ceremony.

Harriet brought home a perfect report card.  She had many things along the way that she had been "working on", or "in progress."  Finally, she has mastered everything for the year, including the 11 reading lists required for 1st grade.  According to teacher measurements, she has also grown 2 whole inches this year!  I kind of already knew that because she went to wear the darling dress from her first day of kindergarten the other day and it was absolutely too small and too short.  So great, but also heartbreaking that she is getting so big.

I will also miss this darling group of kids.  I helped out in their class at least once a week, with several whole days when the teacher had a sub and the EA wanted some back-up reinforcement.  I have seen how far they have come as well and also know some of the incredible struggles that some of them have with home-life, learning, and other personal things.  It is really hard to realize that some kids have to start with so little and work so hard for what comes so naturally or is given to others.  I really wonder how some of them will make it to adulthood and what kind of lives they will have.  I wish there was more you could do.  If anyone has done their absolute best for them it was the kindergarten teachers this year.  They could not have done more for this bunch, that's for sure.  Have I mentioned how much I love our school?  I really do.

Well Hattie, really, I am so proud of you and really can't believe all you have done this year.  I am so excited to see what you do next year and can't wait to watch you learn and grow some more.   Congratulations on your kindergarten graduation!!

Got Talent?

Grace and Harriet both auditioned for the school talent show.  They only take 10 acts.  29 auditions were made.  Cuts happened.  Poor Harriet, she was sick the day that the letters went home.  Grace got off the bus and looked so sad and had her head hung low.  I thought she hadn't made it.  No, she was sad that she had to be the one to bring Harriet's rejection letter home.  Kind of cute that she was upset for Harriet.

But, Grace, did make it!  Yay for Grace.  Harriet was pretty disappointed that she wasn't chosen.  She was one of two karate demo's and the other kid was just plain more advanced and better, so he made it and she didn't.  School of hard knocks.  I guess it's good to learn young.  Still, totally heartbreaking for a little kindergartener who gingerly mustered enough courage to try out.

Here are their audition videos and then Grace's performance.  (when blogger gets their video upload feature fixed, I'll post them!!!  but, I'm putting up this post anyway so I can have it in the right place)

They had 2 assemblies and I recorded both. The first is a worse video, but best performance for Grace.  The second was much easier to record, but she didn't play quite as well - she was extremely nervous the second time because it was the assembly for the upper grades and all her friends were there, plus her grandparents, and her guitar teacher came too!

Harriet:  Short Form One

Grace:  Saint Agnes and the Burning Train (by Sting)

May. Kids. Much.

I'm tellin' ya.  May is going to be the end of me.  I remember feeling this way last year too.  I thought it was mostly because I had 2 kids at 2 different schools so the end of year activities were doubled and in no way coordinated.  I found out that having them at the same school only means that the venue is the same, but the activities are still doubled, and still, in no way, coordinated.  When you add on the overlap of summer activities that start in May (volunteering regularly at Galloping Grace, swimming lessons, etc.) with what we had already committed to do each week (regular volunteering for me at the school, evening lessons, church activities, etc.)  You have a recipe for... a flaky mom, a house that could be featured on Oprah (not in a good way) and sheer exhaustion every night.  It's pretty rare that I fall asleep in the FIRST show we start watching at bedtime.  It's happened every night for at least 2 weeks.

Actually, I don't say it all to complain.  I relish in all of the hustle and bustle.  I am grateful that my kids are active and involved and that we are spending our time doing things like this instead of what some of the alternatives could be.  I usually don't feel too overwhelmed, and I'm getting better at letting less important things slide (sorry babe - grocery shopping and making dinner DID make it to that list too.) 

Enough said - here's the first installment for May (second to follow later, complete with Talent Show, Kindergarten Graduation, etc.)

Kindergarten Zoo Field Trip:  This really was a trip of a day.  We spent the day with the little girls Harriet likes in her class.  Gracie, Ava, Christiana, Emma, and Hannah.  The girls were so funny about getting their picture taken at every turn.  They were quite the little supermodel posers.

 Look at the cute mommy chimp cuddling her baby chimp in the background:

 funny girls - held hands as they walked and skipped

and, of course, the rhyming and clapping games

 

The kids were supposed to inspect the animal habitats to see if they were similar to the habitats they studied in science.  Harriet's assigned science habitat was the abbysopelagic layer of the ocean.  No "abyss" at the zoo, so we settled for watching the sea lions.

We had such a blast seeing all the animals though and even got some special treatment from a kinder parent who is also a zookeeper in the elephant enclosure.  She gave the kids a special lecture about elephants and then showed them how the elephants get treats and stuff during the day.  We were supposed to go on a "backstage" tour, but there were too many kids to do it.  

 The polar bears rarely disappoint with their cuteness.  I know this guy could swipe me down with one paw and eat me for breakfast, but I kind of still want to snuggle with him on the couch and watch a movie.

 Harriet ended the day with a splash.  Literally.  Seconds after I took this picture, I turned my head to talk to another mom and then heard a scream.  I looked back to see Harriet running towards me, soaked from head to toe.  She fell in the duck pond.  Apparently, a lady walking by was right there, and grabbed her and pulled her out.  David and I kind of wonder if she accidentally bumped into Harriet and knocked her into the pond since she pulled her out and disappeared without trying to find me in a matter of about 5 seconds.

  

It was seriously traumatic for Harriet and she scraped her arm and got a bad bruise on her hip.  She doesn't like to talk about trying to become a duck or swimming with the fish.  But, I hope it will be a 

fun memory for her later when she gets over being embarrassed and hurt.  

Then, onto the gym field days (play day.)  I am still peeling from my sunburns I got this week.

3 legged races

balloon stomp - I personally tied 120 ballons on 120 kindergarteners and then cut 120 strings off their ankles.  really?

Coach "D" spraying all the kindergarteners with the hose.  She is ruthless.  These poor kids are so tiny.  They were already soaked to the bone, blue lips, teeth chattering, had just dried off their best with their towels, and here she comes with the hose.  She is hard core - you don't mess with her.  Even the parents are scared of her.  I kind of like her actually.  I've grown to appreciate her, but she still scares me.  I was 5 minutes late this morning and a little afraid...

Both girls were chosen from their classes to serve on student council this year.  They really loved it and faithfully went to their early morning meetings twice a month.  I was particularly proud of Harriet doing something like this, being so shy as she is.  For the end-of-year service project, the council organized a giant food drive and were able to fill 3 giant bins with food to donate to the local food bank.  Then, to top it off, their advisor (also Harriet's kindergarten teacher) offered a field trip for the student council members to go work at the food bank.  I was seriously disappointed that out of 70 members (2 kids from every class) only 10 kids went to the food bank.  I was really proud of my kids for wanting to go and working very hard while they were there.  They felt so good about their service that they have been begging me to go back and also begging their dad to go with them too.  The administrator there did some math with the kids at the end.  They ended up sorting 10 pallets (500 pound bins) of sweet potatoes and feeding 6000 people dinner.  Not too shabby.  Grace said "I'm proud."  She is usually proud of herself (being the extrovert and center-of-attention girl that she is,) but I was really proud of her too and happy that it made her happy to do this work.  

(some of the sweet potatoes were seriously infected with black mold - hence, the face masks.)

Mrs. Johnson and crew:

Probably the highlight of last week was our ward mother/daughter activity-day-girl party.  It was a really rare moment that I got to spend some quality one-on-one time with Grace.  Even though she doesn't like the girly girl stuff, she had a great time making a bow for Harriet (I convinced her to wear it for this picture), giving ME a manicure, and making a few other fun crafts.  Hats off to our amazing activity day leaders - they really went all out and made such a special night for the girls and their moms.  Thanks Grace for taking me and doing all the stations with me!

Whew... it's the 20th.  We might make it to the last day of school on the 29th!!

Happy Mother's Day; 2012

I'm writing this post as I listen to Grace and Harriet beat the crap out of each other with foam light sabers. Harriet complaining that Grace doesn't fight fair.  Grace complaining that she is getting hurt (by her little sister with the foam light saber.)  Ahhh... the sweet sounds of motherhood.

I have very recently been reminded of one of the reasons I have chosen to remain a "stay-at-home" mom even though I rarely have kids in the house now, and let's face it - I rarely can be found actually at home.
I had such an anxiety attack when Harriet went to kindergarten.  I really felt an identity crisis and wondered if I should really go back to work or find a new career or at least try to make a little extra money somehow while the kids were at school.  I've definitely been a "working mom" before, whether working part or full time.  I worked when they were both babies and through the toddler years, and felt a little crazy not doing it when I didn't even have any kids at home anymore.  I've always loved working, why wouldn't I do it now that I have the time?  It seemed that no matter how I thought about it, I always came back to the conclusion that I wasn't going to try to find a job of any size or kind.

The past 2 weeks, I have found myself, literally, staying at home with my kids - 24/7.  We had the visitation of a very nasty virus (thank you, kindergarten child, for sharing.)  Harriet got sick first, missed 3 days of school before the weekend hit, and then Grace picked it up JUST as Harriet was getting better and missed 4 days of school the next week.  Even though it was a huge inconvenience to stay home and cancel my 50 things I had planned for both weeks, it was really great to not feel much of a responsibility to anyone or anything else but my kids.  (with the exception of Cowboy Max... I did have to cancel on Galloping Grace a few too many times and felt horribly guilty and bad about that.)  But, despite my guilty feelings,  I think the rest is what keeps me from working right now.  I love being available to my girls at the drop of a hat.  I really do.  It kind of feels even more important now that they ARE gone from the house for most of the day - that when they DO need mom, I'm there.  I am really glad that my number one job is "Mom" and that nothing eclipses that or pulls me in the opposite direction.  I feel very grateful and lucky that David does make enough to make ends meet and that we are both in agreement that the "extras" just aren't worth it for us.  I'm not saying I won't leave room to adjust things later, but for now, this feels right.

Well anyway, it was super sweet to open the hand-made gifts and cards from my kids this morning that they mostly made at school or church.  There's nothing like reading what your kids really think about you - that they've written all by themselves.  It's such a bonus that they still seem like they really love you even after just spending more than a week at home with you when everyone has been sick, ill-tempered, and short on sleep and patience.

Harriet wrote a card by herself at home and one at school.  They read:

but For mom,
mad by Harriet
my deer
mom
you are
so much
much
nis you
are the
best mom

and

Happy Mother's Day
You are the best.
(complete with portrait of Harriet and me holding hands in the sunshine)

I am really touched by the efforts that her teachers put into helping the kids make great gifts.  They took pictures of the kids, helped them make frames, floral arrangements of silk flowers in handmade vases, and a darling paper teacup with a real tea bag inside.  I've been in class when they do big projects like that - it's not for the weak.

Grace had an assignment at school to write me a letter.  It's laminated in a big card.  She drew a horse, a saddle, and a riding helmet on the front:

Dear Mom,
I hope you're having a great Mother's Day.  You are the best mom!  You take care of me when I'm sick, you, volunteer at school.  You're awesome!  When I said that you deserved a Coke I really meant it.  You are the best mom in the world!  Love, Grace

She also made me a coupon list at church today:

Mom,
Have the best Mother's Day ever!
You are awesome

Cupons
1.  1 free coke (I will buy)
2.  1 free muschue (massage)
3.  1 free bike ride with me
4.  1 free coconut lotion (I will buy)
5.  1 free day of dog sitting

all good till 5/14/13

To give a little background on Grace's letters:  I took Grace and Harriet to the pharmacy on Wednesday night, when David was out of town, to restock the medicines.  I was buying ginger ale for both of them because it seems to be nice to drink when you're sick.  We really don't drink pop anymore at our house, so it either has to be a special occasion or you have to be sick to get one.  We were walking down the drink aisle and I thought out-loud to myself "oh man, a Coke sounds so great right now!"  I hadn't slept much in days and the sugar and caffeine rush was very tempting.  I rarely drink it anymore because it really makes me sick, but I do love it.  I think Grace was feeling bad that she had been driving me crazy all day and begged me to just get one - maybe hoping it would put mom in a better mood.  I resisted and told her it was fine.  But, it must have made an impression on her that a Coke sounded really good to me.  How sweet of her to want me to have one.

The other reasons that her letters are really sweet is that she does not part with her money willingly.  She loves to save it for big things she has her eye on, so for her to offer to buy me something is pretty cool.  The fact that she offered to buy me coconut lotion is even more incredible.  This kid HATES the smell of coconut.  If I do use the coconut lotion I have, she shrinks away, gags, tells me to go wash it off, begs me not to use it, tells me she can smell it from downstairs, etc.  So, it's true love from my 3rd grader to have her offer me all these things - all on her own.

Bottom line.  I love these girls and I'm super grateful to be their mom and I hope I can do the job justice so that when they are grown I haven't ruined the awesome human beings that they are right now.  Thanks kiddos for such great Mother's Day presents.  They are perfect.  I love you, you little stinkers!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms I know.  

No matter how you do your job, it's a big one;  

I'm grateful for all you do to help me do mine too.