Manners, I am doing it right.

Staying at home with your children is very rewarding. Having a preschooler and toddler is sometimes exhausting. So my husband and I made a deal. He doesn't have to take both, just one. Usually this is my daughter, fine with me, it will quieter while shopping.

My husband had gone to a friend's house so he could do some work, my daughter in tow. Our friends have 9 daughters (God bless them), one close to our daughter's age. So they took her for the day swimming. She would be fine, I told myself, she had had swimming lessons thanks to my father.

She had called before coming home, begging to spend the night. I missed her, when she came home, she told me her whole day. She was exhausted.

My husband had told me how she was. She was polite, using her manners I hoped I instilled in her. I was raised with the upmost respect for my parents, it wasn't an option. Please and thank you were and still are part of my requests. Yes mams' and no sirs' were answers I knew to be said.

I see kids these days without them. People are amazed when my daughter says "Excuse me" when passing someone in the store. She doesn't have the plague, even though people's reaction to this would seem that she does.

I sometimes forget how good my children are. Everyday seems a different battle, I wonder what my mother would do. Then, that day came when I realized I was doing it right, for once.