I often take my parents, my sister, and my in-laws for granted, who have all at some point provided free child care and babysitting for me and my wife. My mother-in-law, God bless her, has helped raise all three of our boys. For the last ten years, she has watched our boys two to three days each week. Some Friday’s, she takes the boys home with her and brings them back the following Monday, giving my wife and I a weekend alone to go on a date night, sleep-in, and catch-up on errands or chores around the house without a child nagging for a snack or complaining that their brother has ‘the’ toy they want to play with right at that moment.

Without my mother-in-law, I don’t know if we would have had three boys. Our lives might be totally different without her.