A day like any other. And like no other.

It's an interesting day in Levyland. My wife already wrote about my latest revolution of the sun (here), so I'll save y'all the annoyance of hearing any more about me. I'd rather talk about her.

I was privileged to be there when we welcomed our eldest son into the world, and again when his younger sister and brother joined the family. I watched Debbie go from friend to girlfriend to wife to mom. I watched her come alive when a squirming ball of joy known as Zach was first placed in her arms. She was always destined to be a parent, a natural in figuring out what our munchkins needed, what they didn't and how we both needed to navigate whatever it was that they chose to throw at us.

She's my parental GPS, my guide, my force of gravity. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder how she keeps all of our family's balls in the air. Were our roles reversed, I'd be dropping pretty much everything.

Yet she somehow does it without looking like it's difficult. Things Just Get Done. I'll never know her secret, but I'll always be thankful it was her path I crossed, and it was me who she chose.

Happy Mother's Day, sweets. May every other day of the year* be as richly filled with goodness as today promises to be.

Your turn: What is is about moms that makes them so...treasured?

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* Tangent alert: Mother's Day is, like so many other days on the calendar, a manufactured holiday, a cheap marketing ploy designed to sell more stuff. I'm not against the concept of valuing mothers (or dads, or love, or even the jolly red guy and the egg-dropping rabbit, if they float your boat), but I do feel somewhat uncomfortable when quite legitimate sentiments are force-fed to us in the interest of filling more boats with inventory and more cash registers with plasticized cash.

From where I sit, this regularly scheduled commercial imperative takes the focus off of the thing that matters and instead puts it squarely on the gift, the thing you buy, the guilt that wraps around you if you don't. And what of the other 364 days? Well, Mother's Day coverage doesn't deal with those: all that matters is today.

Not in my world. Every day matters. And while it's nice to have one day where you make a special effort to remember, it's even nicer to find small ways to deliver the same message every other day of the year. Because if you save it up for this one day, you're kinda missing the point.