My Side of the Story

So on Friday you read all about how Matt and Kylee met and ended up like this:

In Kylee’s post, she mentioned that I asked a lot couple of … let’s just say unusual … questions about her before she came to visit us. I thought I’d use my post today to explain my side of the story.

First of all, this guy:

He’s a great son, and I love him very much, but he has occasionally enjoyed taking the opportunity to test just how hard my hair color has to work to cover my grays.

In addition, none of my guys have very good communication skills. I’ve tried to instill this ability in them, believe me, but I’ve had very little success.

You see, before they met, Matt and Kylee had both spent a lot of time in prayer, asking for God’s leading to find their mates. The problem is, no one told me that. I believe I’ve mentioned before that our children are a gift from God, and we aren’t just going to hand them off to the first pretty face that asks for them. So when Matt mentioned that he’d met a pretty girl when he visited his roommate’s church, he didn’t get any encouragement from me.

Nor did I encourage him when he told me they were texting and messaging on facebook. When he told me he wanted her to come visit sometime, I gave a very noncommittal “That’s nice. Maybe someday.” And then he told me he wanted her to visit the next month, during Vacation Bible School.

Did I mention that they’d only actually met twice? We knew nothing about this girl. HE knew nothing about this girl. What was he getting us into? I fired all these questions at Matt, along with asking him why on earth he wanted to get to know this particular girl better.

His answer? “Because I like her and she’s hot.”

Seriously, why was I worried?!?!?!

Since he clearly had not been doing much of a vetting process, someone had to do it. I thought it was important to know more about this girl; about her intentions; about who was paying for her to come to Florida; about whether or not she had a roundtrip ticket ... Aren't these the kinds of things any sensible mom would ask?

I also felt that it was important to establish the rules. If she was coming to help with VBS, then I wanted her to help. I didn't want or need some empty headed groupie standing off to the side of the platform making eyes at Matt while he was supposed to be leading songs and setting up games. 

At any rate, Kylee made it past all my objections and managed to win over the entire family. She brought boots and a hat to go with our cowboy theme for VBS. She cheerfully helped in the class I assigned her, even though the teacher was ... well ... less than pleasant. (That was not my fault!) She was everything we could have hoped for and more. She was fun and pleasant and she fit into our family incredibly well.

Fast forward to one year later ...

Kylee's now an important part of our family, and someone we couldn't possibly live without. 

As for the boys' communications skills ... well, we're still working on that.