What makes a family?

I love the impromptu moments in life.  Tonight I was sitting around with my kids and we got on the topic of childbirth (only the girls were with me).  I told them all the gory details of birth, the stuff only a momma can share, that from the looks of their frightened faces told me I may have shared too much....but better to be prepared someday!  Anyway after a lot of laughs we started talking about memories we had about the kids baby (or since a few weren't babies when we adopted them) little kid years.  All the poopy diaper disasters, the stories of ill timed vomit and the crazy dance moves only a preschooler can come up with had us all all roaring with laughter.  Its funny how the most mundane days become the best memories.  Its stuff only a family can share because we lived it.  Some of it would embarrass us if we told it to someone outside the clan, other things were had to be there moments, that others would not find half as hilarious as we do.  But mostly it reminded me why I am spending most of my adult life raising 8 kids from all over the world, because these the moments that make us.  Its the one's who remember the crazy thing you said or did, the chorus of "OH YEA!" when someone starts a story with do you remember when....   There is something special about people remembering the moments that defined us.  So many kids grow up in foster homes or institutions going from one caregiver to another, no one knows their story, or their story is a piecemeal work of an old picture or a fragment.  A family however remembers the cute stories, the messy stories, the crazy stories, the I am glad you survived that stories.  All of our kids will have a dad and a mom who will be crazy excited every time their lives change, crying as they graduate remembering seeing them struggle over that math problem or watching a wedding with anticipation as we remember the first dates.  A mom and dad who can't wait to squish the cheeks of the grand kids some day and share the memories of them to their children.  Talking over the memories I realized life is fun, crazy, messy, heartbreaking, and meant to be shared.  Family is who you make memories with, who loves you enough to laugh about the bodily fluid that landed on them or smiles when they think of your crazy past.  Sometimes its biological, sometimes its adopted, sometimes its the friend who did not officially move in but was there all the time, but its always who is present and witnessing the current to most likely laugh about later. Or maybe its just my strange bunch of humans that bless my life....because seriously some of our memories are kooky.....