Last November, I attended a Marco Rubio rally in Milwaukee with my mom and brother. Just as Marco was about to take the stage in front of a crammed room of supporters, my mom nudged me and said she was feeling faint.

Keep in mind, we were standing, packed like sardines, in the very front row. There wasn’t a chair in sight, and I didn’t think we could pick our way through the crowd to find one. As I was weighing the options, Marco began his speech. A few feet in front of me, a Rubio staffer herded a pack of photographers to the foot of the stage; I took the opportunity to tap him on the shoulder and quickly whisper the issue to him. No problem, he said, as he deftly helped her sit on the floor next to him, assuring me he’d take her to a chair momentarily.

After they left my sight, he did just that. Another staff member brought her cold water, and a volunteer checked on her often for the duration of the rally. She was incredibly well taken care of, and recovered quickly.

When Marco’s speech ended, he and his wife Jeanette chatted and took pictures with the crowd. It occurred to me that I had no idea where my mom had been taken or how to find her; I asked Jeantte, who I’d been talking with, if she might point me in the direction of who I should connect with to find out. She immediately offered to track her down herself. I started to protest, but she waved me off with a smile, insisting it was no problem. And then, the would-be First Lady set off to find my mom.

As it turns out, my mom found us instead. As I was telling her that Jeanette Rubio was off looking for her, she reappeared. We laughed about it together, Jeanette made sure my mom was feeling alright, and we thanked her for her kindness and the superb care given by the Rubio campaign staff.

Our experience with Jeanette gave me some valuable insight into the Rubios themselves. Because while theirs is a family that’s been catapulted onto the national stage, they haven’t lost the human touch that makes them so relatable. The moment I sheepishly explained my predicament to Jeanette, she went into “mom mode.” As a mother myself, I recognized it immediately. Suddenly, the most important thing was reuniting a lost little 31-year-old girl with her mommy, Presidential campaign or not.

While I sense Jeanette Rubio to be a bit of a reluctant campaigner, I’m certain she’s an invaluable asset to both her husband and the campaign itself. She’s compassionate. She’s kind. She’s a problem solver. She’s a mom.

She’s a woman all Americans would be proud to call their First Lady.

Parents: what is going on with Valentine’s Day boxes?

When I was in grade school, we made them too, of course. I remember cutting an opening on a discarded cardboard box, drawing hearts and arrows, and setting it on my desk during a Friday afternoon class party. We passed out two-inch Hello Kitty and Power Rangers cards with cherry heart-shaped suckers stuck through the sides.

But 2016 is not the 1990s.

We got a note last week in my first-grade daughter’s backpack:

“Bring a handmade Valentine’s box for our class party on Friday!”

Super.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in 2016, “handmade” does not mean finding an empty Amazon Prime box and covering it in construction paper. From the photos I’ve seen online this week, it involves hours spent meticulously designing and executing exact replicas of Elsa’s Ice Castle.

Don’t get me wrong, I applaud you moms and dads who can craft live-action puppies that eat Valentines and wag their tails after each deposit. I admire your industriousness! I envy your creativity! I marvel at your dedication!

But I think it’s a teensy bit insane.

I have three kids who keep me running from morning until night. They’re great kids, but they’re young and needy. The first-grader needs help with her homework, and to tell me about how Lily chased Charles on the playground today, who by the way broke his pencil during math, and Mom! Are you listening, Mom?

The preschooler needs a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—but not that jelly, and why is it cut in two pieces instead of four like he so clearly meant to order during the second episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse this morning?

The toddler really just needs a nap.

Point being, my house is bustling with childhood. These three little people keep me busy and crazy and utterly fulfilled.

It’s why, when I remembered that Valentine’s Day assignment, we dug through our supply of stickers and markers and pom poms at the kitchen table and made the most of it. We laughed at the funny faces we could make glueing googly eyes onto glittery hearts. We searched for elusive vowels in the box of alphabet stickers. We stamped patterns onto construction paper greetings.

We didn’t stress about making The Greatest Valentine’s Day Box of All Time.

Our kids don’t need our perfection. They need our time. They need our attention. They need us.

And that’s something we all can give.

I first took notice of Sen. Marco Rubio when he gave a speech at the Reagan Library in 2011, which is worth the watch to learn what he stands for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BypW8Ev3lM

The difference between Rubio and someone like Donald Trump is that Rubio is truly principled–a conservative through and through–whereas Trump is the definition of a populist. Do I think Rubio has a chance against that? To be honest, I’m not sure, because so many people fall victim to the sheer entertainment value of a guy like Trump. I genuinely hope Rubio can win the nomination, because it can be dangerous to have people in power who are so easily swayed by opportunism and ego. Of course, I recognize all politicians, inherently, possess a certain level of both–but in Trump’s case, that’s basically all he is. Read a transcript from one of his campaign rallies, or even his responses in GOP debates; when you take away the bravado and bombast, his words are worryingly empty.

What do I like about Rubio? To me, he represents the direction I want my political party to go. He’s young, principled, articulate, unapologetically Christian, and deeply committed to American ideals of freedom, prosperity, and strength. He’s strong on foreign policy–not someone who would make weak deals with terrorist nations, or put up with any shadiness from them. Domestically, I am a huge supporter of his view that the Department of Education should be abolished, and Common Core torn up and thrown out. He’s an advocate for states’ rights, which is what our founders intended in so many instances that are now handled (often badly) by the federal government.

Rubio is not perfect–no candidate is. I think he had a misstep with immigration reform in 2013 in the Senate, but he openly admits it was a mistake. But here’s the thing: give me a candidate who I might disagree with on some policy issues but is honest about it and I am much more willing to concede our differences and still support him. That’s in stark contrast to a candidate like Ted Cruz, who tries to be all things to all people and comes across as pandering and slippery for it.

Ultimately, I like Rubio’s energy, his ideals, and his passion for the American dream. It doesn’t hurt that he’s the only candidate polling above Hillary in potential general election matchups, either. I want a conservative in the White House in 2017, and he’s the best shot we have at making that a reality.  It’s likely his bigger battle is winning the primary, especially with a guy like Trump sucking all the oxygen out of the room and endless attacks from “establishment” candidates like Jeb Bush and John Kasich.

If ever there was a candidate who could weather all that–who could survive the circus the Republican primary has proven to be–it is Marco Rubio, and I’m proud to support him.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

My husband and I had been married for just over three months. We lived in a cute little one-bedroom apartment a few hundred miles away from our families. We were busy—he finishing up graduate school and I working odd hours at a local television station—but we were making our first home together, and we were happy.

Maybe I felt a little too overconfident, still basking in that “honeymoon phase.” Maybe I just didn’t think it through. Either way, for my first Thanksgiving as a married woman, I volunteered not only to cook a meal with all the trimmings—I’d invited my in-laws to join us.

Which, as you might imagine, included my mother-in-law.

Who, as you might also rightly guess, is a darn good cook.

No pressure there, new daughter-in-law. 

I made a plan. Prepared side dishes ahead of time. Unboxed the wedding china and serving dishes. Cracked open my Better Homes and Gardens red and white checkered cookbook.

But, there was one glitch I didn’t count on: the turkey.

I’d selected it carefully at the grocery store earlier that week, my new husband humoring me as I pawed through a freezer full of shrink-wrapped Butterballs, looking for one that spoke to me. I’d thawed the winning candidate slowly, and when Thanksgiving morning dawned, unwrapped it, cleaned it meticulously, and slid it into the oven on a satisfied note of triumph.

I’ve got this.

When my in-laws arrived a few hours later, the hearty scent of slow-roasting turkey greeted them at the door with me. They gushed. We hugged. I swelled.

It didn’t last long.

As my husband and his parents settled in to the living room a few feet away, I grabbed a baster and opened the oven. I squeezed the bulb—and looked in horror at the liquid I’d just drawn up. It was pink. Pink! Something was terribly wrong.

I figured I had two options: fix it, or ask my mother-in-law for help.

I closed the oven door, grabbed the phone off the counter, and hurried into the bathroom. Cheeks flushed in shame, I dialed the number my husband and I had laughed over when we’d unwrapped the turkey hours before. 1-800-BUTTERBALL.

I was calling the turkey hotline to save Thanksgiving dinner. 

A cheerful voice answered. “The juice,” I rasped urgently. “It’s pink. It’s the first time I’ve cooked a turkey…and it’s pink.”

“Oh don’t worry! That’s a very common problem,” she answered kindly. “Did you remove the neck from the cavity before you placed it in the oven?”

“Well, of course I—,” I faltered. The neck. Oh no. The. Neck. Had I even known I had to fish that thing out first? “Um…what if I forgot? Is it ruined?”

She gently assured me it wasn’t, told me to remove it now and cook the bird a little longer, and no one would be the wiser. Thanksgiving dinner, she soothed, would not be a turkey-less feast.

Thankfully, she was right.

Now, almost a decade after that anxious phone call when so much of my confidence as a new wife and daughter-in-law was riding on a misbehaving turkey in my tiny oven, I wish I could talk to the woman from the Turkey Talk-Line again.

We would laugh together at the absurdity of it all, at how I’d panicked over something as trivial as a turkey when my table was filled with so much love, acceptance, and support. 

I’d thank her for talking me down from the edge of fear, for coaching a new wife through a harrowing moment in her early marriage.

I’d even boast a little about how I’d made pan gravy from scratch, earning points with my new mother-in-law that boosted my confidence in my fledgling domestic abilities.

But mostly, I’d say thank you. Because whether she knew it or not, that woman—that voice of reason—saved my first Thanksgiving.

And I am forever grateful.

This post also published on 11-25-15 on Bison Booties