My mum, the book agent

I have an amazing family. I really, really do. Wise at any Age includes many mentions of them and how they have influenced my own wisdom growth spurts. My mum gets quite a few special mentions throughout and perhaps that is why she sent out an email to all her co-workers inviting them to place order for the book through her to help reduce shipping costs (She ended up with 30 orders!) or perhaps it's because she's an incredibly good mother and that's just what good mothers do.

Either way, I admit it brought tears to my eyes when she told me all this work she was doing to promote my first published book. She sent me the email so I could see how she did the 'pitch' - seriously, mother's make great agents - and at the bottom she included her own little version of my 'author bio':

To provide a bit about Kait and her published book . . .

The book is a non-fiction and is well written.  Kait comes from a family of fluent readers and in 2011, became the only person within our family and amongst our friends to beat her dad at number of books read in the year.  She did commit to breaking the record so she would be able to say she had at least once in her lifetime out read her dad.  Kait read 67, Julian 65.  {If you are interested in the list, I have her list along with a critique of each one}   In 2012 Julian took back the lead as he read over 70 books; 2013 is looking fine as well with 49 so far and no vacation taken yet which affords him even more time to read.   

My parents often get asked what they did to have their kids turn out like my brother and I have. I know we are by no means perfect but I also know that both of us have talents that have never been squashed and aspirations that have never felt hopeless.

I'm sure there are very specific things I could say that my parents did and I often do provide examples of a cause and effect nature to share how I came to learn a particularly good lesson. But over and above all of that the thing my parents did was love me unconditionally. They loved me regardless of the giant mess my room was or how terrible my marks in math were or how obnoxiously angsty I know I must have been as a teenager. They love me and they believe in me and they always taught me to love and believe in myself too.