Owned

We have a dinner tradition in our family. It’s a little hokey, and maybe when we have three teenagers they will roll their eyes and sigh about it, but for now, it works, and we like it. At dinner, we go around the table and everyone says what the best part of their day was. It’s simple. It’s enlightening. It’s entertaining. Often we also go around and share the worst part of our day. Sometimes we also go around and say what we are thankful for. Sometimes our responses are variations of the same answer. “The best part of my day was going for a long run in the Arboretum. The worst part of my day was the call with a funder that was so bad that I had to go out for a long run in the Arboretum to clear my head. I am thankful for good running shoes.” Sometimes I hold Jack up and speak for him in a low voice, all ventriloquist style, and say the best part of the day was burping or laying naked in the sunshine or chewing my hand, which never fails to get big belly laughs from Ella and pleas of “More! Talk like Jack some more!”

Today as I dropped Jay off at school (which is almost always the best part of my day) Jay asked me to pick him up after school. I told him I would try, but that I really had a lot of work to do and didn’t know whether I could take off from the office in time to pick him up. He nodded his head in understanding. Then he said, “If you did pick me up from school today, when we have dinner tonight and talk about the best part of our day, then I’ll say it was you picking me up after school.”

Stop. Let’s pause right there. That moment. That was the exact moment that I realized that I was OWNED by this boy. Because instantaneously I mentally began jettisoning items from my to-do list, rearranging my schedule, pushing up phone calls and weighing the option of simply quitting my full time job in order to be a professional to-school and home-from-school walker person. What would my business card look like? Would I have to craft a mission statement?

I beamed. I told him I would be there. I sighed, knowing that I wouldn’t get to all of the things on my to-do list. Eh. That’s what Mondays are for, right?

It’s Just Thursday

It’s not our wedding anniversary. It’s not his birthday or Valentines Day or Sweetest Day. It’s not the anniversary of some date in our relationship that means something to us, but no one else. It’s just Thursday.

It’s Thursday. And today, like most days, I woke up to a cup of hot coffee on the nightstand and the sounds of Chris cleaning and talking to the kids, explaining some this or some that. That is not why I am writing. He was awesome this morning, just like he is awesome every morning, and has been for the more than ten years we have been together. I am lucky.

I have a spouse who, when I screw up, he says, “It’s o.k., I understand.”
When I am in a black hole of confusion and have lost my way forward, says, “I believe in you.”
When things aren’t going right at work, and I can’t solve all of the problems of the organization, and I cry tears of frustration, he listens quietly and nods supportively.
When I say, “I just need a break,” he says, “How about tonight?”

I am incredibly lucky. I am thankful to him. And I am thankful for just Thursdays.

Please go to sleep. Please go to sleep. Please. Go. To. Sleep.

It’s been a harrowing three days, fraught with danger, excitement and temper tantrums. Many, many temper tantrums. It turns out that the “terrible twos” are aptly named, actually.

I have been single parenting this weekend while Chris was up at the North House Folk Craft School in Minnesota learning how to make baskets out of ash trees, and let me tell you something.

Holy hell.

I never, ever, EVER want him to leave again. Somehow, he does this day in and day out. He manages to keep the kids, the dog, the fish, the houseplants and himself alive, on a regular basis, whether I am travelling or home. Me? I am now only a shell of my former self.

To whit:

- Three temper tantrums before noon today.

- I can not seem to remember to keep the fish fed, or to turn on their light when I am supposed to or turn off their light when it has been running for 24 hours straight, because look! I remembered to turn it on the first place, o.k.?

- I have cooked one meal in four days. It was meatloaf, and even Ella wouldn’t touch it.

- Jay has survived on crackers, fruit and atmospheric dust, as far as I can tell. I do not know what he has eaten.

- Ella has developed her own form of temper tantrums that I am ill equipped to deal with. I am a pretty mellow person. So when she starts slapping her head and screaming, red faced, at the top of her lungs that SHE! WANTS! THE! RED! SHOES! THEREDSHOES! THEREDSHOES! I don’t know what to do. Should I give her the red shoes? Is it even ABOUT the red shoes? If I give her the red shoes will it set a precedence for being a weak parent when I already told her that she can not wear the red shoes because they don’t fit anymore forchristsakes and plus they are for wearing with fancy dresses and we are just going to the sandbox? How do other parents deal with this age? Do they also secretly wonder if their child is possessed and start calculating how much Benadryl they’ll need to get a good night’s sleep?

- I have never dosed anyone with Benadryl who was not fighting an allergic reaction.

- But come ON. Am I the only who has wondered?

- And now you see why Chris stays at home with the kids.

Even husbands make mistakes

I’ve been making a lot of mistakes lately. Embarrassing mistakes. Emails sent out with appalling typos, conference calls in which I use the wrong name when addressing someone, declaring it to be Wednesday when it is actually Tuesday, that sort of thing. It is often because here at work I am going a million miles an hour, and even when I re-read my writing before hitting “send”, my brain is already on the next item of my to-do list and my editing is at most perfunctory and usually worthless. I cringe when I have to pull up a sent email and find the grammatical atrocity sitting in my sent folder.

So I was surprised, but not shocked, when I got home yesterday at 5:30 and Chris was mildly annoyed at me because I said I would be home at 5 and now dinner was late and cold. Only, I hadn’t told him I would be home at 5… had I?

Him: Yes you did. You called me and said you were leaving the office and would be home by 5.
Me: Um, no. I didn’t. I tried to call home, but no one picked up.
Him: You called my cell phone and we talked. You said you would be home by 5.
Me: (growing increasingly irritated but also very confused and beginning to doubt my own sanity and memory.) I didn’t call you. We did not talk. I called home, but there was no answer.
Him: (Equally irritated) Yes. You did call.
[Pulls out his cell phone to get the time stamp]
Me: (Thinking self doubt thoughts: Maybe I did call… I don’t remember calling… maybe I am losing it. Perhaps the job is getting to me more than I thought…)
Chris: (scrolling through his call list) You called me at…. Hmmm. Huh. I don’t know this phone number. I don’t know who I talked to. Huh. Well, whoever she is, I told her I loved her and she’s probably at home by now with a very confused spouse.

Chris has been making a lot of mistakes lately…

The Home Stretch

We’re in the home stretch, with classes wrapping up for the semester in about three weeks. I am down to four final papers, three presentations, two books to read and one final exam. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter, and by December 18th when I hand in my last paper for the semester that light is going to be blindingly bright for one very pasty, very disheveled me.

We are down to the home stretch. Because this is by no means a solo effort. People often ask me how I manage work and school and being a mom. There is no way, no way, I could do what I do without Chris. When I finally walk across that stage in May, it’ll be because he has been supporting me every step of the way. From putting on a pot of coffee for my late night cram sessions to taking the kids out for the evening so I could write a paper to bringing Ella into the office for a nursing session. I know I don’t sing his praises enough. That’s because we’re married and dude, seriously. Mush = ick.

But, yeah. He kinda rocks.

Thanks, babe. Now how about some more coffee?