Nine

We're just going to ignore my spotty posting in the last month, because it's all just excuses, anyhow, right?

Nine years ago today, I was at an awesome party at the beach with all of my family and friends, talking and eating and dancing and drinking until 5AM. And that day, my very best friend of all became my husband.

Fast forward to tonight, our 9th anniversary. I'm sitting at the computer typing this up, the kids are in bed, Jason is at Lowe's picking up wax rings for a leaky toilet, and he and I together have consumed enough sudafed in the past few days to start our own meth lab. My, how times have changed. The time we used to spend running together, or going out to bars, or watching movies has been replaced by reading assignments from kindergarten, following through on punishments, coaxing filthy children into a bath, picking up dog hair tumbleweeds, folding tiny laundry, and thinking that The Daily Show comes on entirely too late for normal human beings to watch.

It wasn't a gradual transition, either. It was like slamming on the brakes, turning the wheel hard enough to fishtail, and then gunning the engine to race in the opposite direction, over the course of a very defined 9 months that ended right around the day of Aaron's birth. We had given thought to being parents, but not any real defined thought, more of that montage of pictures about how it might be with kids. You know, like images of yourself taking your hypothetical child to Disney World to meet Mickey Mouse, without ever considering the trauma (and expense!) of traveling with little children, the inevitable meltdown upon meeting a 7 foot tall rodent, the need to interrupt the day for naptime while you and your spouse sit in the hallway of a hotel hoping your kids stops screaming; that sort of thing. Or maybe picturing yourself going on walks with your hypothetical kids, without considering that 50 feet from your driveway you'll already be sick of telling junior to get out of the street, get the earthworm out of his mouth, and good grief, it's 100 degrees outside and you've only gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before, and when is naptime, for God's sake?

That was a tough transition for our marriage to make. I wasn't sure we'd make it to Aaron's first birthday without retaining lawyers, and Jason will say the same. It's hard to even look back on it and make light of it, because it was so difficult. Between your life shifting at it's very core, and post partum depression, and the financial worries that go along with new parenthood, it's a miracle anyone (namely, us) makes it through intact.

But we did. I'm certainly not going to paint a picture of nonstop bliss since we went through that mess of early parenthood, but I think is was part of the fire that steeled who we are together. Since now our roles as parents tends to overshadow everything else, it's hard not to end a crappy day with your kids without feeling like a little bit of a failure. It's difficult to end a week of fielding phone calls from principals and watching a 2 year old sit on the potty for hours a day and remember who you are as a spouse and best friend.

At the center of it, though, Jason and I are in this mess together, and while sometimes it's difficult enough to bring us to the brink, for the most part, it's become really apparent to me that we complement each other extraordinarily well. We remind each that there's fun involved in all of this, and when one of us is barely hanging on, the other one steps up to whatever task needs to be done. We are each other's perspective and best friend, and at this point in our lives, it might be the most valuable thing we can offer one another. There's obviously more to our relationship, but who wants to read the icky details? Certainly not our parents, I'm sure. Suffice to say, I'm grateful and honored every day to be married to someone I respect so much and adore without end. I'm so thankful that I'm married to someone who weathered this transition with me so well, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this story.


Also, he's a really good kisser and has arms and shoulders that make my pulse race. (Ack! Sorry. I had to.)

I love you, sweetie. Happy anniversary.


Sara & Jason, 9 years ago today

Rude Awakening

Jason and I went on vacation last week, and it was decadent. Our itinerary included eating, drinking, and sleeping. If we got to see some of the city we were visiting, that was fine, too, but mostly we wanted to enjoy being kid-free for a minute. Just driving there and having silence in the car was relaxing beyond measure, and it got better from there.

While we were there, I told him "I can't imagine what I'm going to write about when we get back. Nobody humiliated me or infuriated me, I didn't yell at anyone, I didn't have to deal with anyone else's fecal matter, how deliciously boring!" (To which he replied "The weekend's not over yet!")

And then we got home and picked up the kids. Before we even left my sister's house, where they had been staying (thanks, Kara!), there were at least 3 fights between them. By the time we got them to the car, it was pure chaos, and we hadn't even gotten home and started the unpacking yet. Jason's and my vacation bliss melted away rapidly under a steady barrage of crying and bickering among the littles.

When Jason and I started dating, like everyone else, we were in "put your best foot forward" mode. We were probably in our first year of marriage before he became aware that my toenails don't naturally grow out shiny and pink, and maybe the second or third year before I decided that shaving my legs every day during the winter was far more effort than shaving them once a week (or less). Everyone's been there- you just get more comfortable with your partner, and let down more of your guard about what a real slob you are underneath it all. When I got pregnant with Aaron, I was a little embarrassed about the new issues that pregnancy brings up that aren't exactly modest, but Jason was always fine with everything, or at least he pretended to not be horrified by my constant burping and chewing on Tums and the sixty-five pound weight gain (thanks, Dairy Queen!) The only thing that was really making me nervous was the actual delivery. I mean, if you have a shred of dignity, I think we can all agree that you can package that up and throw it right out the window when it comes to giving birth. In the end, of course, everything went fine. He was not traumatized by the sight of our children being born (so he maintains), and it just became another experience that we shared. We thought that was it- that's as bonded as you can get, right?

What I did not realize at the time, is that your partner seeing you give birth isn't nearly as revealing as your partner seeing the way you parent. I think that's when the real guard comes down; the last frontier of facade is destroyed. Giving birth is just biology; any grownup involved knows you don't really have any control over it. Yelling at your kids, or getting fed up to the point where a bedtime story is just more than you feel like dealing with, or putting them in front of the TV all day because it mutes the arguing- those are real tests of who you are, and I fail those tests more frequently than I'd like to admit. They tell Jason a lot more about me (and vice versa) than me admitting that I'm perfectly happy to use the dryer as my clothes closet to avoid folding anything.

When Aaron was first born, that shock to our marriage was so difficult to deal with that I wasn't sure we'd make it to Aaron's first birthday together. But we did, and while I can't say that parenting has gotten any easier since then, our marriage certainly did once we realized that we're a team. Sometimes one of us has to come in and relieve the other one when we're at a breaking point. We spend a lot of our time on the weekends separately running errands with one kid, our "divide and conquer" method. We sit on the porch at night and commiserate about the day, or laugh about the funny stuff the kids did. We're starting to figure out how to work with each other's strong points, and when the other person needs help. By no means do we have this perfected, and it's been a long road, to say the least. But there's no question that there's been a lot of soul-baring in the past 6 years- some of it I'm proud of, some of it not, that we would never have had to reveal to the other person if we hadn't had kids. I didn't know half of these things about myself before becoming a mom; I can only imagine how surprised Jason must have been.

At this point, the only secret I've got left is my natural hair color. I'm keeping that one until I think he's ready for it.

Mea Culpa

I'm a very good apologizer. If Jason were standing next to me right now, he'd shove me off my chair and type in here "NO, SHE'S NOT! DON'T BELIEVE HER! YOU CAN'T WRESTLE AN APOLOGY OUT OF HER WITH A CROWBAR!", but that would just be him being dramatic. Because when you hear an apology from me, you can be sure that I am 100% sincere in my apology, and really feel badly about however I've wronged you, and I am owning up to my own culpability. And if you don't hear an apology from me, well, you can figure out how I feel from that, too.

A couple of months ago Jason and I were getting into one of those hissing, clenched teeth arguments. As usual, it was entirely because we were in a public place and our kids were acting like complete fools. We were tripping over ourselves in embarrassment at our kids' behavior, trying to contain them, trying to make the people around us comfortable (or rather, "less uncomfortable") by not arguing in front of them, and convinced that the other person was handling the situation poorly (me being the correct one in that assertion). After enough hissing and sneering at each other, we separated the kids and got them calmed down, which dissipated all of the anger between us. He came up to me a few minutes later and said sweetly "I'm sorry", to which I responded "thank you".

"'Thank you?' Your response is 'thank you'?"

"Well, I appreciate your apology."

"You don't think an apology back is appropriate?"

"No, because I'm not sorry."

And really, I wasn't, and even though I don't remember what the argument was about, I remain steadfast in my conviction that I was in the right, and therefore didn't need to deliver an apology. I told him thank you, and ended by telling him that I was glad we were finished arguing and that I loved him. And he gave me a kiss and smiled and rolled his eyes at me, and that was that.

A few weeks ago, we were all driving to a friend's house when (of course) the kids started acting like crazy people. Jason and I were already tense from rushing to get out of the house, the kids' screaming and arguing compounds that tension, and then I made a fatal mistake: I let him drive. I am certainly not what ANYONE would call a reckless driver, but letting Jason drive is like letting your nearsighted grandma drive. If that grandma were from a country where they drive on the other side of the road. His driving ability (or lack thereof) is one of our favorite arguments to hash out every few weeks, and always ends with him saying to me "THEN WHY DON'T YOU DRIVE?!", which always wins that argument, because it's not like I shouldn't know this after spending the last decade complaining in the passenger seat. He definitely has a point.

So the car ride over consists of everyone getting increasingly hostile, what with the bickering kids and Jason and me scolding them and my increasing frustration with Jason's driving. I try to bite my tongue regarding the driving, but it's really just building up pressure, and eventually we start sniping about that, too. By the time we're unloading our family from the car, we're flat out arguing; hissing snotty comments to each other while barking at the kids to stop hitting each other. We walk into the party and plaster smiles on our faces, and after a few minutes of pointedly ignoring each other, Jason comes up and gives me a kiss and quietly says "I'm sorry". And I said "thank you for apologizing. I don't want to argue".

He smiled and raised an eyebrow and said "Thank you? Seriously? You don't think you have anything to say 'sorry' for?"

"I'm sorry I let you drive".

Happy Birthday

Today is Jason's birthday, and it's astonished us both to realize that as of today, he's 38. How am I married to a thirty eight year old, when just blinks ago I remember putting up a "Happy Birthday" sign for my own dad's 40th birthday?

I've already mentioned that Aaron finds birthdays a very important celebration, and surprisingly, that extends to everyone he loves, not just his normal frame of importance, which usually includes, well, him . He came to me early this morning and whispered "I told daddy that he wasn't getting an ice cream cake, but that means we should get him an ice cream cake and then it will be a surprise". I had already gotten a dessert request from the birthday boy, though, and told Aaron we'd be making Daddy's cake. While we were making it, Jason couldn't walk within a 40 foot radius of the kitchen without Aaron yelling "DADDY, NO! GO OUT! DON'T LOOK!" But that kid certainly did enjoy cake making. Especially the "licking the spoon" part, which I highly recommend to any parents feeling crappy about their parenting. Yelled at your kid? Shoved them in front of the TV instead of playing with them? Don't worry- just whip up a batch of instant pudding and let that kid lick the spoon; then you can replace your guilt with patting yourself on the back for instilling such great memories, since don't we all remember licking the spoon when we were little and our moms would bake? Of course, instant pudding hardly holds a candle to homemade cookies, but to a 5 year old, it's a wash.

Harper's been feeling particularly "two-ish" lately, which means we spend most of our day counting down to naptime or bedtime. Since she spent most of today crying, yelling at us that she wanted to watch Monsters, Inc., and begging for whatever parent wasn't currently holding her, let's just post a throwback picture to a day when she wasn't possessed by the patron demon of two and three year olds. (Also, because I know their grandparents are thinking "these are lovely stories and all, Sara, but where are the BABIES? Those pictures aren't going to post themselves, you know".)

I've been trying to think of some poignant point to summarize Jason turning 38, but really, does there need to be one? We're getting older. Our kids, which should serve as a reminder to stay young, seem to instead remind us how quickly we're aging. If it weren't for how yummy Jason looks with some gray in his hair, I might find the whole ordeal mildly depressing.

The Oldest Profession

Being a contractor, you end up more at the mercy of the economy than most people are comfortable with. That being the case, you're willing to do work you normally wouldn't have considered before. Work that might be completely out of the question under normal circumstances becomes a necessary evil, something you just try to endure and not dwell on too much.

Namely, working for your husband.

Jason and I have one of those partnership types of marriages. He tends to be more of a silent partner, largely because between me and the kids, he doesn't have much of a chance to get a word in anyhow, but he's pretty agreeable and doesn't seem to be bothered by it. If he has an opinion about something that differs from mine, he'll state his case, I'll inform him how wrong he is, and it becomes a fun argument to bring up every few weeks when things get boring. He can think whatever he wants, and I don't have to agree with him or even respect his opinion, because he's not the boss of me, right?

He wasn't, until now. And now he is legitimately, irrefutably, annoyingly, the boss of me for the near future.

Jason is such an easygoing person, and he's actually taken really well to this "boss" thing, has been very kind and patient and calm, and I am mildly ashamed to admit that I don't like it one little bit. And I have one reason, and one reason only, and that's my massive, overwhelming ego.

I used to think it was really sexy when he'd spout off his engineering stuff. I'd ask him to tell me the equation for determining torque or momentum practically as foreplay. But the reason I find it so appealing that he understands these things is because I absolutely do not, and so when he tries to explain something science-y to me that I'm being paid to understand and then execute, and I don't understand, I get so frustrated I don't know what to do with myself. Well, I do know what to do with myself; I fly off the handle and roll my eyes and revert to every bad relationship habit I have developed in our decade together. I manage to goad him with all of them, until he says "maybe we should walk away from this for a while?", which is his calm and rational way of saying "you are an absolute lunatic, and I'm going to do something more appealing, like pick up the dog poop from the yard."

Desperate times.

Passive Aggressive

Even in the best long term relationships, there's always some turmoil. This is particularly noticeable, at least to the outside world, when one has a less than favorable interaction with their hairdresser. Whether it's scissors or foils or some other hairdresser mishap, the results are never guaranteed, even if you've been giving 25% tips for 5 years.
What is guaranteed is the following:
If you're looking for some quality alone time away from your spouse after said spouse has had an unfortunate visit to the hairdresser, any of the following conversation starters upon spouse's arrival at home should do the trick:

1. Wow, I wasn't expecting that!
2. Well, it's only hair.
3. Are you happy with it?
4. Did you mean to do that? I mean, is that what you were going for?