14Feb
Wow. You guys had some pretty darn hysterical Valentine’s Day presents. I think my two favorite was a car door opener and the personalized earrings to Caroline who doesn’t have her ears pierced and it wasn’t her name on the earrings. Awesome.
Sadly, only one of you could walk away with the $50 gift certificate from The Vintage Pearl. This time it was lucky number 96…
And the winner is…
ALLISON!! And she totally deserved to win after getting free schwag from her boyfriend’s work. Have fun shopping, Allison. Buy yourself somethin’ reeeel perty like!
Thanks everyone for participating and giving me a few laughs over Valentine’s weekend.
And a special thank you to Erin at The Vintage Pearl for sponsoring such a fun giveaway!
15Feb
WARNING:Â Some of these images are graphic and may not be suitable for all audiences.
Chris’ scary snowman has died. Or rather, has been brutally murdered.
Chris, of course, blames me.
As if.
As if I would have gotten tired of walking past my kitchen window at night and thinking a strange, large, very white, very fat man was standing in my backyard holding two sticks.
As if I would have kick-boxes the crap out of the torso of that snowman until he fell over backwards, splitting his frozen head open, and spilling his guts all over the backyard.
Like the animal that he was.
Yeah, sure Chris. Because I’m so brutal and violent like that.
…but I wouldn’t put it past Bean.
“Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…”
“Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…”
“Mom, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Momma, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…”
“Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Lois, Lois, Lois, Lois…”
“WHAT BEAN????”
“Hi.”
15Feb
A funny thing has been happening at my house in the middle of the night. Bean Man has been waking up around 2:00 AM because his medicine for his ear infection and cough wears off and so he can’t breathe. He generally lets me know this is happening by softly calling out to me, “Oh, Mother Dearest? I hate to bother you with this insignificant detail, but I seem to be unable to breathe.”
Either that or he screams his head off, sending snot flying around the room at warp speeds.
Its a toss up.
Now, on a normal night, Chris and I take turns going in to see Bean. If I go one night, Chris will go the next. It doesn’t happen to often cause Bean is an Olympian when it comes to sleeping. But when he’s sick, we use the taking turns rule.
But for the past two nights, whenever Bean wakes up, Chris seems to softly say to me, “Katie, my love, do you think you could go this time?  I would really appreciate your kindness if you could let me sleep a bit longer.”
Either that or he pretends to be deaf and not hear the baby crying.
Its a toss up.
But, I haven’t held a grudge for two reasons.
Reason #1: Chris is terrible with Bean in the middle of the night. (Sorry, Sweetie) He just doesn’t understand the in-and-out method of parenting in the middle of the night. You’re supposed to run in, stick the binky in Bean’s mouth, and then run back out before he wakes up completely enough to know what’s going on. But Chris…well…he lingers. He swears he doesn’t do it, but I can hear him in there. He talks softly to Bean. He makes the “Shhhh….” noise. He pats his little head. And then he gingerly and slowly puts the binky in his mouth. By this point, Bean is completely awake and has reached a Level 5 Trauma status. It’s pretty awful.
Reason #2: I have been sleeping late in the mornings. Normally, Chris and I also take turns getting up early on the weekends. Beaner wakes up at 6:00 AM on the button, so Chris gets up with him one weekend morning and I get to sleep in and then I get up with him the other morning and Chris gets to sleep in. We take turns. We were excellent kindergartners. But lately, with Chris “sleeping through” the midnight action, I’ve taken the liberty of sleeping in. Chris, seemingly understanding that enough sleep for me is vital to his existence on this earth, hasn’t had a problem with this.
And this little dynamic is how we have stayed happy in our marriage. The total comfort in knowing that we have known each other for so long, that we have become so in tune to each other, that we can adjust and readjust together. Marriage is like a dance. You ebb and flow together. We make decisions together without even having to utter a word.
But then there are those other times in your marriage. Those times when you don’t want to ebb and flow together. When you don’t want to know each other so well. When you, frankly, want the other person to just look the other way for a while.
For example, say you’re sitting on your couch. Say you’ve had a brutally stressful day, complete with a crying sick baby and major life decisions that make you want to bury your head in the snow. And say you make the very adult decision to sit on said couch for an hour with an entire bag of Valentine candy and eat until you can’t move.
This is the time when you want your husband to look the other way.
This is NOT the time when you want to make a collective, group decision as to whether or not you should eat that bag of candy. This is NOT the time for your husband to assume what you both want is for him to take the bag of candy away from you. This is NOT the time for the two of you to ebb and flow together.
Also on this list of things you don’t want your husband to be apart of: eating ice cream out of the container in the middle of the night (spoon, optional), the decision on how long you can go without shaving your legs, watching The Notebook for the one millionth time, and super sizing an extra value meal. These are private events. But I haven’t used the bathroom without a person in there with me in weeks. I haven’t had a shower in months without someone – man, baby, or dog – poking their head in for something they need.
Privacy is not an option in my house.
So, in these instances, I don’t want to dance the finely tuned dance with Chris. I don’t want to adapt and work with him, like we did for Bean this week. Instead, I just want him to go away. To disappear. Or, at the very least, to pretend he doesn’t notice the chocolate smudges all over my face and hands.
Quiet dignity, folks. I’m all about the quiet dignity.
