07May
Tomorrow morning at the butt-crack of dawn, we’re going to be heading to the hospital so that Gracie can get tubes in her ears. I feel really good about it. Gracie hasn’t had a doctors appointment since Thanksgiving when she hasn’t either had an ear infection, a double ear infection, or fluid in her ears. I am so happy that she will have some relief from the constant ear aches, and that we might have some relief from the constantly missed work.
This afternoon, I had a voice mail from the doctor’s office asking me to call them back to answer a health questionnaire for Gracie. Since I teach, it is really hard for me to step out and take a personal phone call, so I sent Chris a quick email and asked him to call the doctor’s office for me. He emailed me back an hour later and all his email said was, “That was hard.” When he got home from work, he once again told me how hard the questionnaire had been. Finally, when he said it again over dinner, I asked him straight out, “What exactly did they ask you?”
Following is the question and answer session Chris told me he had with the nurse. I dare you to read it and not wet your pants.
Nurse: How old is Gracie?
(Correct answer: thirteen months)
Chris: She’s still a baby.
Nurse: How much did Gracie weigh when she was born?
(Correct answer: 8lbs, 2oz)
Chris: She was medium sized.
Nurse: How much does Gracie weigh now?
(Correct answer: 21bs)
Chris: She’s about the weight of a watermelon.
Nurse: How tall is Gracie?
(Correct answer: 29in.)
Chris: She’s pretty short.
Seriously. These are the things my husband knows about our daughter. It’s frightening. I told him that we have to get there early tomorrow so that I can correct our paperwork so they don’t dispense the anesthesia for a short, medium-sized, watermelon weight baby.
02May
I’m having one of those weeks where my brain seems to be switched off. I keep sitting down to blog, but nothing comes to me. I sit down to talk to the kids or Chris at the end of the day, and I can’t even think about what happened that day to tell them. At work, I go to say something to my students, and I can’t form the words. Yesterday I had a student take a calculator back to a math teacher that I borrowed one from, and I could not for the life of me think of the word “calculator.” I kept standing there holding it, trying to come up with the right word. Like a dope.
I’m not quite sure what has made my brain shut down this week. I have been doing an extra amount of writing lately for various things (check out my latest column for Southern Weddings!), and I’m sure that’s contributing to it. Every day I get up at 5:00am, teach all day, then write all night, sleep a couple hours, and do it all again.
Truthfully, I expected to run out of words and thoughts a LONG time ago.
So tonight, I’m going to distract you from the fact that I’m not really saying anything at all in this blog post (what’s new, right???) by posting pictures of me with the kids one night this week. On Tuesday, I took a mental day off when I got home from work. We had PB&J for dinner, we played out in the backyard, and after the kids went to bed, instead of writing or working, I just sat on the couch and read my book. I didn’t turn on my computer or check my phone. I just zoned out for a night. I think my mind needed it.
What’s been nice is that Chris has really stepped up this week and taken over to give me a little break. He’s come home from work a little earlier. He’s here to help give the kids dinner. He’s done all the cooking this week. He’s tucked Bean in every night. He’s just really given me a break when my brain needed it the most. And the crazy this is that I didn’t even have to ask. I love that we are to that point in our relationship when we just sort of instinctively know when the other needs a little extra support. I think that’s when marriage becomes almost like a dance, as you adjust and respond to your spouse.
Tonight I was a time keeper for my school’s track meet. I came home late, sweaty, and exhausted. But coming home to my hub-a-dubs who picked up the slack at home without missing a beat made me smile. I guess exhaustion is better survived with a good partner by your side.
24Apr
I can’t remember a time when my life has been this orderly. For the past two weeks, I get to work early like always, ready to tackle my to-do list, but I end up sitting there trying to come up with a to-do list. When I come home, I get dinner going and then begin to look around for the chores that always need to be done, and I find there’s just not that much to do. It’s the first time I can ever remember being this caught up both at work and at home. It is really freeing up some of my time. Now at school, instead of busying myself with paperwork, I am able to pay more direct attention to my students and I’m enjoying them more than ever. At home, instead of doing endless tasks, I’m sitting on the floor more playing with the kids. Life’s been pretty good lately.
While I’ve been going through this time of less stress and more free time, Chris has been going through a period of more stress and less free time. Work has been stressful for him these past couple months, and I think he’s bringing that stress home. He’s been picking at things here, complaining about things here, and stressing about things here that just aren’t that important in the grand scheme. I think when real stress hits, it infects all other areas of your life and that is definitely what’s happening with him.
Quite frankly, I’m getting kind of tired of it.
I feel bad saying that because I know how patient Chris always is with me when I’m the one with a stressful load. But the thing is, I HAVE been patient. This has been going on for about a month or more and I’ve been so supportive about it. SO SUPPORTIVE. Everything that he has said stresses him out, I’ve worked to relieve if I can. But nothing has changed. He comes home from work every day barely talking to anyone, and brooding everywhere he goes, no matter how much I try to help make things better.
The other night, he came home from work in that mood again and the minute he walked in the door I wanted to scrape my nails down a chalkboard and scream. I couldn’t handle it anymore. So, I sat on the couch as he moped around and I thought to myself, “I need a new approach.” He continued to complain and mope and pout and point out the chores that weren’t done and the things that we needed to do, blah, blah, blah, and finally I interrupted him.
“IF YOU DON’T LIKE THINGS THE WAY THEY ARE, THEN CHANGE THEM OR SHUT UP!”
And that pretty much began the strangest fight/tense discussion we’ve ever had. Everything I said to Chris was brutally honest, to the point of being harsh, and every argument he shot back at me was piercing, and yet we never raised our voices. We got frustrated and one of us would walk out of the room for a few minutes to cool down and think things over, but then we’d come back and keep on talking.
The thing is, I wasn’t being mean. I was just being honest and leaving the fluffy love stuff out of it. I basically told Chris he had to suck it up. I told him that this was our life right now – laundry piles and dishes and sick babies. It was just the way things were. And, you know, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Our life was pretty darn great, and I thought that the stress he was feeling at work was making it hard for him to see that. I told him that I was tired of hearing about how hard his days were because, quite frankly, so are mine, but I come home to escape those stresses, not to rehash them or live in them. I said that happiness was not something that came and went randomly, it was a choice we had to make every day and there wasn’t anything that was going to change in our lives to make him any happier. If he wanted to be happy, he was going to have to decide to be happy.
When it was over, we sat next to each other on the couch and watched TV, occasionally talking or point out random things, just like nothing had happened. But the next morning, Chris woke up in a much better mood. And that afternoon, I came home to find him fixing the pool pump (the bane of his homeowner existence). This past weekend when Chris was home with the kids while I was in Atlanta, he spent some good, quality time with the kids. They ran errands together, played together, and did chores together. When I came home, the house was cleaned, the laundry was done, dinner was on the stove, and Chris looked happier than I had seen him in weeks.
I don’t know what sort of nugget of marital insight this has provided me. Maybe that honesty is the best policy? Or that your spouse is your mirror of truth? Or maybe even happiness is a choice? Could I even tie it into my favorite, “Bloom where you are planted” saying? I’m not really sure. Maybe I’ll think about it some more and find some kind of philosophical meaning to this.
But more than likely, I think this is just part of being married. Sometimes in my marriage, Chris and I are soft places to land in the midst of really hard times, and sometimes we’re the very honest pep talk that we need to get up and make a change. Chris has been the one to tell me before that there’s nothing to do but buck up and move forward, and now I’ve had to tell him the same. I think that’s the side of marriage where friendship really becomes crucial because good friends can guide without judging, and a good spouse can, too. Like a good friend, a good spouse can give you a warm, supportive place for you to hide for a while, and they can also be the one to push you a little bit, even when you don’t want to hear it. I’m glad that Chris has been both those things to me in my life, and I’m glad that I can be that for him, too.
10Apr
After another little jaunt on a series of small toy planes, Chris and I arrived at our last destination on Day Six of our trip. Welcome to Quepos, Costa Rica!
Quepos took us back to the coast again, but this time we were in the southern part of Costa Rica. This beach area was very different than Tamarindo. It wasn’t as touristy. And the water was a lot rougher, so the surf wasn’t people like me taking surf lessons. There were rough rocks and rip tides and only really skillful surfers were out there. Everything about Quepos just felt very real. Like that’s what it would REALLY be like to live in Costa Rica.
Well, what it would really be like to live in a five-star resort in Costa Rica.
In Quepos, we stayed at the Arenas Del Mar Beachfront and Rainforest Resort. It was a beautiful five-star hotel situated in the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Seriously. It was as beautiful as it sounds. Within 15 minutes of arriving, Chris and I booked a couples massage at the resort spa that overlooked the beach. It was an hour of heaven, especially after that tense and bumpy plane ride.
The spa and resort were fantastic. This is the view from the hotel lobby, which is open-air, by the way. It looks out over a gorgeous pool, which looks out over the side of the cliff out into the ocean. Not too shabby. And see those little cafe tables with people eating? That’s where the continental breakfast was served. Fo’ real. I mean, who wouldn’t want to start their day like that????
The hotel was actually several different buildings all nestled in the cliffside. You could either walk up these steep, curvy hills to each area, or you could call for a hotel golf cart. Needless to say, I rode in a LOT of golf carts. My calves were on vacation, too.
Our hotel room was smaller here than in the other hotels, but honestly we hardly noticed. It was gorgeous, comfortable, and luxurious in really awesome ways. Like, all international calls were free! Which meant that after a week of traveling, we could finally call home to the babies! Another perk of a luxury hotel? The mini bar was free! And – bonus – it was filled with all local treats and snacks. Even though it was the smallest in size, this hotel was at the top of my list.
It had this great balcony where Chris and I sat one morning to have breakfast. In the rainforest out a bit, I pointed out this little spider monkey that was climbing from tree to tree.
“Look!” I laughed. “He’s coming closer!”
But, he never stopped. That little monkey was booking it from tree to tree, headed straight for our balcony. Right before he jumped onto our balcony and tried to take our food, we ran inside and hid! Those monkeys can be mean!
That one psychotic monkey aside, there were all kinds of wildlife and animals for us to see in Quepos. Around the hotel property, there were packs (?) of different kinds of monkeys, tons of iguanas, and those raccoon thingys.
But we saw most of the wildlife on our walking hike of Manuel Antonio State Park. Though this is the smallest national park in Costa Rica, it is the most visited. And with so much to see, it didn’t surprise me at all. We saw some really different things, like this African Killer Bee hive! It’s hard to see, but it’s at the top of this tree trunk…
We also got the best view of a sloth! I didn’t know they were so cute!
And we saw giant monkeys, too! This one even stuck his tongue out at us!
The hike through this forest took us along a beach where a lot of locals bring their families to play because the water is better. It’s protected by a little cove, so there aren’t any rip tides, which are really common in Quepos. We stopped for half an hour on our hike to sit by the beach and relax. It was a great way to spend a morning after a long hike.
We got back to our hotel around lunch time and ate out by the beach, drinking more fruity, frozen drinks and talking about how much we were missing the kids after a whole week away. After lunch, we walked about half an hour down the beach to the little town of Manuel Antonio to do a little souvenir shopping. The town had a lot more people than our resort area, but it was still very quaint and full of more locals than tourists. We grabbed a beer at a beach side cafe and shopped around until sunset.
The walk back was gorgeous and the perfect way to end our last full day in Costa Rica.
For our last night in Costa Rica, we got all dressed up and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was delicious! I had this amazing traditional meal of rice and beans, but it was INSANELY delicious. We drank and ate and laughed and talked about how much we had enjoyed spending time together on our trip.
(Sorry for the poor pictures. I didn’t want to haul my big camera to a nice dinner, so these are from my iPhone.)
The next morning we had a four hour drive by car to the international airport in the capital, San Jose. It was a beautiful drive through the country side, and it was over before we knew it. We found ourselves suddenly standing in the airport check in line with our baggage, and two bags full of souvenirs.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a more relaxing vacation. It was a perfect time for me and Chris to reconnect and spend some time together after the past few years of crazy transitions and changes. Maybe the best part of the trip for me was finding that even after twelve years together and even after all these changes in our relationship and family, Chris and I still really enjoy spending time together. We still LIKE each other. We still have things to say to each other. We still laugh at each other.
Within 24 hours of coming home, the kids were sick again, work was hectic again, bills were due again, and life went on. It has been hard to keep that same excitement for each other alive here in the real world that we had in Costa Rica, but at the end of the day, our lives were very happy in Costa Rica, but they are still happier here. I guess sometimes you have to travel pretty far to realize how lucky you are right there in your own home.
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