Marriage | Marriage Confessions Marriage | Laugh. Fight. Stay Married.

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.

46 comments | posted in Around the House, Dads, Fun Things, health, Husbands, Marriage, Marriage Confessions, Parenting | tags: dads, Family, humor

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.

9 comments | posted in Around the House, Husbands, Marriage, Marriage Confessions | tags: life, Marriage

1. I hate wearing pants. I usually wear skirts or dresses to work, and on the days when I absolutely must wear pants (usually laundry days), I take them off the second I get in the house and walk around pantless until the doorbell rings or I have to go out to the mailbox to get the mail.

2. I am in training for a 10k that I am running in November. This has been week one of an eight-week program. I’m doing the training so early just in case I can’t make it through the first time and need to start over again. So far it’s been easier than my normal running schedule because it requires I have rest days. Today was a rest day. My calves said, “Thank you!” I also have plans to run a 15k in early February with my mother-in-law and then the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon with Sarah at the end of February. I’m telling you this now so that I can’t back out. I’m actually SUPER excited.

3. My classes (8th grade) are writing a research paper this quarter on a topic related to the 1960′s. In a discussion earlier this week, we brainstormed what we knew about the 60′s. Here is a list of things my students thought took place during the 1960′s: World War 1, World War 2, silent movies, Bon Jovi, Vanilla Ice, parachute pants, horse and buggies, and President Clinton. I’m really looking forward to reading their papers.

4. I tried to get Chris to let me interview him for my blog post tonight, but he would not cooperate. We call that a classic UCH. Un-Cooperative Husband.

5. Every night while I blog on he couch, I try to get Chris to rub my feet. And every night he resists and objects for half an hour before finally giving in. But then he rubs them for about 2 minutes and stops. It’s such a tease. Doesn’t he know my feet need more of a commitment from him!?!?!

6. Whenever I schedule blog posts to post automatically (which doesn’t happen all that often, incidentally), I schedule it to post at 6:03am. I’m not sure why I chose that time, but it’s been 6:03am for a couple years now. Weirdness.

7. We are having a yard sale this weekend and are selling all of our baby equipment, like the swing and bouncer seat and all our activity mats. It makes me sad that I won’t be needing those things again. Which is why I asked Chris last night if we were sure we were absolutely done makin’ babies. He said yes and then asked if I was sure I was done havin’ babies. And I said I thought I was, but one more couldn’t be THAT much harder, right? We could, like, sneak another in and no one would even notice. Then I could rock another baby for a while. And that’s when Chris laughed that hysterical laugh he does when he violently disagrees with me but doesn’t want to fight and I laughed that laugh that I do when I know he’s right but just don’t want to admit it and we haven’t talked about it again. That’s some healthy communication right th’ar.

8. My mom pointed to Bean’s belly button (which he calls his “belly butt”) a couple weeks ago and said, “There’s a hole in your tummy!” and Bean replied very seriously, “I know. I have to fix it.” He makes me giggle.

9. I am in need of a jogging stroller. Does anyone have any recommendation? (By the way, if I end up getting one, this will be our THIRD stroller. That’s not normal, right?)

10. Sarah will be here to run with me at 5:30 tomorrow morning. We’re wearing matching running skirts, and I am fully prepared to yell out multiple times as we run, “DIRT IN THE SKIRT, MAY! DIRT IN THE SKIRT!” I have to go to bed now or my skirt won’t get out of bed in the morning.

HAPPY FRIDAY, YA’LL!

36 comments | posted in Around the House, Fun Things, Marriage, Marriage Confessions, Random | tags: Marriage

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.

17 comments | posted in Communication, Fights, Husbands, Marriage, Marriage Confessions, Operation BWYP, Understanding Chris | tags: Marriage