This past Saturday, Chris and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. Ironically enough, we were attending a friend’s wedding on Saturday and as the ceremony unfolded, I found myself looking at the bride and groom and feeling slightly jealous at the adventure that they are about to embark on. You’re only newlyweds once. But then I looked over to where Chris stood with the rest of the groomsmen and, as I did, he looked out into the crowd and found me at that exact same moment. We smiled at each other and darn it if I didn’t get the same goosebumps from my head to my toe that I got six years ago standing at the alter.
That boy melts me.
The past year of marriage for Chris and me may not have been as doe-eyed and candlelight filled as our first year of marriage, but it certainly has been as meaningful.
I said I was starting to feel at home in Florida.
He said he missed his friends in Connecticut.
I said I was tired of clipping coupons and counting pennies.
He said he was tired of our tiny rental house.
I said I wanted to write a book.
He said he would watch the kids while I wrote.
I said I thought I could make writing a career.
He said he thought I needed a paycheck.
I said I was pregnant.
He said he hoped the baby came out carrying a bag of money.
I said I wasn’t giving birth to a leprachan.
He said he hoped it was a girl.
I said how odd it was that we would leave the backdoor unlocked.
He said to not come inside and to call the police.
I said I would never go back into that house again.
He said he found a house with a pool.
I said I was going to be a teacher.
He said he pitied my students.
I said I was worried someone was going to break in and take Bean.
He said I was worrying a lot lately.
I said I was tired from being pregnant.
He said he thought I was depressed.
I said maybe he was right.
He said he’d hold my hand through it.
I said I was angry at God.
He said he missed seeing God in my everyday life.
I said I’d talk to my minister.
He said we didn’t have enough money to cover my maternity leave.
I said thank goodness God and I were on good terms again.
He said he’d find extra work.
I said I’d pray.
He said he was getting a big promotion.
I said it’s time to go to the hospital.
He said she was the second most beautiful redhead he’d ever seen.
I said her name was Carline Grace.
He said he’d forgotten how much newborns sleep.
I said Bean went potty twice in one day!
He said sunsets on the back porch were worth the move to Florida.
I said I finally felt like myself.
He said he’d missed me.
I said I loved him more than the day we were married.
He said he loved me, too.
The thing I’ve learned about marriage in the past six years is that each year, each milestone, each moment, each memory can be important. Everything has the potential to be just as important as it was that very first year of marriage. Marriage is all about your perception – how you perceive your spouse, how you perceive yourself, how you perceive your relationship, how you perceive your life and your lifestyle – and your perception is about your mindset. If you choose to find the importance and the significance in the everyday, then your sixth year or your fourteenth or your fiftieth year of marriage can be just as important and significant as your first.
At least, that’s my theory. And I’m looking forward to proving that theory for the next fifty years with my sweet husband.
04May
Last week was our 12 year dating anniversary. And we missed it. Oops. Let’s blame the kids.
We’ve been together for 12 years and this June will be our 6th wedding anniversary. Aren’t anniversaries fun? They remind us of how far we’ve come and how hard we’ve worked to get where we are right now. Over twelve years, we’ve been through a lot. Break ups and vacations and date nights and love notes and fights and family dinners and Christmas mornings and more bowls of cucumbers than I can count. Our house is full of pictures of our happiest memories and our shelves are full of little mementos from different parts of our history together. And sleeping in their beds right now are two beautiful babies who are living proof that we loved each other so much we actually grew people! We’ve had and we’re living a wonderfully blessed and happy life together and I’m thankful for it every day.
In 12 years, we both have become very different people. I’m not such a taskmaster anymore and you’ve accepted sushi into your life (amen.). I’ve learned to enjoy a beer and a good hockey game and you’ve learned that you can’t die from wearing a coat and tie. We’ve also become very different partners, too. I’ve become stronger, honest, and more up front. You’ve become understanding, patient, and thoughtful. I think we’ve brought out the best in each other and what more could someone ask for in a spouse and friend?
12 years. Who would have known? Certainly not us. But I’m glad Someone knew and I’m thankful that He gave you to me as my partner, as my babies daddy, as my husband, and as my best friend.
I love you and can’t wait to see where the next 12 years takes us.
~ Your Kate
25Apr
Easter ’round these parts is a day of relaxing, enjoying family and friends, and giving thanks that we serve a living God. And yesterday it was also about a competitive game of croquet in our backyard with our friends and christening our pool for the first time this year.
We were up early to open Easter baskets before church. Which meant Bean got hyped up on jellybeans and then we turned him loose on the nursery staff. That’s just good parenting, right there.
We came home and sat around outside while lunch was prepared. We attempted a family photo since we were all clean and pretty. I’m learning that in family photos, if just one person is crying then it’s a good picture. This one might get a frame.
After pictures, we all changed clothes and played out on the back porch while lunch was being prepared. We dyed Easter eggs and Bean played with his water table. Chris also showed him how to use his new fishing pole and fish that the Easter Bunny brought him.
Our friends, Scott and Sarah, came over to eat and play, too.
After lunch, we had a little Easter egg hunt for Bean. It was the first time he’s been old enough for one and he loved it! He hunted around our backyard for about half an hour and found a ton of eggs!
Once all the eggs had been found, it was time for the big kids to play a rousing game of croquet in the backyard. And by rousing, I mean SCOTT IS A BIG, FAT MEANIE! He chased all of us all over the backyard! Just as one of us would get lined up to hit our ball through one of those little wire hoop thingies, Scott would come along and knock our balls to the other side of the yard!
It caused some frustrations.
And some death threats. Made by his wife.
Bean hung out with us while we played croquet, too. He got his own mallet and everything.
But his favorite thing was crawling under the bushes to dig out balls. He was filthy by the time our game was over. He looked like a little hobo.
After a hot afternoon in the sun, we ended the day by jumping in our pool for the first time this year. It was so much fun! Bean hasn’t been in the pool since last year and I was amazed by how much more fun he was this time! He was excited and fun and loved the whole thing! We had a wonderful afternoon playing with each other and just having a lot of fun! It makes me so excited for swimming lessons later this spring!
It was a wonderful, full day of fun. We didn’t end up coming inside until after 6:00. By that point, Bean’s little eyeballs had glazed over and he was walking around in circles mumbling about “E-ter eggs.”
After we put Bean and Gracie down and all our company had left, Chris and I sat on our couch watching TV and munching on ham and potato salad.
“I had a perfect day,” Chris said to me.
“Me, too,” I said.
13Apr
One time when he was in grad school, Chris was working on this show that was designed by Maurice Sendak (author of Where the Wild Things Are). This show had a woman dressed in a giant chicken costume who was flying over the stage. Chris was the one who was controlling her from backstage and he was supposed to land her on certain parts of the set throughout the show. There was a video camera set up out front with a monitor that he could see backstage and so he guided her around the stage using that camera. About 10 minutes into the show, one of the curtains knocked the camera down, leaving Chris blind backstage with a flying chicken in his hands. Having no other option because he couldn’t see anything, the giant chicken couldn’t land so instead she just hung over the stage for the first act, swinging back and forth in the breeze of the theater.
****
Our first year of marriage, Chris and I were living in New Haven, Connecticut while he attended grad school. Being from Florida, we had never experienced a real winter before and weren’t prepared when it hit us all of a sudden. In October. One night, we went out drinking at a bar with friends. While we were in the bar, the snow started coming down and the sidewalks froze over. It was after midnight when we finally decided to head home and we were…well…we’d been over served. As we were inexperienced in the ways of walking (drunk) on ice, we took one step out of the bar and instantly I fell, bringing Chris down with me. We proceeded to walk the 20 minute walk home while falling all over the sidewalks, laughing hysterically the whole time. When we woke up the next morning, we were both covered in bruises, but neither of us could remember how we’d gotten them.
****
One time when we were in high school, Chris and I were out on a jetski one Saturday afternoon and we got into a fight about something. I can’t remember what. So, we’re fighting while sitting on a jetski together in the middle of the bay and Chris gets this brilliant idea. Throwing me off the jetski will DEFINITELY make the situation better. So, without warning, in the middle of the fight, he revs up the jetski and takes off, sending me flying off the back and into the water. When he pulled the jetski around to pick me up, he was actually shocked to find me even angrier.
****
For our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, Chris gave me Tupperware. And then I cried. He hasn’t given me a Valentine’s present since. It’s been six years.
****
When Chris was in college, he lived with two other guys. Tray, who was a big black guy about twice Chris’s size, and Joe. Chris and Tray were big party people. They liked to drink, to throw parties, and to make sure everyone around them had as much fun as they did. Which was usually a lot. Joe, on the other hand, was not a party guy. Joe was in school on a full National Merit scholarship. He studied for fun. He could tell you anything about the American legal system. He hid chocolate under his bed. And yet, somehow, the three of them became incredibly good friends. In fact, both Tray and Joe were groomsmen years later in our wedding. One night, Joe came to Chris and Tray and told them that he needed to tell them something. He was gay. (Years later, he told us that he worried Chris and Tray would ask him to move out and that just broke my heart.) Chris and Tray listened, told Joe that that didn’t change their friendship, and Joe felt instant relief. Later that night, Joe went out for something and when he came home, he found that Chris and Tray had painted his bedroom door hot pink. Like, bubble gum pink. Barbie pink. HOT PINK. Joe came to visit us last month and we laughed about this story over dinner. “You know,” Joe said. “When I saw my door, I knew that Chris and Tray really were okay with me just how I was. It was their way of showing their support. Of lightening the situation. That’s friendship.”
****
Chris grew up with a group of four best guy friends from back home – Justin, Robert, Gary, and Brett. The first year we were married, Chris got a call from Robert’s sister. Robert had died unexpectedly in the night. I sat with Chris while he called the other boys and told them the news. It was the hardest, saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I hurt for him. For Robert. For all of them. A few months later, we all went home for Christmas. Normally, this would have been when all the boys got together but this year, one was missing. One afternoon before their annual guy’s Christmas party, we all loaded up in cars and drove out to the military base where Robert had been buried. They wanted to kick off the night with their friend. But when we got to the cemetery, it became very clear that no one knew where Robert had actually been buried. They’d all been to the funeral, of course, but they hadn’t focused on where they were at the time and looking around now, everything looked the same. Rows and rows of burial plots with simple white crosses. Where, oh, where was Robert? We started out the search in a somber, sober, quiet way, each of us reflecting on Robert’s life. But half an hour later, we were yelling to each other across the cemetery, “IS HE OVER THERE? HE’S NOT OVER HERE!” “NOPE, HE’S NOT OVER HERE, EITHER!” We were laughing and cursing and actually having a good time. By the time we found Robert’s site, we were happy and smiling. It felt strange, but it also felt appropriate. Robert would have hated the serious. That one trip set the tone for all our next visits to Robert. We all go every year together at Christmas and it’s such a happy, joyful time together as we stand there with Robert, talking not about his death, but about his life. And I think Robert would love that.
****
Last week, Gracie was having a little bit of a rough night. She woke up and had a bottle, but couldn’t get back to sleep. I thought maybe it was gas bubbles, but that didn’t seem to be it. Chris was awake with me, trying to figure out what was bothering her. After swaddling her, rocking her, burping her, and everything else I could think of, I laid her in her bassinet and threw my hands up in defeat. Chris kissed my cheek and got up to take over for a while. When he looked into the bassinet, this look of complete horror filled his face. “IS THIS YOUR SWADDLE???” he bellowed. “IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN SWADDLE???” And with that, he picked up Gracie and swaddled her until she was like a little mummy. Instantly, she fell right asleep. As we laid in the quiet dark next to each other, I started giggling. “Did you just ask me if that was the best I can swaddle?” I laughed. And then he laughed. And then we fell asleep.
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