Monthly Archive for May, 2010

You meet, you fall in love, you commit to a relationship. Maybe you have kids, maybe you have plants, maybe you have a mortgage, maybe you have killer careers, maybe you manage babysitters, maybe you manage pet-sitters, maybe you talk at dinner, maybe you text. You have a schedule, and you have a schedule to talk about the schedule.

Some make it work, some pretend to make it work, some ignore the work, some walk away from the work. It’s not how long you’ve been together, it’s how often you look for the good in each other.

Jay, this is for you.

(1) Thank you for putting the toilet seat down. Even after all this time.

(2) Thank you for humoring me and my incessant photography of you. Sweating. Scratching an itch. Swinging a hammer.

(3) Thank you for dealing with everything electrical in the home, including, but not limited to, moody machines attached to electrical outlets.

(4) Thank you for thinking I’m funny. And being funny.

(5) Thank you for enjoying fatherhood so effortlessly.

(6) Thank you for pushing me. And believing I can do anything I want to.

(7) Thank you for being a sound sleeper to my snore sleeper.

(8) Thank you for being a good conversationalist and listener.

(9) Thank you for not telling me that rats or raccoons are very possibly living in the attic. (And thank you for volunteering to check that out.)

(10) Thank you for accepting that Hello Kitty will be in my life if not for a long time, at least for forever.

If you want to know what you sound like, have a kid.

Aside from the cute one-liners that two-year-olds are known to sprout occasionally, you will discover speech mannerisms you never realized you had.

Because, really, where else is your child learning her way of speaking?

From her imaginary friends?

I didn’t think so.

Stuff I learned about myself: I say “Maybe” and “How about” a lot.

Stuff Ruby says? You’ll want to know what comes out of the mouth of a babe.

Moody.

Exhausted.

Migrained.

PC died.

Shit to do.

Crap.

Is it just me or is her mouth getting smaller?

And really, do you care?

I suppose for some, this blog engenders the same ambivalence I feel when I read blogs by fabulous people doing fabulous things that don’t involve any slobber, food stains, or the refrain “Mommy! Where are you?”