Who works harder, men or women? January 6, 2011

There are two ways to really get to know someone: marry them and then have children with them. In some ways, it brings out the truest colors you will ever see of your other half.

Having a baby will either strengthen or destroy your marriage, or so my father says. I think he is right. One of the common times for divorce is not only when you first have kids, but also, when they leave and the nest is empty. The stress of children coming into your life impacts your marriage and totally redefines both your lives and, for many, that redefinition becomes about you and the kids and less about each other which leaves two strangers in the house together when the kids hit the road.

As a new mom, I naturally end up talking to other moms and I think the issue with most new families is the same thing from one couple to the next and it’s a BIG issue. It seems that the song everyone is singing is a two-part harmony. The lassie is singing that “he never helps me or doesn’t help enough” while the lad is singing “I work all day, I’m tired”. I think this has been a hit song since about 1400.

Luckily for me, I find myself on the good side of this story. My husband is wonderful at helping me out, although we both have our moments of pointing the finger at the other when we are tired. Sometimes this isn’t with words but certain glances or sighs when the baby cries and we both feel like it’s the “others” turn.  You know what I mean.  If you have kids, I’m positive you do.

BUT even though he’s great, I am still human and I have definitely felt like most women when I have those days that I feel like I do it mostly on my own.

I don’t work outside the home so I can’t speak for working moms but this is how a lot of stay-at-homers feel….

Our job is 24/7 and even when we leave ‘the office’ our office comes with us. Most of the time, getting out of the office is more stressful because it requires packing up the entire building and if the building gets out-of-order in the middle of a trip to the grocery, well….it can get ugly. Price check on anxiety pills aisle 3.

Lance and I recently had a real fast exchange of words about feeling like we never get breaks. He said to me that his job is stressful and non-stop. I totally agree and really, really, really appreciate that he works so hard so that I can stay at home with our daughter. But since we were one upping each other, that was beside the point… =0)

I said, “The day you carry your boss around with you all day on your hip and he cries and demands everything from you that very instance, then we will talk.”  Also he needs to poop his pants and play with baby musical toys all day long to add to that list.  Think you are going crazy at work?  Add add the ABC’s over top of your most stressful moment.  Ah, what a sweet melody.

It sounded like it was a serious argument but really it was lighthearted. I hate even typing stuff like that because it makes parenting and Eden herself seem like a burden but we love her and I want to spend all my time with her sometimes even if I feel like I need a break and that’s true for us both. Even in the moments when neither of us feels like going to get her when she cries, when she enters the room and starts smiling, all of the frustration sort of drifts away. At least until she fusses again…. ;0)

Still, I don’t care how much you love each other or how much you love your baby, at some point or at many points, the old familiar tune of who works harder or who is more tired starts to play.

Let me tell you what Lance and I have learned in this 8 1/2 months.

He works like a dog and he’s tired.

I work like a dog and I’m tired.

When that argument or thought comes up, here’s the universal deal: YOU ARE BOTH EXHAUSTED! And exhausted is exhausted no matter which way you cut it and since you can both relate, that is why you have to do it as a team. Parenting isn’t a one-man game and I pity the people who find themselves married but doing it all alone. If you can both do it together then you can both share the load rather than one person going way over their limit and then becoming useless in both areas of parenting and in being a spouse.

A spouse who is forced to carry the load alone is someone who is secretly heaping fault after fault of their spouse on top of each other building one serious case of bitterness towards their partner. This can and does destroy a marriage.

They argument should never be who works harder.  The whole premise of that argument is selfish because it’s saying, my time and need for a break outweighs yours.  If you are being a selfless spouse, when you and your partner find yourselves pooped on the couch together that’s where you should find yourself working together too out of love for your family and each other.

If you cook, he cleans.

You do the dishes while he folds a load.

He bathes the baby and you feed her dinner.

I heard my sister-in-law say that if my brother gives her a break with time out of the house on her own, when she gets home, it’s still team work and not one person taking on all the responsibility to make-up for having personal free-time.  If you do the whole ‘It’s all you now’ attitude then you will start to dread your break because you know you will have to pay by working overtime when you get home.  Team work works all times, in all situations.  I think this attitude and way of helping your spouse and your family actually creates within you to want to out help your partner. 

This is just how it works, folks.  It’s a practical way to love not just your spouse but your whole family.  You are teaching a silent but loud message to your kids this way too.  Living your life this way in your family breeds feelings of love from the wife and brews respect up for her husband.  At the end of the day, your partner’s needs are met and your kid’s  needs simultaneously.  It kills a lot of arguments to just support each other and be the active player in your family’s life like you should be, anyways.  

Dads:  You don’t want to check out when you get home because your job has been so tiring because only having the interest in spending time with your kids on the weekends means you only get to spend real-time with them 144 days a year out of the full 365.  Your time is short anyways and most dads have, at best, 3 or 4 hours with their children when they get home.  Your bonding time with them as children is reading the books, bathing them, feeding them, etc.  That is how you bond.  Hopefully you miss your kids during the day and see it as a joy to get the privilege of coming home to them.  When they are older they won’t care how tired you were.  They will just know you weren’t involved.  They grow-up one missed day at a time.

Furthermore, love your wife by caring for her and making her job feel important.  Love your wife so your kids will know how to love their spouses and be able to see how a man should love a woman when they make their choice in a partner one day.  When you miss out on your kids because you’ve had a long day.  Someone has to take care of them so your wife will end up doing it solo.  Then, you miss out on them both.  Be what you are:  a family.

Moms:  Trust your husband to care for your kids when he wants to and don’t criticize his efforts.  Even if he leaves poop on the baby changer and the wipes open.  I’m being such a hypocrite right now but I know I’m wrong for doing that to him. 

Staying at home is hard and it’s easy to think you are spending a lot of time with your child because you are physically present but that isn’t always the case.

It’s easy to give your child things to entertain them rather than being engaged with them.  You can be living for your child’s next nap or your next break and doing everything you can to make your day easier and in the midst of that, not be intentional in investing in your child.

You too can be so tired that you are checking out so it’s not specifically a man’s problem.

Both men and women can be MIA due to exhaustion.  Basically, you have to both be intentional in loving each other, loving your children, and working together.  As contrary to popular culture as it may be, love only occasionally comes easy.  The rest is work. 

So, who does really work harder, men or women?

If you are asking that question, you’ve already decided that it’s you that wins this argument.  I challenge you to not ask who works harder but value that you both do and get to workin’! 

Together.

I married a white boy (accidently) October 3, 2010

I realize I’m a white girl and I realized that I was marrying a white boy. It’s cool. You have to remember though that Lance won me singing R and B a long, long time ago. Then he went flip mode squad on me and started singing what I refer to as ‘guitar music’. Tricky tricky, Lance, tricky tricky. I guess you don’t have many instruments to choose from that are soulful if you want to play and sing other than the piano. And who can forget the Bassoon but it’s hard to play and sing that instrument in an impossible sort of way. Lanceshould have learned to play the beat machine. Instead, he fell to full-fledged cracker white boy guitars.

On the other hand, there’s me.

I love to sing R and B music. I love to Dougie.  I love all forms of vivacious rap. I love the slang. I love skills of our fellow brothers and sisters: great athletes and first and foremost, the best singers. Some of the most amazing singers you may say are white: Christina Aguliera, Marey Carey, Celien White Girl Dion….

Jokes on you…none of them are fully white except for ole’ Dion and she’s Canadian, not American. Some of us white
American girls just lose. If you are a good singer and you’re black, then you are the best singer in all the lands.

At any rate, I’m not really all that un-white. Afterall, I did just use the phrase at any rate, as well as, afterall. And I love to shop at Old Navy. Plus, I was in a big city where I was the minority and I realized that I’m totally white. Both outside and inside. It was a disappointing day for me.

However, black people do seem to like me. Some of them at least. Our church is in the projects and, as lame as it sounds, I’m most intimidated by some of the teenagers because they don’t try to let you feel cool or accepted. I tried talking to some girls one time at an event  we had and they called me white girl so I called them black girl and they weren’t happy. Just kidding. But they for real called me white girl in a not friendly sort of way. When I walked over, one of them said to the other,

“Every time white girl comes around it starts raining…”

Segregation is painful.

All this to say that it’s not so much that my husband and I are both cheesy white people but more to say, this partial soul-loving white child thinks you, Lance, are super white so I think all of this validates my opinions even more that if I think it and I’m at least a little black….you are REALLY white.

1. You harmonize with rap songs. Nothing like a nice octave blending with melodic talking.

2. You think you can make beats “for real”. Every time you beat box you make a sound effect that was used in hip-hop songs in the 70′s that sort of sounds like a busted speaker. You know, you just trill your lips and let air come out like you’re making a horse sound. Hopefully you know what I’m talking about because if you do, there’s no reason to continue to reinforce this point.

3. When you free-style rap, which is unusually painful for me, you start every song with, “Every time I come around…” EVERY song. Thug life forever, Lance.

4.  You wore Birkenstock sandals with every summer outfit for the first 3 years of our marriage.  And so does Dwight Schrute.  Show me the brothers wearing Birkenstocks.  Show me.

5.  When I play for you an old or new rap song that is obviously was or is the best, you analyze the lyrics. 

“Many a day has passed, the night has gone by
But still I find the time to put that bump off in your eye…”
Just let it be.

6.  You own short-sleeved, plaid polos that button from top to bottom.  One time we were in a store together and overheard a girl tell her boyfriend that the makers of those shirts should be shot.  You were brave and wore them for many years anyways.

7.  And now for the hardest one to say…

You wore pleated dress pants for 4 years of our marriage.  Even worse, you defended it because you went shopping with your dad and a man at the store told you they were nice.   I’m so proud to say that we’ve moved passed this. We did it honey. 

We made it.

Dancing in the Mine Fields September 26, 2010

Well I was 19 you were 21
The year we got engaged
Everyone said we were much to young
But we did it anyway
We got the rings for 40 each from a pawnshop down the road
We said our vows and took the leap now 15 years ago

We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise was for

Well ‘I do’ are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another I’ve heard is a good place to begin
Cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down
And I believe it’s an easy price for the life that we have found

And we’re dancing in the minefields
We’re went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise was for
That’s what the promise is for

So when I lose my way, find me
When I lose loves chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith
to the end of all my days
when I forget my name, remind me

Cause we bear the light of the son of man
So there’s nothing left to fear
So I’ll walk with you in the shadow lands
Till the shadows disappear
Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of this chaos baby
I can dance with you

So lets go dancing in the minefields
Lets go sailing in the storms
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And kicking down the doors
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And sailing in the storms
Oh this is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise if for
That’s what the promise is for

Singer/Songwriter: Andrew Peterson

video…it has a sweet end with real couples:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gs3fg_WsEg

Priveleged March 24, 2010

Of all the daily routines of marriage, one of them has to be the war against selfishness. After leaving our child-birth classes this past weekend, the battle commenced.

Let me start this story by saying that Lance grew-up eating every meal out as a child, Monday-Friday. This has created a monster. There is nothing more he finds pleasure in than eating out and I’m not joking. So as we are walking out of the hospital, it’s about lunchtime and he says the typical words, “Where do you want to go eat?’” To which I replied, “We just spent 200 at the grocery, lets just eat at home.” Now I’m not sure if it was him being tired, hungry, or just feeling an intense love for restaurants but it rubbed him the wrong way. To make it worse, I asked if he could run one errand with me first before going home to eat. He said, “I don’t want to run your errand if you don’t want to go out to eat. I don’t care if that’s selfish. I don’t see how you can get to do what you want to do and I can’t.”

He was right. It was selfish. I told him that I am so tired during the weeks and I do all the errands solely by myself and if he could go with me, it’d be one less thing for me to do and I wouldn’t have to do it alone. It’s not like I enjoy running errands more than he does and sometimes, it’s nice to have his help. Especially since I’m pregnant.

He drove me to my errand, begrudgingly. It wasn’t even that bad of an errand because we were picking something up for our baby which I think is fun. After that, I took the stance of apathy and went out to eat with him. We were quiet and angry up until we made it to the restaurant and we never talked about it again.

This morning was Sunday morning and it was Lance’s Sunday to preach. The neat thing about being a pastor’s wife is that your husband will tell stories about you and you’re in the front so everyone stares at you when he shares stuff to see your reaction. Luckily, nothing is personal to me. Luckily, he doesn’t have his own blog because I share on a much bigger stage than our church =0)

Usually I know what Lance is preaching about. He’ll come and bounce things off of me and sometimes he has me help him think of stories to share for application during his sermons.  This  Sunday, I didn’t know.

Fast forward to the middle of the sermon and he was talking about how it’s a privilege to serve Jesus.  It’s something we GET to do, not something we have to do.  He talked about a modern-day missionary by the name of Bernard who has spent most of life on the far edges of the earth away from the convenience of the states, from the comfort of home and utilities, from many of his loved ones.  When asked about his life and all he’s given up he says, “I never made one sacrifice.”  That’s because there is a big mindset difference between someone who looks at something as an obligation and someone who looks at something as a privilege. 

Then Lance began, “This leads me to a confession.”  Unbeknownst to me he started sharing the story about how he had acted the day before after leaving our child-birth classes.  Of course people started to look at me to see how I was going to react to whatever it was he was about to say. 

There I sat in the quiet stillness of the church with all eyes on me and there he stood in the vulnerability of exposing himself to the church from the stage.  Then they stopped looking at me.  They looked at him.  

His face turned red as finished telling how he acted the day before and his eyes welled up with tears and he began to cry with tears trickling down his face.  His voice quivered and he said, ” I remember when we first fell in love.  I didn’t HAVE to do anything.  I loved picking her up from work.  I loved running errands with her.  It was a privilege to be with the girl I loved and sometimes, after all these years, I find myself in selfishness and I forget that.  I GET to be with her.  I GET to love her.”

I could hear sniffles from around the church.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of him and I cried.  It was an intimate apology.  It was a reminder. It was my husband revealing the sincerest of love letters and regrets to me humbly in front of a crowd.  It was my husband standing before a whole church confessing that he had failed me and that he had forgotten.  Lance and I began dating almost 9 years ago.  Love changes over time into a deeper form of the date night butterflies.  But sometimes, in moments like that, it’s that glimpse into the face of who we started as that got us here to a man crying on the stage remembering the way it was to fall in love with your wife.  It is a blessing to fight for your marriage.  It’s a blessing to fail at it everyday and have the grace to remember how we should love each other.  Failing at loving each other and getting to love anew all over again is more romantic than a love unhindered.  Helping your spouse with dinner, folding his boxers, running in Walmart for groceries…on a Saturday, being a helper to your mate, supporting your spouse, taking care of them round-the-clock when they are sick, pulling weeds, turning off a basketball game at the good part or listening to your spouse read you parts from his favorite books time and time again. 

Oh the things we get to do.

Wishing for Words May 11, 2009

This just in: men and women are totally different. Lance’s needs are totally different than mine. A lot of his needs are those that a mother fulfills which is totally barfy, but I will accept it. You know what I mean, cleaning, giving him schedule reminders, telling him to pluck his eyebrows….standard things. Emotionally he just needs to see me and be with me in the house. Also, he needs the russian bed dance which we can not fail to mention if we are trying to avoid any elephants in the blog room.

But me? I ,ultimately, need a connection with him every day. Of course with our busy lives, it’s hard to get that in on a daily basis. I can spend all day with him on the couch watching TV and then when our show is over he’ll be ready to hit the hay. I’m like….”Wait…let’s talk….let’s play Yahtzee…let’s SOMETHING!” Really all I’m wanting is to be his focus and to feel like we bonded or shared some sort of verbal intimacy for the day.

When you think about girls growing up and compare it boys growing up, it all makes sense. How do girls form friendships? We talk, we share, we sympathize, we make ourselves vunerable to each other. What makes two girls classify themselves as best friends? Two things: the frequency of which we do the above things I just listed and the sharing of personal secrets which creates vunerability which builds trust which equals the announcement that a girl prizes: “You are my best friend!” There is so much pride in that statement for girls. Especially young girls.

Boys on the other hand bond in ways that we don’t. A lot of their friendships are built in common interest and frequency of time spent together. Boys don’t have to tell each other things that require a pinky promise to feel close to each other. They grow up their whole life not being especially vunerable to each other and their communication is very, very different than ours. Their friendship is more in presence and similarity, not in deep emotional sharing. That isn’t a requirement for their closeness. They don’t need to “talk things out” or tell their friend that they are more handsome then their ex’s new boyfriend. No, the more they are together with similar interests/personality, the more likely they are to give a best friend title to each other. But only in their minds, of course. Boys don’t take each other aside and say, “You are my best friend”…that’s a girls way of bonding.

And herein lies our problem. Lance or (enter your own spouse’s name) can sit next to me totally absorbed in a book or on the computer and feel like we spent time together. I, on the other hand, wish he would stop and say, “We are best friends forever”. When you are new in a relationship it is easier to have this effect lessened because you are riding the number 9 cloud so hard that all you want to do is speak emotionally to each other: “I missed you today.” “You are so beautfiul.” You know, whatever….

But then you come to a point where you still feel that way but because of our lives, routine, and schedules, we don’t have the time, energy, or whatever it is to put the time it takes into really connecting with each other. In time, once comfort sets in, we all revert back to our instincts of communication. And for Lance, that’s being fine with us both watching our favorite show and for me, that’s wishing he would just tell me a secret.

There are times though, just like this week, where I nag him to put down the book, magazine, newspaper, laptop, cellphone and I turn off the TV or quit trying to pick-up that last thing that fell into the mysterious stack on the countertop that never seems to disappear and then it’s silence, it’s just us. I’m dying to just have a conversation and then sitting in our quiet house, there is NOTHING TO SAY! I guess no matter how much you love your spouse, when you live every single day of your life together, there are no new stories, no surprises and a lot of “what happenened today” isn’t intriguing even to the one who is telling the story. This phenomenon is no one’s fault and it happens to the best and worst marriages alike. I’m the one yearning to have a real conversations with him and I’m like…ummm…Bonkers had a hairball today…

So how do we find that intimacy with our spouses that we as women need to connect? As I sit here watching the cursor flash at me waiting for the next word…I have no idea. Today, I’ll settle for a close second.

Anyone have any good secrets?

Love and Crackers April 30, 2009

When I was a little girl in the first grade, I use to rip off the name ‘Lance’ from Lance brand crackers packages and carry it around in my pocket. I don’t know why I did that then. Lance didn’t really even talk to me until I was in middleschool. I don’t think in the first grade you really notice guys that much but I must’ve noticed him. From 7 years old until 6th grade, that’s all I really remember about when Lance moved to Bowling Green and came to my church.

But then…I mean a BIG ‘but then’, I fell like crazy for him in 6th grade. I remember when Alanis Morisette’s song “Head Over Feet” came out, I would just ache to hear it on the radio so I could daydream about him. It got so bad that one night I actually called a friend of mine and, in all seriousness, asked her to sing it to me over the phone because I didn’t know the words to sing it myself and I loved the Lance butterflies it gave me. At this point of time he pretty much ignored me for the most part but I made sure I dressed up “cute” for youth group every Wednesday and I always tried to stand next to him during prayer so we could hold hands.

Years passed until the summer of my 8th grade year came. The youth group went on a church trip to Birmingham and this is where my love story of chasing after Lance finally became reciprocal. I remember with great detail arriving at the retreat and going and sitting a round table with my friends. The room was dimly lit and the carpet was burgundy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lance start walking. Was he walking towards me? No way. He did pay attention to me on the ride down but never really much outside of that two hour trip. But, no matter how unreal it seemed, he was, in fact, walking over to me. My stomach dropped as he asked me if I would go outside and talk to him for a minute. That walk to the hotel sidewalk was the most exciting 20 feet I had ever walked.

He leaned up against the hotel wall that was white painted brick that had begun to chip. I sat on a short wall that had planted flowers in it and I held my breath because I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to say to me publicly muchless privately. Then he started,

“I just wanted to tell you that I think there is something different about you and I can’t get you off my mind. I just wanted you to know that I always know where you are in a room.”

I would say I was exhilarated but that would’ve been a gross understatement. I had told my mother 2 years earlier as a young, “I’m sure you’ll change your mind” little girl that I would marry him someday. 730 days later, I thought for the first time, “Oh my gosh, you might actually be right.”

I was soaring the rest of the trip. The night before we left he sang me a Garth Brooks song that he changed the lyrics of to make it about me and him. Cheesy? Perhaps, but that didn’t keep me from playing the first verse of that song over and over again on my discman the whole ride home. Also on the ride home you should know that he finally sat next to me on the bus like I had dreamed about for all those years. There was a pillow over our hands and our hands were touching but not holding because neither of us had the guts. It was a four hour ride home and he didn’t move the brave 4 centimeters to hold my hand until we pulled back into the church parking lot. When he did…fireworks! There is such a sweetness to a time where all you want to do is hold hands and it takes you all day to get the nerve to intertwine your fingers. I can still remember my whole body going to mush when he squeezed my hand.

We started dating that day and it lasted a whole 9 months until I gave the ole’ sweety the boot. But, to me, that’s where the story really gets good.

From the time we broke-up until the time we dated again was over three years and I was with another guy this whole time. This guy wasn’t the best in the world to me and I picked up a big emotional ticket for it but during this time, there was someone commited to me and it was Lance. For 3 years he hurt and missed me dearly…loved me dearly. He still brought me flowers, sung outside my window at night, and still always knew where I was in a room. Two and a half years into my relationship with the other guy and right before Lance went to college, he left me quite the farewell. One morning he called me very early and told me to go outside. I lazily opened the front door and stepped on a long stem rose. I ran back inside to get my contacts and ran back to my front door to see a trail of roses end to end. They went all the way into my yard and formed a big heart made of flowers and the inside of the heart was filled with rose petals. There was another trail of flowers leading from the heart all the way to my car where there was a ribbon tied rose with a letter on my windsheild. The letter told me he loved me and with that, he was gone to Jackson, TN. to start his college years. We still always talked but as expected and as he deserved, he finally moved on and dated a girl so beautiful. The kind of girl you worry about your ex-es dating. But then again, I deserved it and I did have a boyfriend. While Lance was with this girl, if you can believe this…he left my picture up in his room. A year into their relationship they broke-up and she told him, “Either you are going to date Rebecca again and marry her or date her again and realize she’s not the one but until then, you will never give anyone else a chance!” When Lance and I began dating again a short while later, she sent me an email, a sweet one, that said, “I just want you to know that you always had his heart”.

As all of this went on, I was at the point where I couldn’t take my old relationship. 6 months later I called it off and two weeks after that, I kissed Lance for the first time in 4 years and it was the single best kiss of my entire life hands down. He had always tried to kiss me EVERY time he saw me, boyfriend or not, and finally we did. Lance told me he loved me right away because even after all that time, he never stopped. One year later we were engaged and married the following year. Coming out of the last relationship I had I was so damaged, hurt, and anxious but God blessed with a man who had already proven to me that he could love me even when I didn’t love him. Not only that, he did so not as an adult but as a young, teenage boy who didn’t have to wait around for unrequited love. Loving him again was one of the easiest things I’ve ever had to do.

That year leading up to our wedding was so wonderful and so exciting. We bought our first little house and fixed it up and I loved every second of every minute of getting to that altar. On August 7, 2004, teary eyed I put on a dress and took the arm of another great man who walked me down the aisle to the person that it seemed like it took me a lifetime to get to. It was the most exciting 20 feet I’ll ever walk.

(ə-noí) October 31, 2008

Definitions of ‘annoy’ (ə-noí)

The American Heritage® Dictionary- (2 definitions)

(transitive verb: -noyed, -noy·ing, -noys.)

1. To cause slight irritation to (another) by troublesome, often repeated acts.
2. Archaic To harass or disturb by repeated attacks.

I would add to this definition:

3. Product of being married longer than 1 year.

Lance and I had a newlywed couple to our house last night.  They have been married 5 months.  I asked them if they had anything yet that really grated on their spouse’s nerves.  They named one or two things.  I told them I could come up with 30 things on the spot.  The challenge began.  I kept getting louder and louder and more animated in explaining these “slight repetitive disturbances” until I was all sorts of bent out of shape.  This became another case similar to telling people about Lance talking in his sleep.  Everyone else laughs at my daily misfortunes and I end up more and more crazy one day at a time.  I thought you might enjoy hearing about my spousal burdens in a rant I call, “Oh How You Drive Me Crazy, Let Me Count the Ways”.

Ways 1-9 :  forgetting what he’s saying and repeating “uh” or the first part of the sentence over and over until he remembers the rest, his obsessions with reading anything and everything to me from newspapers to coupon books, when he asks me the same questions 20 times, when he leaves his toothbrush half rinsed out and foaming on the sink, how he sticks his finger in his ear and shakes it over and over (both when he’s awake and asleep), how he chews on everything from pens to sweatshirt strings, how he calls he’s-she’s and vice versa, how he can’t figure out what button to push on our alarm clock even after all these years resulting in hitting the radio button and making a newscast blare into the morning air….BUT those aren’t the ones I’ll be discussing today.  I saved the top 5 for the spotlight.  They are as follows:

1-  Lance has 2 ways of walking. One I call dinosaur feet and the other carpet skiing.  In Dinosaur Feet, he walks with big loud thuds much like a T-Rex.  We could also call this earthquake feet as it causes mild tremors.  The other is carpet skiing.  I guess you get tired of dinosaur walking after a while and can no longer bear to lift your feet off the ground.  This results in carpet skiing:  The sliding of your feet one after the other to produce a walking motion that causes a swooshing sound. 

2- For this next point you should refer to the post “Watch Out for Singing Rabbits”.  This burden refers to the constant outbursts of vocal performances and in this case, harmonizing.  Lance finds it pleasing to his ear to harmonize with all songs.  Commercials.  Check.  Rap songs.  Check.  Everyone knows the way to compliment a rap tune is with sweet melodious harmonies.  What enhances gangsta rap quite like a beautifully sung note?  Nothing guys.  The answer is nothing.

If I sing anywhere in the house, any song, for any numbers of words there will be a harmonious echo somewhere in the house.  If I’m singing in the kitchen, don’t worry, Lance will harmonize from the office.  He is about one year away from harmonizing with sounds around the house. Cat’s meows…doorbells…it’s just a matter of time.

3.  On a serious note, I have diagnosed Lance with a diease that I have named.  The “Give A Mouse A Cookie Chronic Disorder”.  If you aren’t familiar with the children’s story “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”, it kind of goes like, If you give a mouse a cookie, then he will want a glass to go with it.  Then the milk will make him remember how he likes cow’s so he’ll want to draw a picture of a cow.  Then he will needs crayons because he wants to draw a picture. And so on……Basically, it’s a story about an easily distracted, hyperactive mouse. 

Some examples of this include when I ask him to help me clean.  Last night, for example. he had a list of things he was doing while I was cooking dinner.  These were things that needed to be done before our company came.  While he was cleaning he remembered that he needed some pants.  He looked in the dryer to look for a certain pair of pants and they weren’t in there.  But then he noticed that there were other clothes that needed to be run.  So he decides to run the dryer and fold the laundry.  Before you know it, 20 minutes later he still has no pants and is standing in boxers folding clothes.  He probably doesn’t remember that he needs pants.  Then he goes to put them up and realizes that the drawers are disorganized and so he needs to straighten them.  Getting a pair of pants or, in this example, we will call the pants “getting a cookie”  has completely thrown all ships off course because cookies or “pants” always leads to something else.  It’s a very serious and disruptive condition.

4- “I see dead people…”  Do you remember in that movie where the little boy and his mom are in the kitchen and she turns around and all of the cabinets and drawers are open?  Well, either my house is haunted or Lance likes to leave everything as it was the moment he touched it.  When he leaves the kitchen, the chair is pulled out and the cabinet door to the cereal shelf is open.  The toaster is always out in the middle of the counter.  It’s really neat.  It’s like someone is there…only they aren’t.  It’s like a fossil left behind that tells you a story of what onced happened in your kitchen.  Fascinating!

5- The Halloween Effect.  Lance went to work one day for a Halloween party in 2007.  He came back and was never the same.  His group at the office was assigned to dress-up as characters from the Andy Griffith Show.  Lance went as Andy.  In order to capture Andy’s style, he had to part his hair on the side.  To keep it to the side I guess he had to keep taking his hands and swooping it back into the position.  I kid you not, everyday since Lance went dressed as Andy Griffith, he swoops his hair to the side with his hand ALL DAY LONG.  I find myself speechless as to how this happened and became an instant and permanent habit for him.  He doesn’t cook dinner and do a burger flipping motion with his hands forevermore.  It’s really weird.  He does it all the time like a nervous tick…relax…swoop….relax..swoop.

To conclude, I could wrap this up by saying, “But I really do love this guy…”  While that’s true, that’s just not how the story goes when you and your spouse are ridin’ the nerve train. Sometimes you just get on each other’s nerves until you want to do something crazy like write it all out and put it on the web.  I hope I never get to that point.

 

Part 2: Love & Mairwage September 16, 2008

 

March 2006

Marriage is a funny thing. My dad always told me before I got married that “When it’s good, it’s great and when it’s bad, it’s the worst.” Simple yet super, super true. Exactly what it feels like at least. Somedays you have no idea why it ended up the way it did: so good or so bad. Ultimately, or I suppose always, it’s a choice because loving someone always is a choice, so underneath it all that’s the true reason as to how you get your good or bad days. Even though they seem to just happen at times.

Today was just one of those days…the good ones. For no reason really. I missed him all day.

When he came home we had a delightful cuisine of fine tacos and watched our nightly episode of Season 2 of The Office on Dvd.

I did 2 exhilarating loads of laundry while he cleaned up dinner in the kitchen and we were just kind of slap happy laughing. He made some comment (jokingly) about “Man I have to do it all around here.” I said, “Alright. You’ll pay for that.” So he kept talking and I went into the bedroom and put on some PJs that he thinks are mighty attractive but not trashy so don’t feel weird. I opened them in front of his parents last Christmas just to prove my point.

Anyways, so I come back out and he sees the glorious jammies only to see that I’ve topped them off with humungous sweater socks that have a good 4 inch leapord print fake fur cuff that extends quite far up my ankle and onto my calf. The ultimate in attracting a mate. I was already laughing wildly under my breath waiting for him to notice so it’s not like he took me seriously at this point but still funny. As an added note you should know that my outfit got progressively more attractive with more sensational looks throughout the night. Lots of fun.

Now he’s making cookies all by himself. Kind of. He asks a million questions when he cooks and goes into a mild panic if anything fluctuates a hair from the recipe but that’s my husband. He measures water to boil for spaghetti even though it’s not an ingredient and goes into mild shock if toast browns being absolutely positive that it’s burnt. He’s the guy that unintentionally orders his food at restaurants in the accent of the food he’s ordering. Mainly Mexican. Because we all know if you can’t speak English, you can always understand an American using English a with a Spanish accent. He comes by it honestly though because I’ve been out to eat with his dad. I would never tell his dad that though for fear of waking-up with a dead horse head in the bed next to me….if you’ve met him…you already know.

He hates it when I leave half-eaten cereal bowls in the kitchen, which I’m pretty sure I’m destined to do at least until we get another garbage disposal. He raps around the house and he sounds like the color of his skin when he does it but he swears he could make beats “for real”.

He talks in his sleep religiously. He’s forgiving. He’s compassionate. He always pees on my toilet seat. He says things like, “Since when is it YOUR toilet seat.” Not liking when I use the word ‘my’. I always say, “When you started peeing all over it, when it started making me mad, and when I had to clean it up.”

He’s sweet. He’s creative. He’s totally human. As am I.  He tells the same stories to me many, many times but not because he loves them…because he really believes it’s the first time.  We’ll watch shows we’ve seen before and he’ll laugh like he’s never seen it….because he thinks….he never has.   He loves my family dearly and my family deeply loves him.  He always leaves his phone on silent and  answers sporatically and won’t ever leave a voicemail when calling you.  He’s the best doctor when you’re sick and always has taken perfect care of me.

He’s my husband.

I love him.  The real him. 

A few weeks ago he was driving me bonkers.  A few days before that, another great day. That’s just marriage. It’s the everyday normalcy of life with someone else. Before you’re married you have bad days and good days, hard times in life and great times in life. Adding another person makes it more challenging but the flilp side is that it is all the more rewarding.

You know people always say marriage is work. It is in the respect that it’s not fanstasy and that it’s real and it’s something you are proactive about; putting constant effort in. But it’s been hard for me to say that it’s work based upon the fact that it’s enjoyable even when it’s not. I can say that somewhat confusing statement because I’m looking at the overall experience and what joy and growth comes from the whole process. So the hard times become worthwhile and thus, enjoyable, because they can be looked at like this: You know when you watch Oprah and you see something like that man who had to cut off his legs  to get out from underneath a rock to save his life? Now because of how his life has changed so drastically from that experience (he’s kinder, helped others, closer to his family, etc.). He says, “Losing my legs was the best thing that ever happened to me.” That’s kind of like marriage during hard times/moments. When you are having a bad day(s) it’s not like you are saying, “Man I really like this sawing off of my legs!” But, overall, in the end, it’s for the better & for a purpose.   I really wanted to use an example that was easy to universally apply to everyone’s life.

Tomorrow, next week, next month, next year I might make him crazy. There may be a time I prefer he throw me under a rock so I can cut my own legs off. Most likely it won’t come to that but if I could get on Oprah…..

More than likely tonight what will happen is that he’ll wake me up in the middle of the night for the millionth time talking in his sleep or gasping because he thinks he overslept again. What you may be missing by this point of the blog is that there is as much comfort as annoyance with those nightly unconscious conversations. He may be rambling on his sleep but he’s my night blabber. And he’s right there. Beside me. Where I want him.

This year will have its legless days I’m sure but when it’s walking season? Well child!  The walking gets you ready to to sit for a while and sitting gets you walking stronger when you’re ready to walk again.  Wonderful how God has it all working.

On days you wish never happened and all the ones you wish you could do again because they are so priceless. It isn’t always easy but nothing worthwhile is.

God is still God and who He says He is; giving us what we need and making us better for it and making it nothing shy of a miracle.

So with that in mind, tonight my friend and I will eat a few cookies. He’ll rub my sweater sock feet. He’ll pee on MY toilet seat and then me and my best friend and my half-cute pajamas will crawl into bed tonight and go to sleep. Thankful.

 

 

 

 

Love & Mairwage September 10, 2008

In 1997, Lance and I had been dating a few months and were two crazy kids in love.  He took me home after a date and we were standing on the front porch.  He had a huge piece of corn on his lip that made the long journey home from the restaurant.  While we were standing there talking I kept thinking I should say something but I thought it was awkward and I didn’t want to embarrass him.  After a few minutes of chatting it was time for corn and Lance to leave but not before he gave me a kiss.  We all three kissed.  Then when he pulled back he gave me a weird look and said, “Ewww…you have corn on your lip!”  Fantastic.

I still didn’t tell him it was his corn child.  Who was I then anyways? 

Tonight in 2007 I went on another hot date with the same man.  Lance wore a shirt he had been saving since Christmas for our little date night. 

We gorged ourselves at Chili’s ending with a molten lava cake which is delicious in my belly.  Then we went to Dick’s Sporting Goods and walked around the mall.  Our next port of call was Old Navy. I had a great rumbling in my tummy and I said, “We have to go now.  I’m gonna poop my pants.”  So we ran to Sears and I found myself a pottying place.  The great thing about this is that it didn’t matter that I ran off in our date to have diarrhea cha cha cha.  It was just normal like I had said, “Hey, you like this shirt?”  How did we get from “I’m afraid to tell you that you have corn on your lip.” to “I have to poop my pants.”  I’m not exactly sure but the more I think about it, the more I enjoy dwelling on the fact that I love where I am.  I love total comfort with someone and knowing them completely and vice versa.. 

There are few people in our lives that we really, really know.  Maybe none as well as you’ll ever know your spouse.  But I really know him and he really knows me.  That takes A LOT of hard work to get to that place.  It takes a lot of “for better or for worse”.  I know literally every tone of voice, every subtle mannerism, every favorite or least favorite, all of his experiences, sleeping habits, pet peeves, and how to really set him off when he’s made me mad.  It is a best friend on an entirely different level of intimacy. You gain an almost telepathic sensitivity to being able to anticipate their next move. 

Ya know, thinking of learning a person all over again is exhausting. It’s a brilliant adventure but one I only want to do once.   

Because the truth is it takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get to the core of a human.  We are  complicated, prideful messes as people.  Knowing someone would be easy if we as humans were all roses but to know someone inside and out, you have to see them angry and hurting, you have to see their flaws, you have to work on them together, and live through being who we are when no ones looking. 

But when those times are through, I’m left with relishing the fact that I know a closed mouth for him means he’s really mad and that chewed-up gum on the side of a plate, for example, would be something that would make him extremely annoyed.  I know when he’s really broken-hearted that he’s hear a pin drop quite and that when his head hits the pillow I have 10 seconds and counting to get out any last words. 

To those of you who are thinking, “Awww, I really want to know a boy/girl that way.”  Or on the other side of a coin, someone who is dating someone and it’s going crappy and this blog is just annoying you…to be fair, you should know that I could just have easily written 40 blogs entitled, “I Almost Killed a Man Tonight.”  BUT wanting to kill him is how I learned to love him.  That is not always fun OR easy and thinking, “This will only help me learn to love him,” doesn’t send butterflies surging through my stomach on difficult days.  But on days when it’s un-enjoyable….it’s always worthwhile even if I’m not enjoying its worth.  And at the end of the day, for those of us who have fumbled through sticking it out, that’s what really matters.

Some things in life give us tangible pays offs like jobs that bless us with cars and homes.  And others give us the satisfaction of knowing that if he goes to the grocery he’ll call a million times about cheese and the right kind of green beans all to come home with something wrong or missing and 2 extra bags of chocolate chip cookies that slipped in.  It’s far from the movies, but it’s better than the tangible.  One day when we are old and gray, the comfort of just knowing him and being known will be enough for me.  No matter what it took to get there.

Everything I Needed to know About Dating, I learned from Marriage September 3, 2008

I remember the day after our wedding, waking up in the morning next to Lance at the hotel so overjoyed. If there is cloud nine, I was somewhere up in 20.  What can be better than having the best day of your life, only to wake-up the next day to go on a fabulous vacation with your new spouse?  I remember walking through the airport and seeing all of these old married couples and wanting to be like, “You did it! You got married!”   The day after our wedding is a day I think about more than the day we actually married.  It was the type of feeling you fantasize about as you wait for your wedding day.

 

I also remember when our honeymoon was over because I couldn’t wait to get home to move into our first home!  I can put myself back in that place where I felt so free and excited just to be within the walls of our new house.

 

I remember our first real issue and fight that we had.  One that left me hurt really badly.  I vividly remember sitting in the middle of our living room floor upset and feeling like the freedom I felt before was now feeling like a prison.  All of the sudden the four walls weren’t exciting.  They were a reality check.  I was married.  I couldn’t run and spend the night with my friends or my family because it was tough. 

I was an adult. 

I was married.

And that….was it. 

And in the beginning, during that time, that type of permanence was overwhelming.  It wasn’t that I wanted to leave or that I thought I made a mistake.  It was because I was in one of those moments when you are fully aware of the weight of a situation.  For me, that situation was forever.  And that, during hard times, has to be taken in doses.  Times like that, especially in the beginning, are a screeching halt to wedding showers and running through flowers petals at a reception. 

Lance and I will be married 4 years this summer.  I know that’s far from a lifetime but its long enough to reflect.  So I think a lot about who Lance is.  Who I am.  What we are.  I think a lot about who I was pre-marriage. 

Actually being married has equipped me with the knowledge of simply knowing what it is to be married.  Knowing what it is to be married would be the best type of knowledge to have pre-marriage but of course, it doesn’t work that way.  Because of this, no one knows fully what they are taking on.  However, there are clear indicators when dating of what type of forever you are going to have.  What you are about to read is more or less excerpts from a conversation I have had a million times with tons of girls and a few guys along the way. This is what I do know about dating because I’m married.  I think everyone should talk to someone level-headed and honest this way before taking the plunge.  With all that said, this is what I know for sure…

I know that people typically don’t get better. Just like my myspace headline use to say, “People are never better than you think they are.  They may be worse, but they are never better.” Some people think that sounds so pessimistic but if that’s you….you are probably the person I’m writing this to.  Behind closed doors people aren’t a better version of themselves. You know this is true by the fact that we treat the ones we love the worst.  How many of us were rude to our parents growing-up?  We probably have said some of the worst things to our parents.  You could have a bad day and be in the worst mood but never take it out on your best friend. To your friends you’ll be like, “Ugh, I had the worst day…” But you will unload on your parents.  Why?  Because they love you unconditionally.  You don’t have to “save face” with them.  They won’t leave you, you can trust them…they are simply there no matter what emotionally, physically etc.  A spouse is the same way.  Your guard is down and your security is up.  They will show you and you will show them the worst sides of who you are. I know I sure have. No one can hurt you like your spouse because no one has your heart in the same way.  With that sensitivity comes conflict and with the conflict, the ugliness of you.

So if you are with a guy or girl who can’t treasure you now, who can’t make you feel special, someone who has a temper, someone who is lazy, someone who is selfish, stubborn, un-attentive….that is what you will get.  Dating is the easiest time to be your best you.  If they can’t do it now, they can’t do it after thousands of days, years…of waking-up next to you. They can’t do it during trials if they can’t do it while you guys still have butterflies. 

Sure, they could change someday and I hope they do but the only guarantee you have is who they are now.  There will be issues enough later.  With this said, you need to be able to say that I can commit to this  person and marry them as they are today because that IS exactly the person you are marrying.  There are no other guarantees. You aren’t marrying who you’ll hope they’ll be. You need to be able to say that if they never change, that you would have what is needed to commit to him/her.  Moreover, you need to be able to say if they got more lax in their weaknesses OR strengths that you could commit to that person because that will happen.  Sometimes people we choose or have chosen to date are already riding the fence of what we can take long term.

Is this a person you want your kids to grow-up to be like?  Because they will be, at least in part, who you marry. Can you say, “I would be proud to raise an adult just like my potential spouse.”

Are they the kind of person you want your kids to marry?  If you’ve ever deeply loved a child, your own or otherwise, you know the kind of hope you have for them and the love you want for them.  Don’t forget when you are choosing a potential spouse that you are that child to someone. 

With all of this said, I didn’t learn to think this way because Lance has totally let me down and I wish I just knew all the things I have told you pre-decision to marry him. 

I learned these things because I have had some of the hardest times in what I consider to be a good marriage, to a good man, whom I love. That’s how I know.  I know what it takes and I learn that mostly by what we lack and struggle to have and other times by what we do have as a couple that has been a must. 

I know no one is perfect and that’s not what I’m saying that we as people should find.  What I am saying is that when you are married, you are stuck with the best and worst things about someone and you will experience the extremes of those things…the worst of the worst, and the best of the best.  So once you’re married you have to commit.  It’s a done deal.  When you are dating it’s not.  Don’t chain yourself to someone for forever when you don’t have to. Now is the time to make the decision.  Sit in the weight of the moment, the situation before you as best you can, and think about these things because it’s a reality. 

What will issues be for your marriage? I don’t know.  When will your challenges come for your marriage: 2 years, 15, 30 years into your marriage?  I don’t know that either.  Maybe it’s infertility. Infidelity. Money.  Changing as people.  Having kids. Something traumatic.  Or what takes a lot of couples apart, not tragedy or major issues but the daily annoyances of day-to-day living with a person that eventually kills what binds many marriages.  This is where we find “irreconcilable differences” which is what many divorce papers, including my parent’s, give as a statement of the dissolution of their marriage. 

I don’t know a lot of things about how your marriage will be but there are two definites:  There will be struggle and you will be left in those times with both the benefits and consequences of how wisely you chose a partner.

The only question is:  who are you going to take with you?