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.

Big ones, Tiny Ones, Even Brown Ones December 27, 2010

I hate sports. I hate big orange bouncy balls. I hate oblong leather brown balls. I hate little yellow ‘I hated tennis lesson’ balls. I hate, and I mean especially hate, little tiny white balls. I usually end up flinging the putter over and over Happy Gilmore style until I get 15 strokes a hole. That way I feel like I really got back at it and put it in it’s place. I truly hate hard to control ping pong balls. I hate volley balls that never go in the direction of my percise punches and jabs. I hate large heavy black solid balls that are, in fact, so heavy that I use kid sizes ON THE BUMPER LANE. Don’t judge me. I even hate cotton balls. Maybe even popcorn balls on a bad day.

Lance has been in fiercesome denial of this fact since our wedded bliss in August of 2004. He is always like, “Hey, hey, hey, watch this play!” Not intending to rhyme, of course, because that would be really un-mascqueline and thus, un-athletic. EVERY blasted time I say different versions of the same harsh reality which all revolve around the theme of “I don’t care!”

But still, for reasons still not known, he consistently calls me to the TV to watch some sort of play. The most maddening part about it all is that I tell him every time, “I don’t even know what’s going on?” He will say, “Look at Billy Stevens” or some players name and I”ll say, “Who is Billy Stevens? I don’t know who that is AND I don’t know what he is doing anyways!” Why does he still want to show me if it means nothing to me? The equivalent would be me calling to Lance when he is doing much more important things than what I am wanting to show him and he rushes to the living room to see a cross-stitching tournament in Japanese. Why are they quilting geese jumping over lambs? Who knows? What are they saying? It’s in Japanese. Who cares, I want you to watch this stupid thing whether it’s entertaining or not and I will repeatedly call you in here to witness the boring confusion. That is my example because I truly care about sports as much as grannies cracking their arthritic knuckles over pastel threads.

Poor brother, Lance. He loves these silly games so intensely. Sometimes I humor him and sit by him on the couch while he tantilizes his peepers with UK basketball. He will get the ocassional razzled feather and yell something mean to/about a player like,” What are you doing? Can you even catch a ball?!!!” I bring a rational and emotional touch to the game when I say, “That’s someone’s child. Even if you don’t know them, it’s no more right to make fun of them. What if you were their parent?” Somewhere in his soul I think he really appreciates the sensitive side I bring to televised sporting events.

Every now and then I go beyond suffering through sitting alongside him on the couch and do things like fill out March Madness brackets. I actually really enjoy this aspect of the torture-ish season where my TV is perpetually battered by constant images of men and their games. I enjoy even more that my bracket does better than many lads who treasure said basketball games. How do you do so well, some ask? See, you sports fanatics over-think it. I just look at the stats. Simple game of probability. I add in the occasional upset based on how the name hits me. Sometimes I’m drawn to names like, Elizabethtown Community College and put it in the Sweet 16. It’s like a psychic instinct of just feeling in my guts as to who is going to win. I know, know, ECC doesn’t play during March Madness but Larry Bird and Spud Webb haven’t played basketballs for years and years but it doesn’t stop me from answering every basketall trivia question with these guys. Kind of like when I played Shout About Movies with a girl who wasn’t from America. Every time she saw a boat in the scene she would guess Titanic. You just have to go with what you know and be confident that eventually, in sweet time, it will be the answer they game is looking for.

Tonight, as you might’ve guessed, Lance has interuptted me about a watching a basketball game and hence, this blog that has made your day. Commonly, he wants to show me something that a player does that’s impressive and I just think (and say) I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BASKETBALL BECAUSE I DON’T PLAY OR WATCH IT SO IT WON’T SEEM IMPRESSIVE TO ME. Show me a guy who can do a granny shot from half-court, an attempt I can relate to. Now that’s something I could really get behind.

I don’t think he even hears me anymore when I plead my case as to why it’s unnecessary for me to participate in viewing certain plays. It’s not even about me really. He may not even know I’m in the room. That leads me to some ideas on handling the matter….

I’ve told him that I don’t like little league, high school, college, or professional sports….no level…no matter the ball….no matter the age. I hate sports. One time I even got so flustered that I raised my voice and said with intricatley enuciated words, “I hate basketball. I wouldn’t even care if they never. made. another. basketball!” Can’t really be more direct than that. You can’t care less than not being concerned with the manufacturing of particular sports balls.

In a twist of perfect blogging irony, upon typing the prior sentence, I asked Lance if we could play a game and he walked in not with Bananagrams or Yahtzee, but with a DVD NCAA Basketball trivia game.

I smile to myself in brilliant “I’m so right about this guy” fashion and say, “You know what I’m going to answer every question with right?”

“Uh, Michael Jordan?”

“Fancier.”

A grin came across his face and he said, “Larry Bird?”

How can this game be fair and balanced when he sees all my cards? Fingers crossed.

If I only I was Spud Webb.  Then I’d always be a winner. 

And black. 

Double win.

Women and Whoopie November 22, 2010

If I had a dollar for every mom that told me that they were now asexual, then I’d have about 15 dollars. That’s a lot of cold hard sexually dysfunctioning cash. Asexuality mainly being the lack of sexual interest or desire in a total sort of way, seems to be the common theme for many moms and married ladies. For the guys, it’s opposite day. As always.

I think women tend to start feeling this way after years of marriage, not only after becoming moms, but since I’m a new mom. Let’s talk about mommy.

Getting back to the marital basics after a baby is a weird thing. For Lance, pregnant marital basics was more difficult. There was something beautiful but not so tantalizing about his daughter being in my stomach. For me, I felt really weird when we tried to be intimate after having her. Seriously, all I could think about was, “I have a daughter in the next room. She would be grossed out. Hey, maybe I’m feeling grossed out! I can’t touch her with the hands of friskies!”  It’s a weird transition.  Actually, it’s a transition I haven’t fully had to make because of being out of commission and all.  If you are a new reader and don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s only about 3 blogs or so away from being brought back up again, I’m sure.  

Anyways.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to several things:

1.  You’re tired.  Unfortunately, when the time comes for marriage practices, you are way too exhausted.

2.  Your hormones may be plunging down low the depths of the estrogen lake of fire.

3.  Watching toys dangle from strings on a Baby Einstein video while your baby cries with teething doesn’t start your engine.

4.  You don’t like your new permanent fanny pack of loose skin and lard around your middle.

5.  You don’t like your new body in general.

I’m dangerously on a roll here…..

6.  As I always I saved the best for last and this is a big one.  We feel so tired and a lot of times feel like we are doing it on our own.  Maybe you have a helpful husband.  Maybe you don’t.  Maybe your husband will do anything you ask him to do, you just wish you weren’t always asking.  Maybe your husband tries sincerely to help but there is still leftovers on the changing table and I don’t mean macaroni.  Then you feel mad and frustrated and say, “I’ll just do it myself!”  and you cry into a spare diaper you find on the floor.  Ahhhhh, hormones and sweet exhaustion….how you know me so well.

That was a make-believe scenario.  Sort of.  I do find poop a lot of places I normally don’t when Lance watches Eden but that’s okay.  I’ve never actually cried in diapers.  Those are much too expensive to simply absorb tears.  BUT still, we all have that feeling from time to time where we just want a break resulting in our husbands not catching any.

What dear sisters and sisters does this have to do with sex?  When you feature ovaries and uterus….EVERYTHING.  When you feature parts that make testosterone?  Probably means nothing.

I think most women lose their sexual drive because the demands of motherhood hit right on our love language which is to be loved.  We don’t feel loved when we feel short-changed because of a late meeting that left us in momma overdrive for 13 hours straight.  When our hardworking hubbies get home, even if their hard work allows mothers like me to stay home which is priceless for me/us, it’s hard to not feel a sense of isolation in your parenting role.  No matter how much you love being a mom, no matter how much you love your child, no matter how much you appreciate their work cause BELIEVE ME, I don’t want the job as bread winner….you can still feel all those things and still feel a little overworked in your own mommy right.  Can I have a lunch break, hallelujah one time!!!!!

When issues like this seep into a marriage, and they do no matter the working arrangements, it’s easy to take on the attitude of  ‘if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody getting any sort of thing in our room that makes you happy’.  But then the problem is for real, ain’t nobody happy.  Except baby.  And maybe the occasional cat.

I have a perfect illustration of how this has proven itself true in my own marriage.  I can see Lance reading this at work, gripping his office chair for impact.    It’s okay brother Lance, ease down, ease down.

It’s actually a reverse example of how this works and it started after the delivery. 

As soon as I popped my baby out, I felt so loved and soooooooo close and emotionally intimate with Lance.  This lead me to wish that we could be close in ways that got me to the delivery room in the first place.  Not in a raunchy sort of way but more like an expression of love and togetherness over what we just shared.   Trust me, that was the last thing I expected to feel. 

Then once we got home, as I started kind of losing my way physically, emotionally, and mentally, he took such perfect care of me that, again, I wished I could’ve shown him love that way.  You wouldn’t think a lady hyped-up on PPD would even have that within a million miles of herself but, I really did.  Almost to the extent that it was like when we first married over 6 years ago.  Little did we know that just 7 months later we would get to finally share in that again.  Nope, just kidding.  Still can’t.

All giggling about my privates aside, my point here is that I wanted to be with Lance in the worst of physical and emotional situations because what was drawing me to him was his love for me.  I think it’s so different for men that it’s really hard for them to understand or rather even believe that- that is how we function.  I really and sincerely become more attracted to Lance when he washes the dishes un-asked or offers to take Eden so I can go in town or when he secretly buys me the picture frame I want at Target for 16.99 for limited time only in aisle B16. 

That kind of stuff gets me going.  Men are so visual that they really have a hard grasping that cooking dinner for the family is like the male equivalent of Victoria Secret.   SO, as life gets more demanding for the both of you, neither of you wanna cook or clean but one of you still wants to contribute to the physical area of the relationship while your wife has decided to become asexual.  And here we find the problem for many women.

The solution is a two-fold fix:  your husband meets your needs, whatever that may be, and you meet his.

This, however, is only a solution to inspire you to desire each other.  You have to still do your part to meet your spouses needs even they aren’t taking as good of care as yours as you’d like.  The only way to get back on track is not to both throw in the towel.  Someone has to be trying.  Better if you both are but when in doubt, try, try again.  When you take on the ‘ain’t nobody happy approach’, then you aren’t working as a unit which is what you are and moreover, that approach is totally selfish and apathetic to actually making changes.

Sisters of the asexual world, I hear you.  The cave women felt this way.  There is nothing new under the sun.  I guarantee that the cave lady would be like, “Where’s my Brontosaurus leg?” And when he said, “I don’t know I was rolling rocks down the hill with the guys”, then she would take two big sticks and make an ‘x’ over her body. 

It’s not always fun and it’s definitely not always desirable or an easy thing to do BUT it’s necessary for a healthy marriage and asexuality doesn’t seem to fit into the picture somehow.

I hope you and your cave man can make cave babies together through the good times, the wanted times, and the unwanted times.  It’s not easy and not something that most of us can snap our fingers back into but somehow there has to be a way even without Brontosaurus bones.  We just have to do our part to be selfless, just like we want our cave kings to be.  

PS- But for real, lasagna will go a long way for you.  Top it off with a freshly, cleaned tub and you are going to straight to Disney World!

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

Funnies and Freedom August 15, 2010

I, Rebecca Secret Last Name, had a day to myself for the first time since I squeezed life into the world. It felt ridiculously amazing! I felt like I had taken hard-core drugs and was on the highest of high. At least I’m assuming doing drugs feels like going to Walmart all by yourself without having to squeeze a shopping cart down narrow aisles.

The first time in 4 months I was all alone. It was wicked awesome. You don’t realize how much you need that time until you are in the moment and you’re like, “Oh yeah, hello me…”

I went to farmer’s market and bought fresh flowers. I went, as I said, to Walmart and was able to whisk in and out. I even got myself a Panera smoothie, for the love of Besty! And let me not forget to say, I listened to music insanely loud and bumped like a teenager on the way to Prom. It was delicious. I really missed myself. Rebecca is a pretty cool person. I guess she’s been hiding in diapers and behind Boppy’s and Bumbo seats.

I finished off the day with throwing my buddy a stellar wedding shower and then later that night, crawled into bed with my exhausted husband.

You don’t realize it but “exhausted” for him means there will be a one man show that night in bed via sleep jabbering and unconscious grabbing of my innocent bottom in the middle of the night. Lucky for me, I was awake for three hours before I feel asleep (probably because of the drugs) so this means that I got to listen to Lance and correspond with him.

11:15 pm I get up and go to the bathroom. From the bed Lancey comes a callin’ in a voice of annoyance and disgust,

“She’s got green stuff all over her face!”

What?

“She’s got GREEN stuff all over her face!”

Who?

“The baby!”

The baby has green stuff all over her face. Really. How do you know that? Do you think you’re looking at her?

“The tape!”

Okay so she’s got green stuff all over her face and you are looking at her on a tape. A tape, right?

“The pill! Nevermind this is silly.”

Go to sleep, Lance.

After intermittent inappropriate slips of the hand, we reach midnight. Lance is asleep and he’s breathing erratically. He sounded panicked and scared. At first, it scared me but then he started whimpering and it was more pitiful slash wussy slash annoying so I decided to put the poor boy out of his misery and wake him up.

Lance, wake-up you’re freaking out.

“What?”

You are crying and breathing all crazy. What were you dreaming about?

“(mumbly mumbles jibber jabber) Nothing”, he says.

I kept pushing on out of pretend compassion for his distressed state but I more wanted a show because I was bored and lonely.

Lance, tell me what you were dreaming about because you were really upset.

“I was being chased by Jordin Sparks with a gun.”

Jordin Sparks the singer?

“Yeah.”

Why were you crying?

Then he whispered, “Because she was gonna get me.”

I started laughing uncontrollably. Then Lance entered a state of euphoric bliss and he also laughed uncontrollably. I’m not sure if he was awake at this point but it was funny so who needs consciousness?

At some point during the jollies, he woke up and we laughed for about 20 more minutes on and off. Then he said in all seriousness, “Stop laughing I need to sleep.  You’ve been touching me all night and waking me up!” 

Are you kidding me?  You are the one touching me all night like you’re playing slumber tag!

Gotta love sleeping with a crazy man. It was the perfect ending to the ultimate day of a momma single and on the run. I love my crazy husband.

Mind Spazz June 27, 2010

I tried to cut him an honest deal.  I told him I would make out with him everyday for a month, if he would just try Ritalin for 31 days.  Lance fancies the smooches so I knew this would be enticing.  He told me we would have to have an attorney write it up in order for me to keep the pact.  No way we wouldn’t!  I can kiss my head off for a life change.  He told me he likes the way his life is.  I peered my eyes over the laptop and said, “That’s only because you don’t how good it is on the other side.”  See, when a person is “different” they don’t know they’re different because it’s all they’ve ever known.  It’s their normal.  Kind of like a cat that’s only had dry food.  They don’t know the delicious delicacy of wet food until their human moms run out and buy it for them as a treat.  Then they look back at the dry food and say, “What a bunch of crusty mess!” 

Lance is stuck in a pile of stale cat goodies and he doesn’t even know it. 

Would you try some Ritalin?

Ritalin with a side of Aderal?

Aderal with a dash of cinnamon?

Come on, man! 

I told him he wouldn’t believe how much it would change his life. 

“You could be a better pastor. A better worker.  A better hubby!”  The possibilities are endless.

I mean, it’s not normal to be changing your baby’s diaper and get so distracted that you try to put her passy in her bum bum instead of her yum yum.  Eden was crying on the couch while he changed the goods and he was watching TV.  The tube was enough to get him off track enough that he tried to calm her with the passy but ended up starting to head the passy down south.  I’m sure the thought process was:  Changing diaper.  Butt region.  Look at that on TV!  Insert passy.  But where?  I’m changing her diaper.  Mind equates all action with diaper.  Passy gravitates to her behind.

Geez.

Eating with Lance at a restaurant is like watching a cat laying in the grass.  I already used a cat reference. Dang IT.  Eating with Lance at a restaurant is like watching a hunting dog.  Any  movement and he immediately turns to see what all the commotion is about.  Heaven forbid we sit by an entrance because he must look at each person as they walk out.  Oh help us if there is a TV.  It could be the cross stitching channel and he will look at it about  10 times a minute.  I’m thinking of buying him those horse blinders for Father’s Day.  They could be monogrammed with his favorite sports team.  I’m not totally heartless. 

Sometimes we play games like, “I dare you not to fiddle with your keys, phone, gum wrappers, etc. for the rest of the car ride.”  He smiles and takes on the challenge and he sits really still with his hands in his lap because the task requires his full concentration.  All the sudden a tree passes the window and BAM concentration is shot and he fiddles immediately.  He laughs.  I’m always hoping that he will see how bad his ADHD is when we do these experiments but he always gets a jolly kick out of it.  Again, the impaired aren’t bothered by their impairments…only the innocent bystanders.  Ahem. Me.

Exhibit A-Z:  We are sitting at Barnes and Noble right now and we’ve been here about ten minutes and he says, “I gotta go walk around.”  Then he comes back and says that he ‘feels like a crack addict in here’ because all these books catch his eyes and he wants this one and that one….SOUND SIREN…SYSTEM OVERLOAD. 

Now that he’s back at the table he has been monitoring all movements of passer-bys.  And hey, if no one is moving , he’ll turn clear around  in his chair and look at the window.  You can’t just let people wander in and out TJ Maxx unsupervised!  Listen, they might get some killer sells and someone has to be on top of the excitement.

I’m losing my brain here trying to tame the beast of ADHD that is Lance.  A bounty of kisses for long periods of time in exchange for Ritalin?  Think about it mister…..

If I could just get him to try it either by will or, possibly by force and physical restraints, I know he would like it.  It’s like he would step out of the Friskies Kibbles and Bits and into a sea of tuna and gravy.  Ummmmm, sounds peaceful there.

5 hundred smackers to the person who can get him to take some meds.  If not, I may need to take meds due to his not taking meds.  Wait a second….I already am.  And when I say smackers, I don’t mean that you will get all the kisses I promised Lance.  I mean the real deal dollars.  Or pennies.  Just figure it out and we’ll work out the details later.

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.