10 Years Ago, Today

I have been married for ten whole years!  Wow, that is kind of crazy.  This morning when I woke up to realized that today was the day that ten years ago I was freaking out and sweating bullets standing in front of a Priest in front of a whole crowd of people saying words that sounded foreign, it felt a little strange.  See, I actually wasn't sleeping with my husband, I was sleeping with two different people.  You guessed it, Jac and Mia had wriggled themselves into bed with us and at some point Jeff had had enough and went to sleep on the couch (which is weird, because we have three other beds in the house).   I assume he got insomnia and was unable to go to sleep after being kicked in the head a few times. 

I was just a little shy of well rested, but coffee and a lovely breakfast helped out that situation.  I made my hubby of TEN YEARS a splenid egg skillet and toast breakfast with a lovely card chosen by yours truly.  It was nice.  Alas, I was trumped. 

I noticed that Jeff was sort of in and out a lot this morning and when he left he said, "your keys are in the car".  Which meant that he had been in my car for some reason this morning, I was instantly alert to a "surprise" potentially waiting in the car.  (I was thinking chocolate or flowers, but he gave me lovely roses for Valentines Day, so probably chocolate.  As a rule we don't do gifts on our anniversary.)  I was pretty involved with Thing 1 and Thing 2, trying to get out the door to preschool that I sort of shoved it into the back of my mind.  Right as I was walking out the door and doing the last sweep of the house, lest we forget something direly important for our 2.5 hours at preschool I saw a card on the counter with my name on it.  I kind of felt disappointed, because I had thought that I was getting something cool in the car and that would have been where the card would be - right next to the chocolate.

Nevermind.  Out we go.  We load up, get buckled, cry a few tears because someone's pullover is "mean", make a run back into the house because someone else forgot their bag and we are off.  I turn on the car and drumroll please..........magically our song is playing on the CD player. Awwwwww.  This is where you say, awwww.  How sweet.  He downloaded, not one; but two versions of our song, These Are The Moments by Edwin McCain and rigged it all up so that as soon as I turned the car on it would start playing. 

Needless to say, it made my day.  I had woken up in a pretty good mood, but a little sleep deprived. I got a tad (maybe more than a tad) stressed and irritated when NO ONE wanted to get ready to leave and just when I had absolutely had it because of a pullover and a left behind bag, all was okay and wonderful because my hubby is, well because he is my hubby.

I had planned on writing a post involving the list below for today.  Which I will wrap up with in an abbreviated version.  But I did need to brag about how wonderful he is, my darling husband of TEN YEARS!

Things I have learned over the last TEN YEARS

1.  Marriage comes first.  No matter what, marriage comes first.  Remember the ditty, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.  Well, that baby doesn't have a chance if hubby and wifey don't make each other a priority.  My marriage comes first and anytime that falls out of whack I suffer, he suffers and so does everything else that is important to us.

2.  Jeff really loves sports.  I kind of knew that he liked Cardinal baseball and Mizzou Football when we met.  I indulged.  It was right during all of the McGuire / Sosa homerun madness so it was really interesting.  I think I may have led him to believe I was a big sports fan.  After all this time I really thought that he had other hobbies, maybe wood working or toilet fixing or maybe taking up massage therapy.  Nope.  He is a diehard.  There is no off season, something is always in season.  Trying to change this is like trying to change the direction of the wind.

3.  He loves me almost unconditionally.  I am sure there is something I could do to lose his love.  But of all the times I have messed up or disappointed him, he still loves me.  He loves my stupid questions, he loves my terrible memory ("What was the name of that town we stayed the first night in Ireland, oh right, Dublin."), he loves my quirky insights ("Why do the planets exist?  I mean surely there is a reason.  If God made everything on this Earth have a purpose, why wouldn't Jupiter have a purpose too?"), he loves my knacky toes that rarely get pedicured, he loves my body after two babies (Gravity is a cruel, cruel, never stopping to rest, kind of enemy.), he loves the overeductated mom I have become, I think he even loves all of the good stuff .  This man loves me so much that he has, on occasion bought me feminine hygiene products.  If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does.  I am lucky.

4.  Men really can't find the mayo in the fridge.  I thought that maybe this was just my dad.  Nope, it's not.  My husband has the hardest time finding detailed items. Anything small, I mean he can find the state of South Carolina easy, like he has a weird internal compass.  But to ask him to find something that would require the tiniest bit of looking is a ridiculous request.  And if it is something of mine that I am asking him to look for in one of my drawers, I might as well be asking him to defuse a bomb that I strapped inside of my makeup cabinet. 

5.  It always helps to laugh.  It is when we get too serious about ourselves, our children or a situation that things go awry.  Sometimes he is the one cracking the jokes while I am taking myself too seriously.  And sometimes it is me, but normally we both aren't cranky at the same time and we can help each other see the humor in the situation.