The Fish Pond

Sixteen

In our culture we recognize sixteen years as a term of achievement. We grant drivers licenses. We have Sweet Sixteen parties. We have deemed it the age at which someone is mature enough to give consent for sexual activity in 33 states plus DC, and the age at which someone can drop out of school without the cops coming after their parents in many states as well (though that's a bad idea - stay in school!). Why don't we recognize a marriage this way?

Traditional anniversary gifts go from one (paper or clocks) to fifteen (crystal or watches) and then jump to twenty (china or platinum). I guess they figure if you've made it to 15, what's 5 more? There's no special gift, no designated way to mark the day. BigDaddyFish, always unconventional, thinks this is the time to follow tradition. Not that I'm overly driven by convention by any means, but I did keep to tradition back when I was 23 a helluva lot more than I do now. So I'm not bending to tradition, per se, but I'm choosing to mark the day by examining all the things I would have done differently on that day sixteen years ago.

1. I would have been even more laid back than I was. Not that I was a bridezilla; the photographer had to tell my bridesmaids to put makeup on me so I wouldn't be so washed out in my pictures. I just didn't wear it, I felt it wasn't that important in the overall scheme of things, just like I felt about a lot of stuff (engraved crystal or silver? For one day? Not for me). I would have kept things more simple than they already were.
2. I wouldn't have designated bridesmaid dresses, I would have just picked a color and asked my bridesmaids to wear whatever made them happy in that color.
3. We wouldn't have rented tuxes for any of the guys, either. Again, nice clothes that make them happy.
4. We wouldn't have registered for anything but flatware and dishes. Nobody pays attention to the registry for anything but that anyway, apparently.
5. I would have gone barefoot. Or worn hiking boots. Does anyone care about the bride's feet, really?
6. I wouldn't have asked my bridesmaids to wear hair bows. What the hell was I thinking?
7. My aunt made my gorgeous dress. When she gave me a list of patterns that she thought she could manage, I'd have picked the simplest, instead of the most complex.
8. I'd have worn deep blue instead of white. It's pretty and I look good in it. Or even an emerald green, my husband's favorite color. Who says a wedding dress has to be white? It's not like most brides nowadays are virgins, and frankly it's none of anyone's business but her's and the groom's whether she is or not.
9. We would have altered the ceremony to include mention of the fact that our best man's father passed away that morning, and publicly acknowledge the sacrifice he made by choosing to be with us that day, even though I tried to send him home.
10. We would have made the ceremony shorter.
11. I would have let the photographer take more of the pictures ahead of time.
12. We would have seen each other before the wedding, in a brief private meeting, just the two of us. For all that a wedding is supposed to be about the couple, there is very very little time together.
13. Our food was great, but I would have had a wider variety of dishes offered. Not everyone likes chicken.
14. We'd have had appetizers of some kind for while we finished up the pictures.
15. We'd have had a smaller, more simple cake, and had a sheet cake for serving.
16. I'd have made my own invitations.

Hell, maybe we'd even have scrapped it all, eloped, then had a barbeque in a park later. Or had a surprise wedding, where the guests had no idea it was happening til it happened (which certainly would have helped with the stressed out relatives. We kept telling them to relax, it's just one day). But one thing I absolutely, positively wouldn't change, even after sixteen years, especially after sixteen years, is the groom. It's obvious that it's a good match when sixteen years feel like two. We've been married longer than I shared life on this earth with my mother. Long enough for tradition to tell us this year doesn't matter. So we'll bow to tradition and do nothing. Well, not nothing. I'll take care of kids and do laundry all day. He'll work for 10 hours and add a 1.5 hour commute on each side. I'll make him chicken and dumplings for dinner, and we'll sit on the couch after the kids go to bed and play Rune Factory Frontier on Wii. Maybe we'll each have a glass of wine. We'll sleep late tomorrow.

Happy sixteen years, BigDaddyFish.

Lesson Learned: Reasons Not to Stay Up All Night Drinking When You Are a Parent, Besides the Obvious

So, BigDaddyFish and I have been going through - something. I don't know what. Maybe a mid-life crisis? But we're both going through it together. We've been doing a lot of talking and connecting and going out together and just generally enjoying each other's company in ways we did back when we were dating and in the earlier years of our marriage, before the kids came along. And we've rediscovered a love of good red wine. It's been a lot of fun, and the kids have been patient with us. Most of the time.

This past weekend, BDF and I polished off a bottle of wine, and then...well. We were stupid. We moved on to scotch. We didn't go to bed until 7 am Saturday morning, and then got about three hours of sleep before we had to get up with the kids and be functional. We spent the day doing things for the kids, spending time with them, taking them to a cafe next to the train tracks in a nearby town that we like to frequent because we can eat good food and watch the trains go by right there. Our homeowner's association recently replaced the playgrounds in our development (like, last week) so we took the kids over to play on the new playground (which is awesome). We just focused on them. But that can only go so far. My stomach was roiling most of the day, though I never got sick, but the thought of cooking the ham I had planned to make was unappealing at best, so we cried Uncle, or, specifically, Uncle Dave (side note - he played the 9:30 club in DC on Friday night while BDF and I were trying to recapture our youth - check out that clip of him singing Sledgehammer), and he came to take care of the kids (bonus - he totally got them to clean up the family room, too. We'd be lost without him) while BDF and I went out for hangover curing burgers and fries. And no alcohol. We came home not long after the kids went to bed, and we went to bed ourselves.

At about 3 am, Trout came into our room complaining about a headache and sore throat. She hadn't eaten any dinner at all and had gone to bed early without complaining, and we had suspected for days she was coming down with something. She had a fever of 102, so we gave her some ibuprofen and a small snack, encouraging her to drink water and eat a bit. That backfired as she threw up about 20 minutes later, so we put her in the shower and got her cleaned up and cooled down and put back to bed at about 4 or so. She usually is our early riser, getting up between 7 and 8 (how we had a morning person is a mystery) and going down to watch tv, and she keeps an eye on the littles as they get up and come down while we sleep in. She did get up and go to watch tv, but she wasn't feeling well, and wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around her. BDF and I slept in rather late, finally dragging our asses out of bed about noon when Sunny and Little Man shrieked that Nemo was poopy. We told them to send him up and we'd take care of it.

When Nemo arrived in my room, he was soaking wet up to his shoulders, which to me meant only one thing: disaster. Visions of his previous forays into playing in the toilet crossed my mind, but Little Man told us he'd been in the kitchen, which we keep gated off, though everyone but Nemo can open the gate. I sent Little Man down to survey the damage in the kitchen while I changed Nemo, worried that the cleaning product cabinet had been left unlocked, or worse. I could not have imagined what actually happened.

Nemo got in the fish tank. He decided he wanted to play with the shee-shees, so he put the following items in the fish tank with the fish: two full cans of Juicy Juice concentrate (unopened), a couple of Christmas ornaments (one plastic, one glued), a piece from a Plan Toys vegetable garden set, my brand new stainless steel pepper grinder full of peppercorns (fully submerged), at least one Fisher Price Little People animal, a hair clip, Little Man's magic wand from magic club, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. He had messed up the filter, and I'm thanking God almighty that the light wasn't plugged in - we unplug it every night when we go to bed, and the kids don't plug it in - otherwise he might have been electocuted.

BDF went down to deal with the carnage from that as I got Nemo cleaned up and changed, and got dressed to take Trout to Doc-in-a-Box, as she was still feeling (and looking) just awful, and BDF suspected she had strep (she didn't, I was right, "just" a virus). He dealt with fishing (ha!) things out of the tank, and then he marshalled the remaining healthy kids to clean up the family room. I was supposed to go to a rubber stamp workshop, but with a sick Trout it just wasn't possible - taking all 4 kids to Doc-in-a-Box when only one needed it is a level of crazy that even BDF and I haven't achieved. DIAB was empty, though, so we were there and back pretty quick.

Even after fishing all the stuff out of the tank the water was still pretty cloudy. BDF had done a partial water change while I was gone, but he decided he wanted to do a full change but we didn't have enough water. So I went out to buy a bunch of gallons of distilled water. Before I left, though, I made a couple of sandwiches, and as I stood there eating my sandwich I studied the tank, and noticed something that looked a little weird on the bottom of the tank.

_{Yes, I actually could see in there.}

There were a bunch of little round things, odd looking things, like some sort of durable hard cereal, mixed in among the gravel on the bottom of the tank. BDF started fishing those out, and we found this:

_{Doesn't BDF have nice hands?}

A washable crayon, hence the reason the water wasn't coming clear even after a partial change, and the better part of a pound of knock-off m&ms from the bulk section of Whole Foods.

 

A full water change was in order, so I made a speed run and we changed the water. The stress of the whole thing made one of our females go into labor, so we got to see the baby fish before the goldfish manged to find and eat them all, which is something we knew was going on but we didn't want to think about, much less explain to the kids (we'll go back to breeding them once we have a new house and space to do it again - we bred before and at one time had 17 fish tanks [and a dog!] in an apartment). Miraculously, all the fish survived and don't really seem any worse for wear, other than the premature labor. It'll be a while before the tank conditions return to normal, though; all the plants are coated with cocoa butter and some sort of waxy substance from the m&ms.

This is the tank Sunday evening - it really didn't look any different the whole day on Monday, either. We had a good long talk with the kids about how important it is for HIS OWN SAFETY for Nemo to be kept out of the kitchen, and that they must always always always shut the gate when they go through it. We don't want anyone to get hurt.

So what have we learned boys and girls? Keeping the fish tank away from the fish-loving two year old isn't as easy as it seems. And for God's sake, save your midlife crises for times when a competent adult is in charge.

Lesson learned.

Indeed

BigDaddyFish changed offices so he's close to the preschool that Sunny attends three days a week. We've been meeting him for lunch every day after I pick her up from school. BDF drives me a bit crazy, in that he won't kiss me in public, even a quick peck as he goes back to work. Today, I was frustrated with him about that, and this conversation was the result.

"That's it. I'm going home to go look at porn."

"Don't do that. I need 24 hours advance notice for that. I'll give you assignments, what to watch."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, then you could do book reports on them."

"Um, if they're about movies, wouldn't that make them movie reviews?"

"No, actually, I guess more like After Action Reports."

Fifteen, Ten, Nine, Eight

What a roller coaster ride. Thanks for making me face my fears and get on. Here's to another fifteen years. Happy Anniversary, BigDaddyFish.

So Many Topics, So Little Time to Write

I have so many things I want to write about, so many posts floating around in the ether of my brain, but both of my littles have what we affectionately refer to as The Hacking Death and between wiping snot, cleaning up puke after the kids cry or cough so hard they puke, doing the ensuing laundry, driving people around all over, and just trying to get some sleep so I'm better able to handle said activities I haven't had the time to write anything. So, please forgive me, but I'm just going to throw some bullets out there so at least some of it can get out of my head and leave me more room to fit in all the information about mortgage qualifying:

• Tuesday afternoons Little Man has a sports class at our local community center. The class is only 45 minutes long, so the rest of us just sit in the car and Trout does her homework, we listen to music, and if she gets done quickly enough we watch a movie. I sometimes let Sunny and Nemo out of their carseats to stretch their legs, and this week Nemo slept while Sunny was free to move about the cabin. All of a sudden Trout starts shouting about how Sunny is coloring on the car - yes, my not-even-two-month-old van. Somehow Sunny found a random piece of crayon floating in the air somewhere (because I have not allowed any such items in the new van) and colored on the window, carseats, upholstery, speaker covers, whatever struck her fancy. I was livid. It appears that the crayon was a washable one, though, because a babywipe took care of most of the mess. I reminded her once again that she was ONLY TO COLOR ON PAPER!! and thought that was the end of it. Which it was until Little Man got in the car on Wednesday morning to go to school and found where I wasn't able to remove some of the crayon from his booster seat (which he will ride in until he gets his driver's license as he appears to have my genes). "Who colored on my seat???" he shouted, and I told him Sunny had and that I'd get it later and to buckle up. "AAAUUGHH! That..that.." he struggled with the words, and since he's been experimenting with colorful language lately I thought I knew what was coming. "She is SUCH. A. LITTLE... RASCAL!!" he said angrily as he stomped his foot. Yeah, she is.
• I am my own worst enemy, I swear. Tuesday morning I had to scramble around to get all four kids up and ready to go - the bigs to school, Sunny to her preschool, and Nemo comes with me to my therapy appointment. We got up early enough, got the bigs to school and went scrambling down to the preschool to drop Sunny off. I saw one of the moms who I know has younger kids with whom I sometimes share watching duty, where one of us watches the littles in the parking lot while the other runs in to get her big kid and then we switch, and I asked if she wanted me to watch her little one so she could run in. She said no, she'd be a while, and then asked me if I had a conference that day, to which I said no and looked at her quizzically. She told me there was no school that day, it was a conference day. Which I would have known if Sunny had gone to school on the previous Thursday and I had gotten the newsletter, but she didn't and I didn't. Doh. So there I was, with my therapy appointment, to which I have to take an almost-four year old. Yeah, I don't think so. I was able to scramble around and make arrangements for my SIL to watch her and was only 5 minutes late to my appointment.
• Saturday BigDaddyFish and I had a glorious day, just us. First we matched up the socks, then we went to an Indian restaurant and pigged out on the buffet. Then we went to the Air and Space Museum Annex - Udvar-Hazy Center and had a blast taking our own sweet time looking at exhibits and reading things with nobody going "Mooooom, this is booorring! Let's go!" or running around and trying to climb on the SR-71. They have added an F-14 since we were there last, probably my favorite among the fighter aircraft - awesome. They have a couple of flight simulators there, one that you can "fly" and one that you just ride along, and since we were unencumbered by small people I suggested we ride one. We chose for BDF to fly the plane and I would ride with him. We paid our money and got in line to go in, and they had a small tv screen showing us our "pre-flight" briefing. "This ride will be taking you upside down, so please leave all belongings in the locker provided." Say wha? Upside down? Nobody said anything about upside down. Have I mentioned I don't do flying, or heights for that matter, very well? Upside down? After eating a huge meal of Indian food? "You're going to pay for this," I said to BDF as we locked up our stuff. He was the pilot, I was the gunner, and the ride was 4.5 minutes long. Would you believe that we had so much fun? And I shot down 6 planes? And I only spent about 45 seconds with my eyes shut, and probably 45 seconds upside down? Then, as if the day wasn't great enough, we went to see Charlie Wilson's War, which was great, and THEN went out to dinner. We spent the entire day without the kids; we didn't fight or bicker at all. It was awesome. When you have small people depending on you it is so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day details of living and forget why you got married in the first place - nurturing your marriage is as important as remembering to feed the kidlets. And men, if you take the time to go out and have fun with your wife, just the two of you, without complaining about how much it costs or whatever else you could be doing, it just might increase your chances of getting a little action. Dramatically.
• When we were doing the great clean out on Saturday and Sunday, we found several of what we believe are larvae for clothes moths. We have a lot of wool shirts, blankets, and socks that don't get used very often, and somewhere we have an infestation. I freak the heck out when worms or snakes are nearby - I HATE them. I'm weirded out by things without feet. So I screamed each time we came across one and squealed and got all squicked out and BDF squished them and put them in the trash. I was not aware that cedar is not necessarily a great repellent, and that stored items need to be checked at least once a year. So, now we are working on finding the source of the contamination and eliminating it, four or five vacuumings and multiple washings at a time, like we didn't have enough of that to do already. Ewwww.
• Friday night BDF and I got salads for dinner and he went upstairs to eat his while on the computer. Instead of taking it back down two floors to the kitchen when he was done, he just put it on a stool at the top of the stairs down to our kitchen, on the same floor as our bedrooms. Nemo woke up before us, and BDF put him on the floor to just let him run amok while we woke up fully. Sunny starts yelling about an awful smell, and we think it's Nemo's diaper or something and tell her to just be patient about it. Then she started complaining about a big mess and we decided we better get up to investigate. This is what we found:

Guess Nemo decided he didn't like the salad. Gem that he is, Uncle Orca (agincourtdb) cleaned it up for us when he arrived to babysit so BDF and I could go our for our date. Frankly, I was quite relieved that it had nothing to do with Nemo's diaper.

• Capital One are a bunch of scum-sucking bastards. Last month I either didn't receive a statement at all or I lost it in the jumble of papers on my table (most likely didn't receive because I still haven't found it). I realized it after the due date but before they sent me anything to hassle me about it, so I paid them something based on what I paid the previous month. We got that card because it had a 2.9% interest rate for the life of all balance transfers, so we transferred quite a large balance to it years ago and have been slowly paying it off; we cut the cards up and never used them. We've put that balance low on our list of things to pay off and put higher rate stuff as a higher priority in our quest to get out of debt. Well, they decided since we were late on our payment to jack the interest rate - to 27%. 27%. Pure insanity. I've been late on other cards years ago and if they raised the rates at all, which I don't remember them doing, it was only a point or two. I would have understood if they had raised it to something like 6-10% since that's what we had for purchases if we'd ever used the card, but this is highway robbery. We are lucky that we had the money for me to call up and pay them off this morning, and I'm closing the account immediately. They have lost us as a customer and we will be sure to warn everyone we know about them. If there is ever a chance you might be late with a payment (which would mean you are a normal person), don't be fooled by Capital One. Within two months we will have paid off all of our credit card debt, and all we'll have are our mortgage and one car payment. It feels fantastic.
• I am going through a major effort to simplify my life, cutting down on spending, paying off debt, not buying new stuff, decluttering, not watching much tv (American what?), cleaning, etc. It feels good and has helped my depression so very much, and has helped me not to feel so unsettled. I'm enjoying taking better care of my family, and in doing so, taking better care of myself.
• I'm thinking of going back to work some, ideally to pick up some freelance writing assignments, but haven't the first idea how to go about doing that. Anyone have any ideas they are willing to share, or willing to take on, I don't know, a jr. apprentice or helper or something? I'm willing to work cheap until I've proven myself. I used to be a technical writer/editor before I had kids, and I have an English degree, so I have a basis for this line of work; it's just the marketing/business side of things I'm clueless about.

So, how are you doing? Did I mention we're house hunting? In theory?

Stoking the Fires

Every year, on the two weekends following Thanksgiving, there is a craft show at the Frederick County Fairgrounds, and for most years for the past decade my friend Fish-Flopper and I have gone to the show, most times a break for me without the kids. We always have a great time, we eat what we want, and it's still hot, and no one is trying to get our attention. She is one of my before-kids friends, and has no kids herself. We used to work together, but haven't for a few years now, and since she lives in another state we don't see each other very often anymore. For whatever reason, we never seem to make plans well in advance of the craft show, and I don't know why because it's not like we don't know when it's going to be. We'll have to plan now for next year. Anyway, this year she couldn't go, so I asked BigDaddyFish if he wanted to go.

He did, and we went. We got a sitter starting at 10 am (thanks, Uncle Orca) and went to the craft show. We ate what we wanted. We idly looked at everything there, mostly repeats for me, but all new to BDF. We walked and talked and laughed and joked around. We did a ton of Christmas shopping, with a few things for ourselves. When we were done at the craft show, it was nearly sundown, and we drove around the wonderful city of Frederick, where we used to live and which we both still love. We bonded. We ran home for a quick check-in, and then went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner. When we first drove by, it was packed to the gills, so we drove around and went to the train tracks and saw a train. We went back to the steakhouse, and had this conversation:

"We drove around so long that I don't want to eat here anymore."

"What?"

"I don't. I'm not in the mood anymore."

"Well, where do you want to eat?"

"Home."

"HOME?! But, there's kids there, and we have no meat."

"Well, we have meat. It's in the freezer."

"Yes, but that would make it FROZEN SOLID."

"Yeah, I guess it's a little too cold to grill out."

"Ya think? Come on, I got my heart set on the vegetables, and the meat, and the soup, and the salad. PLEEEASE?"

So we went in. As we were walking in, I happened to look in the window and see what looked like a familiar head to me.

"Hey, that looks like Minnow and Mr. Minnow!" We walked a bit further and I looked again. "It IS the Minnows!"

And so it was. So we went out, to the Japanese steakhouse, had a fabulous dinner, and got to sit with friends of ours. Grown ups. We had grown up conversation, and a wonderful meal.

And when we went home, our lovely, lovely children were sound asleep. And so we went to sleep ourselves, rejuvenated.

Out of the Mouths of Babes #5724

Scene: A couple sits on a couch across from a television set showing the Redskins/Dallas game on a Sunday afternoon, the woman slightly sideways and nuzzling up against the man's side, his arm around her back, his hand on her lower back, fingertips ever-so-slightly tucked into her waistband. Across the toy-strewn, cheerio-and-kix-crumb-laden room, the woman's sister sits on the step entry to the sunken living room, talking to a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl while another, older girl insists on using the bathroom with the door open behind them while a baby crawls around the room in search of crumbs big enough to put in his mouth to make his mother squeal "No, baby, don't eat that!"

Six-Year-Old Boy: "Daaaaad, why do you have your hand in Mommy's butt?!? That's gross!"

Woman on Couch, with twinkle in eye: "Yeah, Dad, why DO you have your hand in Mommy's butt?"

Cue hysterical laughter, and fade out.

Letting the Cat Out

As I'm sure has been obvious, we have been experiencing a particularly large amount of stress lately here in the Fish Pond, and I am finally able to let you in on the secret as to the reason for some of it.

A little while ago, I blogged briefly about BigDaddyFish's existential crisis, and a decision that he was having some difficulty about. Last Friday was BigDaddyFish's last day at his old job. He now has a couple of weeks off, after which he will start a new job the first Monday in November.

Arriving at the decision to make the move was exceptionally difficult for BDF, and as a result he was more cranky than his usual grumpy curmudgeon. He had been dissatisfied at his old job for some time, largely due to being channeled into management when what he wanted to do was program. This new job will give him the opportunity to get a high-level security clearance, complete with the fun of a polygraph, and it will ultimately provide the chance for him to work with a friend of his with whom he worked for years before, and it was the best working relationship he's ever had. Thanks to the high-level clearance, it will provide job security for him for as long as he wants to work in that environment. The work itself looks interesting and meaningful, and he will get the chance to be a coder again, as opposed to doing management work, which he's been doing for the past couple of years.

But there are some catches. They work on an early schedule, and have I mentioned we are not morning people? I will now have to do both drop off and pick up for preschool for Sunny, instead of just pickup like I do now. It will take about 6 months to a year to get the clearance, at which time we will need to move closer to the job site, which will most likely be near the site for the agency responsible for the security of the nation (ahem). That means out of the county, so we won't be able to send Nemo to the same preschool that we have come to love, the same one that Trout and Little Man attended and Sunny now attends, the same one that has prepared the big kids immensely for our hard-driving, high-achieving public school system. That means moving away from our awesome pediatricians. It means moving away from the local schools, and moving our kids away from their friends. It means switching health insurance plans, because they don't offer a PPO option, and can I tell you how much I love having a PPO? Oh, yeah, and did I mention the five-figure pay cut?

Yeah. Five. Figures.

Ultimately, we decided that it would be worth it in the long run for BDF to take the job. Actually, he made the decision; I simply told him I would be supportive no matter what decision he made. Because having him not be grumpy and actually enjoying his job, and in turn being nicer to the family, is worth it. Because we are strong, smart, and resourceful people, and we can make it work, no matter what.

But damn, am I scared. Change is hard for me - damn hard. Each time we've added a child it has taken me longer to get in my groove. We've only ever lived here since we've had kids. This is the only home our babies have ever known. I know we need to move, but we were planning on moving locally, just to a bigger house, where our kids could keep their friends and their doctors and their schools.

He has been second guessing the decision, too. Things changed a bit after he gave his notice at work, for the better. In the course of doing the paperwork for the security clearance, he had to track down a colleague from three jobs and ten years ago, who instantly wanted BDF to work for him. His job is local. We don't know anything else about it, though.

There is still a possibility that BDF will end up assigned locally; there is an office run by that division of the Big Contractor that he will be working for in the same town as the preschool, and they do have some cleared work there. It's been difficult watching BDF go though this agonizing time, and it has been harder for me to be strong and supportive for him when I'm not exactly in a good place myself. I am trying to have faith that wherever we were meant to be we will end up.

But is it really too much to ask to get there without so much strife?

R&R Weekend

This past weekend I did something I've never done before.

I went away. By myself. Well, without the kids and BigDaddyFish.

One of my best friends, who I have known since 9th grade when her family moved to the DC area from a tiny town in western Pennsylvania, owns a cabin in a lake area in western Pennsylvania popular with vacationers. Hunters, anglers, outdoorsy people of all kinds go there.

Typically, her husband and his buddies go up there to "check" on the cabin. Which we all know is code for "drink ourselves silly and get thrown out of bars." It takes all of five minutes to "check" on the cabin, yet it always took him a whole weekend to do it. So one day, S asked her husband "When do I get to go check on the cabin?"

So this weekend, S and her twin sister S, their younger sister S, their mom, another friend of theirs, and I went to the cabin to "check" on it. Younger Sister S is pregnant, and because I am still breastfeeding I didn't want to drink, so she and I did the non-alcoholic pina coladas and margaritas, while the rest got a little warmer. We lit a big campfire, made mountain pies, and generally had a silly, crazy time. We talked, and talked, and talked. And we laughed. If it's true that you burn lots of calories laughing, then I may have lost weight this weekend, in spite of the mountain pies, because practically all we did was laugh. So hard we cried.

These are women who know me better than anyone else. Women who are like a mother and sisters to me. They, and their relationship, are my primary example of what I want my family to be like. I can totally and completely be myself with them without fear of judgment. I wish I could spend that kind of time with them more often, but with jobs, spouses, a total of nineteen kids among the six of us, and geographic distance that just isn't possible. We have promised each other we'll make this an annual thing.

It was wonderful. I had debated for about the whole last week whether or not I wanted to go. I was worried about how Nemo was going to do overnight without me, since he won't take a bottle. I worried about how BigDaddyFish would fare with all the kids by himself. I felt bad, because his birthday was Sunday and I wasn't going to be there for his birthday weekend (for the record, he told me he didn't mind if I went, and we typically don't do anything for his birthday, anyway, because he's a bit of a curmudgeon, and I was home before dinner). I am so glad I went. I didn't know the best was yet to come.

BigDaddyFish and the kids cleaned the entire living room while I was gone. Now, he had to call in the in-laws to help that get accomplished, but he isn't bothered by them like I am, so it worked out. His father's mother is staying with his parents right now, so she came and helped out, too. Trout had conspired with the in-laws to get a birthday cake for BigDaddyFish, so they had a little birthday celebration on Saturday night. At first I was a little jealous of this (okay, a lot jealous) because they had done it without me and no one had done anything for me on my birthday, but it didn't last long because clearly they had had a nice time, I didn't have to spend time being annoyed by them, AND they saved me a big piece of cake. With a purple flower.

Best of all, BigDaddyFish wrote me a five page letter, just talking about how he felt about the weekend and stuff. He ended up feeling bad that I was gone on his birthday and that surprised him. I did remind him that if he had said it would bother him I would have stayed home in a nanosecond, but he was glad I had gone. He thanked me for the gift of giving him time alone with the kids (I had to ask if he was being sarcastic about this, but he assured me he wasn't) - that he felt that way just made it more of a win-win situation. He said a bunch of other stuff, too, private things. It was lovely.

It touched me in a way that I hadn't thought possible. The only reason I mention it, mostly, is that it is an example of how important keeping the lines of communication open is to a marriage. That particular task gets harder and harder (to me, anyway) with each child you add to your family, because resources become spread thinner and thinner. Writing letters to one another can provide a different way to keep doing that. It lets you talk about issues that might be too emotionally charged to talk rationally about, particularly if you tend to get so emotional you can't think straight, not that I'd know anything about that (ahem).

Nemo did fine. He missed me, alright, and I missed him, more that I thought I would. The others? Well, I missed them, but I didn't MISS them - it was a welcome break from their particular type of chaos, but I missed the baby so much I ached. I pumped so much milk I didn't have room to bring it all home with me. He took formula from a cup while I was gone. BDF said that he woke up once in the night, did a visual check to make sure BDF was still there, then laid down and went back to sleep. He has slept through the night both nights since I've been home. Before I left, he had been getting up two times a night to nurse, so this is huge.

I'm sure glad to be home.

Just Goes to Show What They Know

Back in January of 1993, BigDaddyFish and I, as well as his mother, sister, and grandmother, were sitting around his parents' kitchen table, and we, the group, were having a discussion about weddings.  I have no idea how we got on the topic, and after this much time I don't remember most of the details, but I do recall that we were talking about the ideal time of year to get married.  My MIL liked winter, as did my SIL (funny, since MIL got married in August, I think, but SIL later had a Christmasy wedding just before Christmas in 97).  I think BDF's grandmother liked spring, because of all the spring flowers, but BDF and I were both in agreement that October was the ideal month - good climate, low chance of rain, beautiful fall colors.  Now, we had discussed marriage before, but BDF had made it abundantly clear that he did not want to get married - he would be happy to live together forever, but he didn't feel like he needed the marriage ceremony to be commited to someone.  He knew that I felt otherwise, and very much wanted the church wedding.  I knew how he felt about that, and I guess I underestimated how he felt about me.

Anyway, the conversation continued, with the group of us talking about hypothetical wedding details.  I wanted to get married in my church, but BDF wanted to get married in the methodist church he was raised in, which is a beautiful, historic church built around the 1900's, I think.  I agreed that would be acceptable, because it really is a very beautiful church, and the church wedding part is what I wanted, not necessarily my church, but I wanted a priest to be present.  BDF agreed it would be okay.  At some point, I'm not sure which of us did it, but one of us walked over to the calendar and started talking dates - we agreed October 16 would be the ideal time to get married, right in the middle of the month.  I was still convinced that BDF was talking hypothetically, and he wouldn't really go through with anything.

I called his bluff.  Within a few days one of us had called the church and made an appointment to meet with the minister.  We were engaged.

One night a few days after all this happened, BDF confessed that he was mad at me, because I had robbed him of his proposal.  I asked him what he would have done to propose - he told me he would have mowed it into a hillside (he was a landscaper at the time).  Given my allergies to grass pollen and incredible fear of heights, it was probably better that it happened the way it did.  Within a few days, or maybe even the same night, the details are fuzzy now, he proposed to me on his knees in his room with a ring made out of green weedeater string, which I still have in my jewelry box.  Over time, this was replaced with a teeny diamond ring, which is also in my jewelry box, given my current girth and puffiness.  We were official, and getting married in October.

Once we met with the minister, we learned that he had another wedding scheduled the same day.  We didn't want to interfere with someone else's time, so we changed the date to the previous weekend - October 9, 1993.  We did all our prep work - met with the minister numerous times, met with the priest, got a caterer, a band, flowers - the works.  My wonderful aunt made my dress in Colorado while I was here in Maryland - we didn't even see each other until a few days before the wedding.  My aunt sent me pattern numbers of dresses she thought she could handle, I picked out one and bought all the materials, and then shipped them out there.  My MIL took my measurements, my aunt made the bodice out of the lining, and shipped it out here.  I tried it on, we made adjustments to the pins, and sent it back.  A couple of weeks before the wedding, a fully finished dress was shipped out, and it fit perfectly.

I had a few run ins with my MIL over the wedding.  Since it was a fall wedding, she wanted to decorate with an autumn theme, complete with bales of hay and pumpkins.  I don't know if it was because I don't have a mother to provide input, or because we were living in their house, but MIL drove me nuts - I kept telling her this was a wedding, not a hoedown, and I didn't want fall decorations - we had fall colors in our dresses and bouquets, and that was good for me.  She was still pretty pushy about it.  MIL went so far as to bring floral arrangements in pumpkins to the church, which I had already nixed - I threatened to kick them with my dainty little white shewn feet.  They stayed in the car.

It was a run of the mill church wedding for slightly more than 100 people.  We had our reception in the church hall attached to the sanctuary, and apparently other people didn't feel the same way we did about sharing the wedding date, because it turned out there were 3 weddings that day, and we had to stop our music for over an hour while one of them was taking place.  Other than that, it was much like any other wedding you may have been to, except:

• My father had to take 3 haldol to get through the day (he's bipolar)
• Everyone else cried, but me
• Our minister, who had never done this before, stuttered throughout the ceremony - we'd met with him well over 6 times, and he'd never done that before - we still don't know why
• It turned out I was allergic to something in BDF's tuxedo, so my nose began running as soon as I hit the altar, and everyone thought I was crying because of all the sniffling, when I was actually trying to stifle my laughter at the minister
• Our best man's father passed away the morning of the wedding (RIP, W.B.).  Our best man, Uncle Orca, wasn't going to tell us, but his mother called BDF and told him.  We told Uncle Orca that he could leave, that being with his mother was more important than our wedding, but he felt he needed to stay, and did.  We don't think you smiled the entire day, Uncle Orca, but we love you for staying with us, anyway.
• My father caught the garter, which embarrassed and skeeved me out.
• We walked out of the church, walked around it, changed our clothes, and walked right back in again to help clean up the church hall.  Then we drove away with no fanfare at all, to go right back to my in-laws house for a champagne toast before leaving on our honeymoon.

It was a beautiful day, bright and sunny and the perfect temperature, just like today is.  We were 23 years old, the youngest of all of our friends to get married.  The thing is, in so many ways BigDaddyFish and I are total opposites, not just in our overall feelings about marriage as a whole (he looks at it as purely a political institution, where for me it is spiritual).  He is quiet; I talk constantly.  He is grumpy and anti-social; I go nuts without adult companionship a lot of the time, and desire lots of friends.  He is a mathmatical, linear thinker; I am verbal and creative.  He's an introvert; I'm an extrovert.  He's adventurous, I'm a risk averse homebody.  I am a social moderate (more liberal as I became a parent), fiscal conservative; he's more of a libertarian.  We have very passionate, volatile personalities, and we bicker a lot.  "They" said we wouldn't last - most of our peers gave us a year.

It's 13 years and almost four kids later, and we are still going strong.  It has been hard work; we are both stubborn and opinionated.  But we love each other and our children fiercely, and have been able to weather the many storms that have come our way thus far.  We still bicker and fight a lot.  A lot of times we don't fight fair, and we frequently take each other for granted.  But above all, we love each other, and are committed to making it work for the long haul.  We've already outlasted a lot of "them."

I love you, BigDaddyFish.  Happy Anniversary.  Thanks for 13 wonderful years.  Here's to at least 50 or so more.