Happy Anniversary!

Three years ago today I married the love of my life. Last week we went out to eat to celebrate and stayed at a hotel downtown. It was fun to be adults and have a conversation that did not include the phrase “do I smell a poo-poo?” But these rare, extravagant evenings always make me think about how much I love our every-day, mundane evenings. While our anniversary date was fun, today was a perfect anniversary, all in itself.

4:45 – I wake up to our dog barking in the backyard. Yes, we have a dog, and no, we don’t normally make him sleep outside, but sometimes when you have a child you forget about other living things under your care; especially when those things smell like death and track mud on your carpet and puke next to the Christmas tree. Anyway, I let Ben in and try to go back to sleep.

5:30 – Little Bit wakes up. She is not feeling well and her last doctor’s visit has me feeding her every chance I get to put some weight on her bones. I feed her and go through my voodoo spells and witchcraft to try to increase my breast milk, which in itself is about a 30 minute process. Luckily I have an awesome husband who understandingly takes care of her while all this is going on. In the middle of this, he greets me with a sleepy, but sincere “Happy Anniversary!”

6:30 – Little girl is showing signs that she is ready for a nap, so I lay her down. This is not normal, but the teething and the cold are wearing her out. I lay back down thinking she’ll wake me up in an hour or two. Meanwhile, my husband kisses me goodbye and heads out the door.

10:00 – I wake up and immediately panic because this is an insane amount of time for her to be napping. I run into her room, just to find her peacefully dreaming with her two tastiest fingers in her mouth. At this point I’m fully awake, with an extra 3 hours of sleep in me. I head back into the kitchen and find that my husband has left flowers and chocolate on the counter for me.

12:00 – I run some errands and head up to Daddy’s work so we can go take Little Bit to meet Santa as a family. She is of course, dressed in her fanciest Christmas suit, but has managed to dismantle the bows and cover the front of it in snot. Still, we press on because Santa is magical, and a little snot doesn’t bother him.

2:00 – We finally get to Santa’s Shop in our area, high-fiving each other for timing it just right to avoid a line. We walk up to the front where an elf informs us that Santa had some business at the North Pole to tend to, but that he’ll be back tomorrow. I ask her if he is ok and she tells me that Santa is 72 years old and his immune system isn’t what it used to be. Apparently Santa is bothered by a little snot.

3:00 – I’m back home and the Little One is taking another nap. I put some hours in with work

6:00 – We head to dinner with Mimi and Papa. We take turns walking the baby around the restaurant as it’s past her bedtime and she is grumpy. Our waiter brings us a small bottle of champagne to celebrate and I drink about 1/3 of my glass while the baby tries to take it from me.

9:00 – I sit and reflect on my blog

The fact that we swapped some rings in front of a bunch of people three years ago isn’t really that big of a deal. What is worth celebrating are days like today. This is our shared life: these experiences are no longer my own. It makes the bad times half as bad and the good times twice as good.