CallaLiliesForever

What day of the week is it? Wait that means tomorrow is…? When is the 5th of the month? How long before the 30th? In many ways we have lost the activities that set the cadence to our daily, weekly, monthly schedule. Working remotely, remote learning, canceled sports or clubs, limited outings, restricted in person worship – the occurrence of each of these things defined our schedule and therefore what we did, when and at what cost.

Work: Monday – Friday 8 am – 5 pm, Tuesday – Sunday 2 pm – 11 pm, etc. Often making two out of three sit down meals with any other member of your family impossible. Impacting the third meal as well by rushing it or adding stress to it making reaching the level of importance/sanctity we have wrapped around it in our heads (while we are unavailable) thus causing me stress as we watch the precious time together slip away in an irritated, exhausted, distracted haze. Now, many are home and the pressure to be better at work AND at home is enormous (professionally and personally). The lines are blurred and the hats so many of us wear are stacking up as the boundary between work self and home self has disappeared. I am speaking from a “traditional, work outside of the home” point of view. But, I recognize how stay at home parents are impacted by this as well. Their world and everyday life looks very different from pre-COVID life. Then, what about those who have been laid off? Something that took the majority of your time and energy, dictated your schedule probably more than any other single thing is gone. For many their identity is directly related to their career, performance at work, relationships at work, networking, earning an income, growth. Take away that and it attacks the person’s idea of themselves. What is going to fill that time? Some would answer, their family, home improvement, physical health…the list continues. But, the truth of the matter is very often we find that the cause of any perceived deficiency in any area is not time but motivation. In general , most people (myself included) struggle with a growth mentality. Growing requires energy, honesty, discipline, action, acceptance of the feeling of discomfort. In order to grow one must be engaging in something different from what they know or are used to. I don’t know that this is ever automatically welcomed. More likely this feeling is something most of us try to avoid whether you are working or not.

Remote Learning: Challenging for all. Across the board. Period. Fortunately, when this began our youngest two were already home learning. But, these last 9 months have seriously, negatively impacted these efforts and outcomes. There has been regression in areas and far more free time/screen time than I would prefer to admit. This impacts the children’s schedule and behavior. Mondays we no longer go the museums or zoos. We attempt to bridge some of this with virtual experiences which was a cheap replacement initially and now don’t even register with the kids. “Free Time Fridays” lost its excitement when basically every day has increased its “Free Time.”

Canceled sports, clubs, religious gatherings: activities that helped the family break the week down even further. These dictated who needed to be where and when. How much time was available to cook and eat dinner. Basketball practice every weekday except on Tuesday and Thursdays. Those nights were games at varying locations. Wednesday afternoons is Girl Scouts. Every third Thursday of the month is Happy Hour with a few friends. Sunday morning is church then lunch with the family. Second Saturday of the month is Farmer’s Market. These things differentiated one day from the next. They set the tone of what we were looking forward to or dreading. Just adding another layer to the brain fog that time has become.

As a society our emotions, relationships, finances, physical whereabouts, mental and physical health, have not only been turned upside down (that is merely a 180, most of us could recover and regain traction) but they have been shred and strewn about like tinsel in the branches of large trees. Schedule? Awareness of life events? Of time? For many, money for bills and food? I know I need to stop and breath, a lot more than I do. Leading up to 2021 (please be better!) I know I need to make some improvements in myself. I am going to intentionally take some time to breathe. Be alone, roll my shoulders back raise my face to the sky and listen to myself breathe. I will probably have to count my breaths in and out to aid in controlling my thoughts while I do this which in an of itself would be improvement for me. I , like most everyone else, have heard something like this before. I know its good for me, if nothing else its an exercise in discipline – but I know it helps me to calm down (mentally and physically) and gain some control over myself. Which for me is a major step in my attempt to have a growth mentality.

Take a breath Tuesday

I feel like everywhere I look I see something about “self care.” Most of the time just hearing it or reading it causes me to roll my eyes or gag. I see these advertisements, posts and comments about how important it is. How everyone, even moms, (yes thank you cookies on my phone and computer you have me pinged there) needs to take time to take care of themselves. I see images of women sitting snuggled up with a cup of coffee and book, or having a “me” day at a salon…or whatever the social media influencer or entity may be pushing. There is the mantra that if my cup is empty then I don’t have anything to give to my spouse, children, friends, work, etc.
Guess what? This concept is not new. We should not need the devices, social media and or any other influence that we (as a society) have become so dependent on to tell us this. Again, guess what? I know that for me – I would have more time and energy to take care of myself if I spent less time scrolling on my phone looking at social media, the internet, etc.
Here is what I think, and none of it is original so I’m not claiming to really KNOW anything, to practice self care you first must exercise self discipline. I am a working mother with two children under three. My husband works. We have the stresses that many families have. We may have some that others do not, but we also do not have some that others have…we all just have our stuff. I feel like I have no time or energy for anything. When I get home from work I want to unwind and spend time with my children (at this time these two things do not go hand in hand) and spend time with my husband. But dinner needs to be put together, household bills need to be paid, laundry done, shower/baths…etc. At what point am I supposed to take care of myself? I am so tired and pulled in different directions it often feels paralyzing. My body hurts, I am fatigued, I do not feel strong or confident or as patient as I should be. So is the fact that I suck at self care negatively impacting my family and me life – yes. Yay, something to feel guilty about. Again, nothing new.
Here is the thing, in my life I have a husband who shares in the household responsibilities. He doesn’t “help with the kids” he is an engaged father. I don’t have to work 60 hours a week. I am explaining this because I acknowledge that if I choose to, I can make time for self care I just have to have the discipline to do so. I can put my phone down and fully engage with our children when we play and eat…then guess what when I leave them to play by themselves or watch TV (judge me, they probably get too much screen time) to get dinner together, finish up work or sit on hold with the doctor’s office I don’t feel so guilty. Getting “chores” (for lack of a better term) done makes me feel good – and is necessary. I feel like I am gaining traction and control of my time. And for me that is when I am able to think about self care. I don’t really have a hobby and I haven’t really made friends in the area yet. I have had a baby inside me or sucking on my boob for almost four years straight now so my self care may look a little different. I like massages so in an effort to take care of myself I bought one of those memberships that you enroll for a year and pay for a monthly massage at a discounted rate. I thought if I did that I would be sure to make time to get the massage because the money was spent. I now have 3 massages accrued. For me feeling like I have the time to shower, shave my legs and style my hair without rushing and being frazzled makes me feel good. If I get up a little earlier in the morning I can take care of getting myself ready so I am done before the kids get up. If I stretch while I’m playing with the kids on the floor my body will feel better. Once the kids are down I could stay up and binge watch something on TV or I could read a little and go to bed at a decent hour so I feel a little more like a person the next day.
This may seem all over the place but my point is if I am honest there is opportunity for self care, I just need to decide it is a priority for me. Nothing anyone says and nothing I can buy can make ME do that. It is a choice I have to make.
I went ahead and scheduled a massage for tomorrow morning…fake it ’til you make it, right?

I’ve spent a lot of time this month thinking about what has happened in the last year.  August 2017 our world changed. After a series of appointments with specialists and tests performed it was confirmed: our baby girl, Harper, had a genetic condition called 22q11 Deletion also known as DiGeorge Syndrome.

On August 16th 2017 I was 21 weeks pregnant and had gone to the appointment that started it all by myself.  You see, at the 20-week anatomy screen the technician had not been able to get some of the pictures she needed.  She said that the baby wasn’t cooperating and I had an empty bladder or some other light- hearted explanation.  She said that they would either have me come back in a few weeks to try again, when the baby was bigger.  Or, send me over to the hospital, “where they have higher caliber equipment. No big deal the baby is just being stubborn.”  Based off of what she said, I didn’t think much of it.  Even when my OB’s office called to tell me when my appointment at the hospital was, I didn’t think much of it. I figured they didn’t want to run the risk of the same issue coming up with their equipment, so they sent me over to the specialist.

They called me back into the room .  There was a screen up on the wall and chairs for guests to sit in as the technician viewed the baby.  I leaned back on the table and lifted my shirt, chatting with the technician.  As she squirted the gel on my belly and started to move the wand around I explained that my husband was at home with our toddler aged son.  The three of us had gone to the anatomy screen together, but big brother was not interested in cooperating.  We opted to keep him at home for this appointment and our regularly scheduled childcare happened to not be available that afternoon.  There was some other small chat and then we both kind of ran out of things to talk about.

I laid there looking at pictures of my baby on the screen, most of which were not cute baby shots.  She was trying to get specific views and what I saw I could not identify but I knew it was part of our baby’s body – the human being growing inside of me.  I could see movements and her heart beating. I could see that she would move away from the wand, something she continue to do through the numerous sonograms we had throughout the rest of my pregnancy. Time went on and the technician asked me to roll from one side to the other.  Then asked her supervisor to come in to assist.  It hit me, something isn’t right.  I remember starting to tear up.  I looked at the empty chairs in the room.  I thought about my husband, wishing he were there with me.  They had me roll from one side to another again, they had me lay flat and tilt the table so my head was at a little bit of a decline.  They pushed hard into my belly – trying to see what they needed to.  I kept looking at the screen, lost because I didn’t know what they were looking for and I didn’t know what I was looking at.  Then they called the doctor in.  She looked at some of the pictures they had already taken then watched some live shots.  They were talking amongst themselves.  I remember that I didn’t feel like they were trying to hide anything from me or exclude me.  They were trying to work together to understand what they were seeing.  But I was still scared. Now tears were rolling out the sides of my eyes, into my ears or onto the paper on the table.  The original technician wiped the gel off of me and left the room.  Then the supervisor offered to help me sit up, but I wasn’t big enough to need it yet.

So there I was, sitting on the table with the technician’s supervisor moving the equipment away and the doctor began to explain what they saw.  Harper had a heart defect, a right sided aorta.  There is often a vascular ring that develops with such a diagnosis but at this point they could not see if that in fact was present. A vascular ring is a combination of the right sided aorta and ligaments that create a ring around the esophagus.  It could impact her ability to breath and swallow.  At only 21 weeks there could be more issues identified as she grew. The doctor explained that at that time there was no way of knowing if Harper would need surgery immediately after she was born or if we would be able to wait a couple of days, maybe even weeks.  She explained that a heart defect such as this could be due to a genetic condition or an anatomical anomaly. According to her about 30% of the time this is related to a genetic disorder and if it was then it could be a lot more involved…  a lot more could be wrong.  The doctor provided me with information regarding genetic testing and pointed out that I was already 21 weeks along.  If I was considering termination based on the information I had just found out or based on the results of the genetic testing I would want to make the decision quickly (before I ran out of time).

They left the room and I composed myself.  I texted my husband and said I would call him when I got to the car.  I called but he didn’t answer. I texted and said “coming home I’ll just talk to you then.”  My mind was racing as I drove home, I kept telling myself to focus on the road.  He came out to meet me as I was getting out of the car. We made eye contact through the windshield and I lost it. I started crying and could only spit out, “there is something wrong with her heart.” I eventually explained the appointment the best I could.  We were both lost but agreed that it would be wise to have the genetic testing done.  We opted for the blood work versus the amnio.  We received the results of the blood work on August 28th and they indicated that there was a microdeletion in the 22nd chromosome.  With that test there was some .00001% chance that I had the deletion not Harper, so I insisted we have the amnio too.  That would confirm that she was the one with the deletion, not me.  Well at 24 weeks pregnant it was confirmed that our Harper had 22q11 deletion with a heart defect that is common in such a diagnosis.

As it turns out, to date the issues with her heart are so mild that it looks like they may not require any intervention whatsoever.

During our time in our current neighborhood we would see an older woman (not incredibly old but gray hair and aged body) in the yard of a home a couple blocks away from our house. She was usually in a house dress and she had plants everywhere, in her yard, along the back of her house, in the driveway etc. Along with the plants were pots and gardening tools. It was a pretty cluttered residence but (in my mind) in a “too much for her to manage” vs laziness or disregard for appearance way. Over the last few months there have been some changes to the home. First, I realized I hadn’t seen her in a while.  Then I noticed that a white truck that had only occasionally been parked in front was now there several times a week. I also started to notice the yard was changing. The driveway and garage were more crowded than they had been before, the old Buick was gone. It was like the backyard and the inside of the house were being brought out front, for everyone to see. A large amount of bulk, brush, furniture etc. was brought out to the curb to be picked up. For a while the driveway was cleared out, then it filled up again: chairs, carpet, trash. I watched the transformation as the weeks and now months have gone by. Each time I drove by my heart ached a little bit. I imagined the man in the white truck clearing the house out. Hand carrying years of items that made up the woman’s life out to the front yard – for the whole neighborhood to see. I wondered what happened to the woman. Did she pass away, did she move? If she moved was it her choice? Or was it out of necessity or pressure. Whatever the man’s relationship with the woman, whatever emotions he may or may not be feeling about what he was doing… I could empathize with, if nothing else, the act of clearing out someone else’s house.

Every time I drive by that house my thoughts drift back a few years ago, when we did the same thing with my Mom’s house.

The weeks after my Mother died were mechanical and hollow. Her death was not unexpected; her fast decline at the end was though. So once she was gone there we were: my Dad, brother, husband and I all living in the house SHE had made a home.

It was the house that I had grown up in. The stories of our childhood and early adulthood were told in the pictures and memorabilia that were hung up or sitting on shelves. My husband and I were living out of my childhood room.  The closet was full of pieces of my past.

It was the house that was surrounded by HER garden. During this twilight time we would sit on the back porch, maybe drink, maybe smoke, and just feel the cool, damp air creep toward the house from the garden that she loved so much. It was like a wave that would roll over us as we sat there. We could look around and see that there were plants ready to be repotted, some that she was trying to revive, some that she had collected from different areas of the country. Gardening was her therapy and her plants responded to her energy and attention.

It was the house that my husband and I pulled up to in September 2013 with the uncertainty that can only be described as terrifying. We put our life on hold to go be with her, spend time with her, advocate for her. In January 2014 she died in that house, the one she so stubbornly did not want to leave. As I mentioned before, the end happened quickly. One night we were watching Despicable Me 2 eating pretzels and M&Ms and by the next night she was not coherent enough to swallow her medication. My husband and I spent that night in the living room with her. The next morning she was admitted to hospice, my brother and I sat with her through the night. Two of her brothers traveled to see her. They were with us the last night she was alive, although she was asleep and was only barely responding to us if we asked her if she was in pain – which fortunately she was not. The next day she died, but as anyone who has been through a similar loss knows, she had left us long before her last breath. I was holding her hand and her body was getting cold while her shallow breathing continued to slow to a stop. My brother and I were on each side of her. When I let go of her swollen hand I realized the inside of her palm was still warm while the top of her hand was cool.

It was the house that (for better or worse) we were going to move my Dad out of to sell. Thirty years of shit had to be addressed. It literally seemed endless. We dealt with what was immediately visible, then went to closets and attics and the garage and shed. The boys dragged her plants around and tore up the backyard trying to make it attractive for a buyer. We pulled furniture and household items out to the curb for donation pick up. We loaded up trucks to take items to different agencies. We had a huge roll off dumpster in the driveway and literally filled up the entire thing. If anyone in the neighborhood had been paying attention they would have noticed that she stopped leaving everyday for work, then that she was using a walker and eventually a wheel chair. Once we started clearing out the house, I would think what we were going through as a family would have been obvious.

So there we were a grieving, exhausted, frustrated family carrying out piece by piece 30 years worth of a family’s accumulation. It was not graceful, or dignified, or quiet – but it was the best we could bring ourselves to do. It was uncomfortable knowing that anyone who drove by or neighbors who looked out their windows could basically see the house turned inside out. I felt vulnerable and exposed. Eventually, though, we were done. My Dad and brother finished the last few things up after my husband and returned to our home. He and I tried pick up our life up where we left it – even though we were no longer the same people who left it there.

We survived this loss. It has been over four years since Mom died. The experience has left scars all over our hearts and minds. The whole she left is gaping. It has given us such a deep sense of empathy and compassion that sometimes it can become oppressive.

When I drive by our neighbor’s house today I will look and see what has changed. I will appreciate the plants that remain in the front yard and hope that wherever the woman might be – that she has some plants she can tend to. I will also hope that the man cleaning out the house is done soon, that he is able to do what he needs to do and move one to whatever he has to move on to. I do not mean to sound like I make everyone’s loss about mine, but my experience has allowed me to be sensitive to other people’s loss and sometimes it takes someone who has “been there” to “get it.”

Time has flown by, our newest addition (a baby GIRL), is almost six months old and our baby boy turned two in April. I am trying to soak everything in: their eyes (his are blue and her’s are brown- like mine and my mother’s), their mouths, their reaction to when Daddy or I enter a room or talk to them, their laugh, their hands and fingers…like most any mom, I could go on and on.  Most of the time though I feel like I am failing at this.

There is so much about my son as a baby that I seem to draw a blank on. On several occasions I have panicked because I can’t picture his full face as an infant. When I look at photos I still lack the memory of physically being there in that moment. But, something I do remember very vividly was when he first discovered his hands. It  would make me laugh because it was like he thought they were the most amazing things EVER. He would be laying across my lap and clasp his hands together. He would hold such a tight grip, bring them center in front of his face and just stare at them – to the point that his fingers would change color from the pressure and his eyes would look crossed. It was as though he knew how important they were and he now knew that somehow, someway he could control them.

His hands are undeniably the hands of a boy.  They are big, strong and constantly moving. His nails are always dirty from either playing in the yard, coloring, “cleaning” (with a wet wipe, paper towel, burp rag – whatever) or eating his favorite snack (other than milk of course) – “Fuuuuute”! The inside creases of his fingers are usually gummed up with sweat, food and mysterious lint. During the course of a day he will reach out to us countless times and say (in a tone I recognize as asking) “Hand” and wait for us to give him our hand so he can lead us to whatever it is he wants to show us…which is usually to the refrgierator for “Meeiiilk” or “Fuuuute” 🙂 They can be aggressive when he is playing with his cars or gentle when is he touching “Sissshe’s” head.

When he is tired or needs some quiet time he will use his fingers to absentmindedly play with a blanket, drawstring on his shorts, the soft ear of a stuffed animal. His hands are something he can control. They are a step toward his independence. He uses them communicate, play, eat and comfort himself. I look at them while he turns the pages of his book and we read together and I am in awe of their dexterity and coordination. For two years he has reached out to us and held on to us with those hands. We have watched his use of them evolve and expand. They are amazing and it is our goal as his parents to help him grow to do incredible work with them.

To My Baby Boy,

On the 7^th you turned a year and a half and I just can’t believe it. I feel like this is harder for me to accept than when you turned a year.  Maybe it is because you are showing quite the personality now, or my 3^rd trimester pregnancy hormones, or because every Mama feels this way about one of their babies growing up…But I think you are amazing.

You are a little boy who is full of energy.  You go to bed pretty early and wake up pretty early but are sleeping through the night.  We are bouncing back and forth between one and two naps a day, I guess eventually your little body will make the transition.  Right now you like to play the “knock knock” game when we come to get you from your crib (which you are still perfectly content sleeping in).  When we hear you are awake we will knock on the door and what for you to say (in your own words) “who is it.”  Speaking of doors, you LOVE to “shut” them…same with lights and the refrigerator and the fan and drawers. You walk around saying “shut it” like it might be the most exciting thing of the day.

You look out the front window, a lot: watching for cars, trucks, people walking their dogs…you keep an eye on the neighborhood.  We have the piano in the living room and you will play music on it, bobbing your head back and forth, looking at us to cheer for you.

You also LOVE your Daddy and big brother.  Oh, you want to be anywhere they are.  It is so sweet to watch how excited you get when your big brother walks into the house, it is hard to get you to settle down when he is with us.  And you look to your Daddy for everything.  You help him with projects around the house and the two of you get the mail together every day. You scream “daddeee” when he comes home.  He wrestles with you and talks with you, you are crazy about him and he loves you very much.

You are tall for your age with big feet ? You still have big beautiful blue eyes.  Your front teeth are in and a handful of molars are at different stages of coming in.  The top ones seem to be bothering you a little more than the bottom ones.  Your hair is sandy blonde.  While you used to be bald with a little curly tail in the back now you have a thin layer of hair with varying texture.  The curls started at the nape of your neck and now have worked their way up passed your crown and about half way across the top of your head.  So the majority of your hair is curly with just the top front part still fine and straight.  It is pretty silly.

While I get dressed in the morning you hang out with me.  Putting random things in the laundry basket or the dresser drawers.  You mimic some of what I do and I will pretend that you are putting on my lotion with me or chapstick.  The satisfied look on your face makes me laugh.  When we are sitting together you will sometimes pat my belly.  We ask you where sissy is and you will look at me and then my belly and say “sisheee.”

Sometimes you are a fussy pants, but that is okay.  You aren’t the best, most adventurous eater…but we are working on that. Sometimes I get impatient or frustrated with your desire to do and touch EVERYTHING.  And sometimes I am distracted and tired…and I am sorry.

I haven’t documented your first 18 months nearly as much as I had intended to. But it is all in my memory and heart.

I love you, my Baby Boy.

I am pregnant again and we are expecting our second child together in December, my due date is actually Christmas Day!  We are excited to share this news and are looking forward to what it means for our family and especially for our current youngest son.

It is important to us to build a family, a community for our children.  We don’t feel a great deal of support from our extended family.  The people in my life that I had been most excited for my children to meet died before the first one was born.  We hope to instill unconditional love and support for each other within our family.  Now with a second on the way we will have my husband’s oldest son, our first child together and a second.

Yes, this pregnancy has been a little harder…I’m older and have a toddler running around at home.  But I am grateful for my health and the baby’s health so far.  I am grateful for my husband and our son. I am grateful for what we are trying to build for our family.

As a girlfriend exclaimed when I told her I was pregnant again, we will have two under two…and it will be amazing, terrifying, exhausting and rewarding.  I can’t wait!

This weekend my younger brother will get married.  We are traveling out to Tahoe to celebrate him and his soon to be wife and daughter.  It will be the first time we take our one year old on a plane…dun, dun, dun.  I am excited to go on a family trip we rented a beautiful house  surrounded by trees and it will be a great contrast to what we see every day.  I am also excited that it will be another trip we are taking as a family, memories will be made and pictures will capture our time away together.  And then the event that is behind all of this, my brother’s wedding.  Of course I am happy for him in a, “you are getting married, yay!” sort of way.  But I am also happy for him in a, “he says he is happier than he has ever been” sort of way.  You see for a long time he had planned on never getting married or having children.  Now he is taking the plunge, has a stepdaughter he considers his own and he and his bride are planning to have children together.

All this excitement and there is a gaping hole in the entire thought process, a beautiful heart and laugh that will not be in the memories our families will make this weekend.  Our Mom will not be there to help decorate or fuss with my brother’s shirt, visit with the bride’s family or hold my son when he starts to make noise during the event…because only Grandma can get him to calm down.  It took me a while to recognize that knowing she won’t be there for yet another major life event in one of her children’s lives has caused me a lot of stress and anxiety while trying to pack for the trip.  We miss her and her absence will be felt.  I also know she would not want us to be sad when we think of her.  Its been three years and I have not figured out how to think about her without being overwhelmed by missing her and thinking of all she should have been a part of since her death.  Anyone who has lost someone knows that it doesn’t take a big life event to ache for your loved one – it is the day to day thought that I typically can struggle through, that is ever present.  The big life events and missing your loved one through those just really slap you in the face, stop you in your tracks.  Like, “you can push through your daily tasks…but there is no pushing through the fact that your Mom won’t be there for the birth of your child or to see her baby boy get married.”

In these moments, while sitting with my shattered heart on the floor around me her strength steps in.  Her love of her family and life and the fact I have no doubt in my mind that the best way to honor her and make sure my children know her love is to spend time with them.  Taking these family trips, exploring, standing by my brother’s side as he takes such a huge step, making these memories.  Because there is a chance in the future, either near or distant, these memories will be all that our children have left of us.  Making memories, big or small, will always time well spent.

 

So I was having a text conversation with my brother and I sent him a picture of my son standing up with his elbows propped up on the seat of a chair we were using as part of a make shift barricade to keep him out of the kitchen.  This barricade consisted of his stroller, a box and two kitchen table chairs. He army crawled, scooted and squirmed his way through more of it than I would like to admit before he got to this point…where he was squealing with delight playing the drums on the seat.

My brother’s response was, “…the unstoppable.”

To which I text, “Seriously, as humans when do we get so lazy?  If I had as much persistence and energy as he does I would be running a major company!”

My brother responded (and I could hear his matter of fact voice saying these words while scratching the hair on his face), “I think it is that his goals are simplified.  We became overwhelmed at some point and cocooned in.  But yeah, I kept my goals simple and ate a whole Taco Bell Grande meal last night.  Pride feels a lot like shame sometimes.”

I laughed at the truth behind it…Fake it ’til you make it Friday!

Hmmm, Valentine’s Day.  When I was single I had all these ideas as to what being in a relationship on Valentine’s Day would be like.  Thoughtful, romantic, intentional, sexy, sweet…these words floated in my head. They were the rose colored glasses that made the grass greener on the other side (relationship side), haha.

It is not a given that anything special will take place on Valentine’s Day in our house. We are not THOSE people to wait extended periods of time for a table or call ridiculously in advance to secure a table at a restaurant on the “Heart” night.  More often than not V Day is on a week night and I am such a wuss about staying up late or expending extra energy when I have to get up and go to work the next morning (old lady status, I know) that we don’t really do anything.

My husband has always said that he is romantic, but then we have a silent pause because he has never been romantic with me.  Maybe previous relationships knocked the romance out of him? We are more of a stay at home and hang out than dress up and go out couple.  The food he cooks tastes better to me than most restaurants and if we want a few drinks we don’t have to worry about driving…or bad service, or obnoxious people at the next table, or wearing a bra or spending extra energy to look nice. Maybe its us being lazy or it could be that our relationship was long distance for a long time so “dating” looked different for us than it did for other people?  If we were visiting each other we wanted to spend time together – not dealing with other people.

But he is real and I know that he loves me.  He will cook a delicious meal and then clean up the kitchen.  He will go clothes shopping with me because he knows I don’t have anyone else to. If my car was in the driveway over night he will warm it up and make sure the windows are defrosted.  He has pulled my hair back while I was throwing up. He insisted we should go be with my Mom the last few months of her life when I didn’t have the courage to make that decision.  He sat with me as I held my Mom’s hand while she died.  He held up my leg and encouraged me while I was giving birth to our son.  He would sit up with me when I was breasting feeding our baby in the middle of the night.  I know he will do whatever it takes to provide for and protect me and our family.

Last Valentine’s Day I was eight months pregnant.  This year we will have a ten month old who will get up at least once that night.  I won’t get flowers or candy or a romantic night.  I may be a little disappointed, but not surprised.  We will both be tired from the day and after our son goes down for the night we will eat a quick dinner I will pump, shower and go to bed.

I am grateful we are “doing” life together – even if we are not where we truly want to be yet…He is by my side through it all and maybe that is the type of romance more couples need.