Smiling Mom

I am gra­te­ful for my hus­band for many rea­sons.  One thing in par­ti­cu­lar I appre­ciate is his honesty.  When I ask drea­ded ques­tions such as, “Do I look fat in this,” he knows that I actually want an honest ans­wer.  I’d rather he tell me that my muf­fin top is expo­sed than sport a dou­ble waist­line around town.

Most days anyway.

Years ago we were laying on our bed tal­king when he reached out, touched my upper lip and asked, “When are you going to take care of the mus­tache you’re sporting?”

Ahem. Excuse me??

Well, lucky for him, I knew he was swim­ming in an unchar­ted terri­tory and com­ple­tely ner­vous, which I found abso­lu­tely hilarious!

My res­ponse??  I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

And then I waxed.

For years I’ve given him no end of grief abut this, but sec­retly, was thri­lled that he felt it was safe enough to tell me!

From that day on, I’ve reli­giously waxed, not bleached, not igno­red, but waxed that per­sis­tent fuzz gro­wing on my upper lip.

Fast for­ward a few years to this Decem­ber, 2008.  My dear atten­tive hus­band star­ted a con­ver­sa­tion with me with the follo­wing words, “Pro­mise you won’t take what I say next personally?”

Um, NO!!  I can’t make that pro­mise.  I take a lot of things personally!!

As I was telling him that I, under no cir­cums­tan­ces, wan­ted to hear something that may hurt my fee­lings he blur­ted out, “You have really long nose hairs!  You need to trim them!”

????? Um OK?

Thank God for hus­bands like mine, huh?  Can you ima­gine what I’d look like without his help?

Shud­der!! It would not be pretty!!

Any­ways, imme­dia­tely after I was enligh­te­ned to the fact that my unu­sually large nos­trils had hair really long hair pro­tru­ding out of them, I got down to the busi­ness of trim­ming last damn hair I could find.

When I finished the exca­va­tion I sadly rea­li­zed that my nose now itched thanks to the small, stubby hairs that remained.

Now, when I say that I appre­ciate my husband’s honesty, I should also men­tion that this doesn’t give him a free pass.  Once he opens the door, I feel com­ple­tely free to walk through it and con­ti­nue to dis­cuss my imper­fec­tions with him at will.

So, later in the day I wal­ked up to Hub and part whi­ned, part infor­med him how itchy my nostr­les were.

His res­ponse?

“Bet­ter your nos­trils itching than your upper lip!”

Really, what else was there to say?

Often while I’m at work I get photo upda­tes of the kids day, thanks to Hubby’s favo­rite toy.

Today was no excep­tion.  BC has been fee­ling pretty sick this week.  We’ve spent every day, since Mon­day, near a toi­let.  Hubby said that BC had the flu.  I didn’t believe him.  Aside from the inces­sant runs, BC see­med fine.

Until today.

First I got this photo sent to me just before 8:00 A.M.  BC slee­ping any­time besi­des after 7:30 P.M. is abso­lu­tely unheard of.  This was not a good sign.

Then I got a text.

eClaire has the runs.  BC does too.

Crap.

eClaire clearly caught what BC has.

Then I got this photo.

It was deci­ded that the kids would have a “Movie in Paja­mas Day”.

Unfor­tu­na­tely that pic­ture was shortly follo­wed by the follo­wing text.

BC threw up all over the bed and him­self.  Now he’s thro­wing up in the toi­let.  AND eClaire is on the other toi­let with the runs.

Need­less to say, it was a rough day here.  None of us really smi­led much today. BC’s never expe­rien­ced thro­wing up before.  It frea­ked him the eff out.  Seriously.  I gua­ran­tee he will remem­ber today for the rest of his life.

Hubby was an angel.  There was mini­mal com­plai­ning, loads and loads of laundry, two baths each, and a clean house by the time I got home.

Angel.  He ear­ned a place in bed with me tonight!  Hehe    Thank good­ness it’s a king sized bed though… neither one of us wants to risk breathing on the other for fear of pas­sing the plague!

Cros­sing my fin­gers for two healthier kids by mor­ning… hoping, but not expecting.

Babe,

Today you tur­ned 32.  And although you’ve already had a chance to see this pod­cast, pic­tu­res and all, I wan­ted to post it here so you can come back when you might be doub­ting the impact you have on our chil­dren, or when you are fee­ling down.

The time you spend with us is pro­found.  The extra effort you put into get­ting eClaire to gig­gle is so won­der­ful.  The spe­cial atten­tion you give BC when you teach him about science, earth, or just how to fix things around the house are for­ming las­ting memories.

When you read to our chil­dren in the eve­nings, you soli­dify your pre­sence in their lives.

The man you are comes through in the daily actions of your chil­dren.  Your daugh­ter is meti­cu­lous.  Your son is a gent­le­man.  Your daugh­ter a so very bright.  Your son is help­ful and kind.  Your chil­dren reflect you.

I’ve added the video to this post for you to come back to every time you begin to won­der what you really mean to our kids.

You are the best man I know.

Happy Birth­day.

Love,

Me

Text Mes­sage:

Me: Nonnie’s dead.

Him: Call me!

Me: Never mind. Damn hams­ter is still alive

Him: Uhhh. Big Difference!!!!

Me: Ya. You wouldn’t have got­ten a text for that. Duh!!

Him: Dork.

Him: I was all excited.

(about the hams­ter, not about my mom…let’s cla­rify.)

Me: Me too I poked it and she didn’t res­pond.  I think she’s on her way out though.  Cros­sing fingers.

Things get a little tricky when your son names his hams­ter after your mom!