Friday, November 22, 2013

Love and Marriage

This week we learned how to brush our teeth.









Also, guess who was born?  Emerson Sophie!!!!! 
Welcome, baby girl!  She is SOOO precious!  I haven't met her in person just yet, but those eyes are huge and beautiful, and her button nose just gets me every time!  Isn't she so alert??  Can't wait to watch you grow, Sweet One!
 
Of my five friends who were pregnant as of the beginning of the year, we've welcomed three BEAUTIFUL children into the world.  Brynn, Jack, and now Emerson.  The other two sweet babies will remain in our hearts as their parents try again. 
Life is sometimes very hard.  But we rejoice in the good and reflect in the bad.
 
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As I sit here and type in November, I realize I am not the person I was last November when I was typing, which seems light years difference from when I was typing TWO Novembers ago.  What a year.  What a life.
 
My husband and I struggle to find time for each other.  Between his new job and the new child and the new schedule, and the new "us"... To say it's been a long haul is an understatement.  He said to me in the car the other night, "What happened to this year?"
 
"We had a son."  I replied.
 
I asked my parents to watch Liam for a night just so we could find each other again.  We hadn't been on a date in MONTHS.   A few nights before, I had tried to create a "mood" (hair, makeup, lotions, lingerie) and instead Andy had gotten ill and so nothing happened.  A few nights before that, we had tried to create a mood, and the baby woke up.  A few nights before that we tried to create a mood and both fell asleep before anything could even happen.  We try and try and try, and we are just always thwarted.
 
Sex is everywhere in our culture.  Magazines boast columns on how to have more with better technique.  Every ounce of spam on my computer is trying to get you to enlarge something, cheat on someone, or to find a local (mostly hot and horny) single.  The TV.  Don't get me started on the TV.  You used to have to wait to see the hot and steamy stuff until you watch the show.  Now you can catch it on the commercial.  As can your husband and (you're quickly realizing), so can your son.
 
So you're immediately lead to believe that you're doing it wrong.  And you yourself can become obsessed with it.  (I started writing it on my calendar...true story).  I think somewhere deep down you just want to "keep up" with everyone else, even though you really don't know what everyone else is doing.  (Ever notice how they only interview hot, young, singles in those mags?)
 
We're sitting at the restaurant on our cozy little date night- I had no makeup on.  I didn't do my hair.  I had on leggins and a sweater.  We sat there and made up life stories for the three ladies at the adjacent table- you know the game- creating back stories, pretending we knew what they were saying, giving them audible thoughts...  We began a rousing rendition of: Is he gay or are they related??  Then we started criticising the band (it was really, really bad....) We sat and shared our meals with each other and for the first time in a really really long time, I remembered something:
 
I like my husband.
 
It suddenly became so clear to me.  I not only love my husband, I LIKE him too.  I was working so intently on the love part, the marriage part, the making it all work part.  The being sexy part.  The doing-it-the-right-way part.  And I totally forgot- I like my husband...and I don't even have to try it.
 
Immediately I was thrown back into the days of college where we'd go to concerts together at LVC and sit there and criticize the musicians.  How we'd have pet names for people behind their backs when we didn't really know their names.  How we'd nap together on a Sunday afternoon.  How we'd load into the car at midnight and go to Sheetz for food (thanks college, also, for making me fat).  I started mentally reliving those moments that we SO took for granted- sitting in our empty house, doing our homework, just so we could be in our house.  Sitting up until midnight, talking on the phone and just busting up laughing for no reason.  Waiting weeks and weeks to board a train just to see him again...
 
Why do we TRY so hard?  Maybe we need to stop trying and just...be.  Not to say the occasional dress up and go out night isn't great, but what if we toned it down once or twice?  Date nights, me time, you time, family time, it's all important.  But what if we lived those moments under the umbrella of, "Hey, I kinda like this.  And I kinda like you.  And you used to give me goosebumps when you touched me..."  Don't try to "recreate" it- just allow it to happen naturally. 
 
It did before, it can again.