Category Archives: Steve
My really cute, garden-variety nerd of a husband.
Day of the Father
At latest count, I’d say there are about a thousand things that I do that remind Steve of the importance of specifity when writing one’s wedding vows. I have no doubt that his secret diary is filled with phrases like, “Refuses to put my sox away in color sequence” and “Can’t park the 4Runner correctly in the garage”. If I were to guess about one of the items he has written in red Sharpie, underlined with exclamation points it would probably be: Rearranges Furniture!! This, I have found to be the mother of all cheese moving issues we deal with – and as such, has to be handled with the utmost of delicacy. Which is why on Mother’s Day, along with all of my other lovely gifts, I was given explicit permission to dismantle and rearrange the living room. Truly, one of my more cherished opportunities.
And so it filled me with great sadness to realize that after all of his generosity and self-sacrifice on my High Holy Day, I have chosen to repay him by whisking myself and his first born child 1000 miles away on Father’s Day, and leaving him behind with our adorable, yet tempermental 1-year-old. It was a complete oversight on my part as I began jockeying around between vacation days at work and booking plane reservations. Before I knew it, I had done the one thing I had specifically intended not to do: be gone on Father’s Day. By the time I realized it, we had two non-refundable round-trip tickets booked, and the understanding that he had just added item 1001 to that secret diary.
So instead of reciprocating all of the generosity and selflessness he granted me – giving him a relaxing day of clean counters and all the fast food he can eat – I am reduced to sending him all of my love and appreciation here on these pages.
To my husband – the father of my children, the man who makes this crazy, overwhelming, endlessly challenging job actually doable – I say this:
I am reminded daily how infinitely lucky I am to have found someone so collaborative, dedicated and amazingly human with whom to raise my children, and for that I couldn’t be more grateful. Although Stella and I aren’t there with you, we are thinking of you and wishing you a wonderful Father’s Day.
Name that tune
As XM subscribers, we have a standing question:
“So, do you know who this is?”
This question posed, because the display will always tell you the artist and song title. One thing I have learned is that I did not marry my husband because of his catalog of musical knowledge. About the only songs he can identify are The Carpenters, The Ramones, Earth Wind & Fire (and that is only since he somewhat recently came to this realization), a couple of hair bands and a handful of miscellaneous obscure 80’s groups. And I mean, really obscure.
I think the only time he out-challenged me was when he was able to identify a Fountains of Wayne song, when I had never even heard of them. I’m not sure, but I still think he may have cheated.
Today, after yet another defeat in the guess this song/artist challenge, I was presented with the following logic:
“Um, Natalie. I am not a lyricist, I am a composer.”
Sick and Tired of Sick and Tired
Let’s recap, shall we?
My mother arrived a week ago, Thursday. By Sunday, Porter began throwing up more than usual. Monday, he threw up in the middle of the night. Although no other symptoms existed, we began to suspect the flu. Tuesday, we kept him out of daycare. Wednesday morning, Steve began asking me if I thought the house felt cold. Wednesday afternoon, Steve’s parents arrived, Steve puked, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening under 600 blankets. Wednesday night, Stella slept at the trailer with her Grammy and Gramps, and threw up in the middle of the night. By Thursday, everyone seemed to be feeling a bit better. Porter was still throwing up with some regularity, and added diarrhea to his list of tricks. We all of a sudden realized that we needed to go to Costco to pick up more laundry detergent because we had been doing a minimum of 3 loads of laundry every day for 6 days. On Saturday, Steve’s dad spent the better part of the day holding court in the bathroom and on the couch. After being urgently booted from the bathroom by Stella – the girl with ZERO understanding that anyone else’s needs might outweigh her own- he opted to move himself to the trailer to convalesce. We were reminded, for the gazillionth time, that we need a second bathroom.
Although our house is wall-to-wall wood floors, Porter somehow managed to throw up three separate times on the thick shag area rug in the living room. The carpet cleaners come tomorrow at 1:00. After receiving yet another donation from Porter this morning, I attempted to wash our puke covered, king-size down comforter in the washing machine this afternoon. A tip for anyone who might try this in the future: when you have to brace yourself on the cabinets and use your foot to shove the entirety of the item into the machine, it is a good indicator that you may have exceeded capacity. It is currently sitting by the back door in an over-sized contractor bag along with about 10 gallons of water. Stella will be making her first official trip to a laundromat this evening.
Today, as I changed Porter’s outfit for the umpteenth time, and realized that although he has thrown up either in or on his shoes about 6 times, there is no point in buying him a new pair until I am relatively certain he won’t be filling the new ones with regurgitated bananas. And due to the mounting feeling that if I have to clean up puke one more time I am going to lose it, I made myself list the ways that it all could be worse. Remarkably, even with all that Porter has been going through over the last week, he has a.) not had a fever, b.) kept enough fluids in his system to not dehydrate, and c.) been in a remarkably good mood. Oh, and d.) I have set a new speed record in changing a crib sheet, in the dark, while not waking the sibling sleeping 5 feet away. Need I go on?
I guess that probably gets you up to speed on the gist of things, and also lends some explanation to my absence of late. More than anything, though, I’m just hoping that when the realtor comes over on Friday to help us set a list-price on our house, that the overwhelmingly foul smell of bodily fluids will have subsided.
Winter Wonderland
The trip to the cabin went something like this: Stella, this is snow. Snow, this is Stella. I am sure you will both be fast friends.
I have always remarked that I think Stella was born with an impaired fear instinct. As in, she seems to fear nothing but the vacuum cleaner, the hand-vac and the hairdryer. Snarling dog? Doesn’t phase her. Careening down a hill on a toboggan? Bring it. She even went so far as to get mad when the afternoon snow got too slushy to provide adequate speed. I fear she is going to head into her adult life with a dirty house, bad hair style and as a career contestant on Fear Factor.
Building a snowman was a fleeting pass-time until she could once again go out front and scale the snow-mountain that had been created at the end of the snow-plow route. She scoffed at the steps that were loviningly carved into it by her doting Gramps, and opted to scale the opposite side like an arctic mountain goat.
And don’t even get me started on the pleasure she took in getting free reign to throw snow at anyone who would come within 10 feet of her.
As an added benefit, Stella’s need to leave no snowflake unturned provided Porter with ample opportunity to indulge in his favorite pass-time: watching his sister.
As for photos, yes there were many, but here are some of my favorites…
