Dad

The boys are sick this week.  And as I sat there on the floor of the bathroom with Jack as he pleaded with me "Please, I don't want to throw up, Please, I thought I was feeling better."  And then moments later, when he knew it was time, he turned and hurled into the toilet instead of me or the floor.

Abby took longer with that, but she is so brave too.  It's not like most of us enjoy throwing up, but as we all grow to realize, USUALLY it means we'll feel better- at least for a little while.  It makes me remember the last time Abby threw up. I blogged about it then too because it struck me as so sweet, so brave.  She threw up, then, delighted and relieved told me, "I didn't want to, but I prayed I would because I knew I'd feel better and God answered my prayer!"  (or something like that).

The kids are so brave, and whilst I give these kids my heart and soul, they get their bravery from their dad.  Steve carries himself with a strength that I know the kids just naturally are going to pick up and hopefully recognize in others as a good person to hang around.

I know that our family space is what our normal is.  So me telling Steve he needs to be more effusive in order for the kids to feel his love is just plain wrong.  The kids are HIS kids.  They feel from him, their dad, in a way no one else can or would.  I mean, he's pretty effusive as manly men go.  And VERY cuddly... of course he's usually cuddling the kids in a way that immediately turns into a strangle hold that they have to wrestle out of...

It's just that IIII know how much he loves his kids, but I see so many grown kids running around accusing their dads of not being open enough about their pride or love, that I just want to DOCUMENT it somewhere:

HEY, KIDS! Your dad loves you a ridiculous amount.  When we were away in England he admitted he didn't want to hear any of the news from home.  Because he'd miss you too much if he saw pictures or heard stories.  How cute is that?  I didn't even miss you that much ;) ;)

Lucky

The longer Steve and I are married, the more often we look at each other and say some form of, "Wow, were we lucky."  Not in a cheesy sweet way, but because looking back we were total idiots in love - i.e. the things we THOUGHT we should look for, we knew maybe in theory, but any sort of real concept? None.  Sure, there's that God factor to fall back on.  But we know a lot of good God-fearing people that chose very ... short-sightedly.  Not because they were short sighted specifically but because we all are.  We can try to look around corners, but just on a very simple basic level, we can only try.  The longer we are together, the more we realize we could have screwed everything up so very easily.  And the more thankful I get (Steve doesn't think like this) that God chose to bless our instinct vs. use it to show us and the world how short sighted us humans are.

Belated Gift Receiver

As most of you know, Steve has one highly annoying habit.  He is ALWAYS right.  Whether it takes three minutes to prove or three years, he is always right.  You wouldn't think it would be that difficult to live with - maybe you would even consider it a blessing.

But no. It's alot like those genius shows on tv.  Like WHY after a couple years working with Monk would you EVER EVER think he was wrong.  Sure, on Medium you can get away with a little doubt since she was so often overly dramatic, but you know you should still have CHECKED out every single one of her dreams - I mean COME ON.   Mentalist - you're not going to question him after a while.  But it must be the human condition to do just that.

YES I know you're right always honey, but this time... it just can't be... or wait - oh you've already proven it.  Nevermind.

Anyway, one of his gifts to me for Christmas a few years ago was to get my blog printed.

And I thought, awh, cool (especially since he doesn't read my blog, it was nice that he was being supportive).  Then went into a little bit and realized it needed to be finessed a little and that it wasn't going to be near as cheap as the adverts made it seem.  And then I was like - geez, most of these posts are me just being lame and long winded, not worth the time or effort.  And of course I was still adding more and so what was the point?

WELL, my blogging wound down as my facebooking went up and I went back and really appreciated all that history.  SO:

He was right.  I love them. I love them in hand so I can flip thru and not get seasick going page after page on the internet.  They are nice enough.  Not exactly a book page quality from the Smithsonian, but nice.  Totally worth it, even though getting ALL of them done at once was pricey.

First Kiss of 2012

Okay it was probably the 13th kiss of 2012, but it was the only one that didn't end up like this one:

Due to Steve's improv... which mostly involved slobber noises