Love and Marriage

Thank you so much for all of your kindness as I’ve been going through this rough time. It’s not hard to be open about my struggles when I get such a gracious and loving response.

It’s amazing how fast the hard times come and how quickly they begin to recede with faith, prayers, friends, good medical care and prescriptions, and a weekend spent sitting on an island watching the sunset with your main schmoop and zero small people.

Dan and I had planned a getaway for this past weekend months before my brain glitch last month happened. It’s the first time we’ve gone away for a weekend without the kids in the nearly six years since Laylee was born and I feel sure that all the planning and timing were no accident. Someone knew I’d need some extra relaxation to help get over the worst of my panic and anxiety.

Now we’re getting back into our routine and it seems strange that just days ago I was swallowed up in so much fear and panic. I’ve been sleeping in, grateful to be sleeping well again and we were a bit tardy getting Laylee to kindergarten this morning. I apologized and she sensed the stress in my voice.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m late for school Mom. It just matters that I’m alive. Come on, man!”

Yeah, yeah. Peace, love and all that jazz. I’d still like to avoid excessive and habitual late slips. But I enjoyed the sentiment. There is wisdom in our young ones. Upon arriving back home, Laylee’s favorite song “I Know Karate” (see embed below) was playing on the cd player and Magoo begged me not to go inside until it had finished.

So we stayed in the car as I unleashed the artistic fury of my funky greatness. Rolling fists, flashing jazz hands and bobbing my head like a skanking Rastafarian. Hey. My car dancing moves are limited because my mobility is restricted but I can still bust a move in a manner pleasing to children under the age of six. Magoo parroted my every motion and when the song finished he exclaimed, “I did it. I could do all of it!”

And his moves were passable. I hope they serve him well in his life. Maybe he’ll report back to me about how they’re working for him. Perhaps in junior high sometime. Maybe his peers will report back even more emphatically.

Ah, what a lovely day I had today. I tricked the kids into cleaning the house, ate Cadbury Mini-Eggs and lounged in my bed for several minutes while looking at clouds that I could tell were clouds because they stood out against the most amazing thing, patches of nearly blue Seattle sky.

It was also a good day because I got a full sleep last night, there were no time outs, no one wiped poop in their eyeball, and no produce fell out of my shopping bag and rolled under my car at the grocery store. Those are just a few highlights from yesterday. But yesterday’s over so we shan’t talk about it any further.

The only sad thing about my day was that I didn’t get to spend much time with Dan although the word is he wrote some wicked good ninja-worthy code at work today. The kids didn’t get to see him much either and that worries me a little. I think Magoo’s forgetting who his father is.

I went through a serious Guitar Hero phase a while back and whenever the be-wifebeatered computer-animated male lead singer with the greasy long hair would get up to belt his hard rock solos into the mic, Magoo would yell, “That’s MY DAD! LOOK MOM! IT’S M’DAD!”

“Yeah, he looks just like your dad. With more hair, less muscle on his arms, tighter pants, fewer sleeves, 10 quarts more oil in his hair, more rage and a face transplant. They could be twins!”

Then today in the car we were listening to a little Shaggy on the radio. Now I enjoy Shaggy as much as any mid-90s high school graduate but there came a point in the song where I didn’t much care anymore how fantastic or bombastic he was. As I changed the station, Magoo yelled, “Turn it back. I want the daddy one song.”

“Did you think that guy sounded like your daddy?”

“Yeah. I want to hear my daddy singing ”˜at song!”

So I switched the station back and he grinned, “That’s my daddy.”

I’m sure Shaggy would be happy to take credit for fathering half of the children in the known world but Magoo actually owes his existence to me and someone I like to refer to as my personal “lova lova,” Daniel P. Aloysius Berherkamer Thompson.

And they LIKE them!

Wives and Daughters finally came up in my Netflix queue last week and the first disc in the BBC miniseries arrived by mail much to my girlish glee and delight.

Dan got home from work when I was about halfway through the first disc and after a brief rundown of the major characters and their likeliness to make advantageous matches with each other, he was hooked. WHAT would happen to Miss Molly? What, indeed!

The disc ended at the most cliffhangerish of cliffhangers and we were left wondering whether a girl of nearly twenty would be doomed to remain a spinster, or more importantly, whether the 10 pounds her father provided for ribbons and gowns would be enough to make her quite suitable for the many balls she would attend in the meantime.

I sent the disc back and waited anxiously for the conclusion to arrive in my mailbox. Yesterday it DID! I asked Dan semi-sarcastically if he’d like me to wait so he could watch it with me. He said he really wanted to see what happened and we cuddled up to view the enchanting finale.

As the movie started, Stephanie’s husband who’s staying with us this week got home from work and asked what we were watching. When we told him he said, “Those shows can really hook you in, where you just have to know what happens next.” He decided to keep his distance.

10 minutes later I heard him sigh from the kitchen where he had been eavesdropping, “Oh FINE!” He headed over to the couch, dinner plate in hand, and plunked himself down next to Dan.

They commentated throughout the movie with me and hazarded guesses about what would happen next. They referred to the characters by their names and asked questions like, “Why does he get called ”˜Mr. Osbourne’ when they just call his brother ”˜Roger’?” and, “Wouldn’t that be hard to do in a corset?” They clapped their hands and laughed out loud at the funny parts and they cringed at the DRAMA OF IT ALL.

Dan held me like a baby during the moments of repressed passion and romance, the parts that left me clasping my hands to my tender bosom, whilst tears welled up in my eyes.

It was the best movie-watching experience of my married life. And when it was over and our house guest was safely out of earshot, I turned to Dan and said, “Oh, Mr. Roger. Would you take me upstairs?”

“Nothing could please me more,” he exclaimed and my heart grew three sizes.

When we get married, we make a bunch of promises. Some we make in front of God, legal authorities and our Aunt Bertha. Some are lovingly whispered in a car late at night in front of your apartment. There are even some politely demanded before any sort of engagement takes place….

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If you’ve written about love today, leave a link in the comments. For now, go check out Jeana’s awesome post.

Tips are now back on Tuesdays because, hey, I’m the boss of this blog.

My sister-in-law and her roommates used to always ask me for romance advice because I’m totally married so I know pretty much all there is to know about dating and romance.  The advice was so good that a couple of months ago she set off on an 18 month adventure as the Mormon equivalent of a nun.

Good times.

Today please give me signs that a relationship is just not meant to be.  Here are mine.

It’s just not meant to be if:

-You excitedly take the big step of going home with your true love to meet the fam, only to have him introduce you by saying, “This is Kathryn.  She lives in my apartment complex and she didn’t have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving.”

-You have to call Delilah to find out what “your song” is.

Now you go…

Dan and I are rounding out 5 years of wedded bliss, and wedded bliss it has been, lassies.  I love him dearly.  Every once in a while I like to look back and remember our first kiss, a kiss which I will describe for you now….

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