Love is weird

Richy and I had our 8th wedding anniversary on December 28, and because I feel like blogging about it I will.

We were in Chicago on this day. Emily babysat our kids while we went out for a traditional Chicago dinner of deep dish pizza and a vegan salad for the Mrs.

I cannot sit here and blog away about how it has been 8 years of marital bliss. I was one of those girls who was excited to get married. Naively I thought it would solve some of my problems. I knew there would be hard things, but not like this. It was hard for me to accept my image of how it "should be" did not match up with how my marriage actually was. Richy and I have had some very hard years, years that had left me asking myself, why did I think I was ready at 20 to make such a commitment. Maybe I should have gone on a mission, traveled, or done anything else! I wondered what I was doing wrong, what he was doing wrong? I had heard the first year is the hardest, but by year 5, this was just plain unfair. One of the toughest things was also the thing that brought us the most joy, becoming parents. Although both of us wanted the same results out of parenting, our philosophies on how to get there were very different. Richard wanted Levi to be sleep trained by crying it out, and this made me want to cry it out myself. We got along during this time and had fun together, but I often felt there was something missing. I read The five love languages and learned a lot about myself and my relationship. So much of our relationship had been spent with me saying adoring words to Richard and he would respond by doing nice things for me, I know that sounds nice. In reality both us were showing love in the way we needed it to be shown to us. I now look forward to doing things for him. He loves it when I spontaneously clean up the mess I make in the car. I think this still counts as an act of service.

Before starting this post, I ask Richard if he is comfortable with me disclosing these private times in our relationship, he said something like "Go for it". One of the things I have always loved about Richard is his honesty. I never worry he is holding back or that he is dishonest with other people in any form. He continues to be a great example to me of integrity. He is not honest in such a way to be offensive, but rather he is honest about himself. He never tries to one up anyone. He has helped me to be okay about things I may have kept private for fear of embarrassment.Honesty is liberating. It feels so good to free yourself from hiding things. I am not sure Richard intended to teach me this lesson, but it has served me well.

Now here we are with 8 years of marriage and I can sit here and say 3 years of marital bliss. I would not trade the disagreements, the challenges, or any of the hard times, because now I can see what all of the difficult stuff was leading up to. The image I used to carry of what marriage "should be" has nothing on what my marriage actually is today. As cliche as it sounds I really do get excited every time I see Richy. Every morning when he leaves I tell him to call me every minute, because I will miss him so much. He makes me feel safe. Among other things I love laying in bed with him at night and laughing about things our kids have said or done that day. We have fun together with pretty much whatever we do.

I cannot believe that at age 2o something in me knew I would be my happiest self with this man. I am thankful for prayer that gave me the confidence to marry Richy.

Dr. Seuss can sum it up better than I can.

“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

back to real life, but not before some fun!

My sister and niece left on Monday, Richard and Levi both went back to school after being home the last 2 weeks. The excitement of family and Christmas is coming to an abrupt end as I get back to turning on NPR for company while Naomi naps.

Christmas was a hit. I enjoyed decorating,listening to Christmas music, and driving around looking at Christmas lights. Naomi comments about the lights saying in the sweetest little voice "So pretty Mommy".

This was our first Christmas doing it on our own. I have taken for granted all the work that went into giving us a nice Christmas. For example. Christmas morning breakfast at Richard's parents house is always a feast, while my attempt at a feast consisted of cheap pastries. When it comes to Christmas, I still have so much to learn from Cindy.

Although I have tried my best to keep Levi uninterested in Star Wars, I knew the day would come that I would found myself on Christmas eve night sewing him a Darth Vader Cape. He loved it, so I guess I can deal with The Star Wars phase.

Richard got me a little statue of the St. Louis arch. If I am ever going to be an old lady NOW is the time to start collecting figurines for my future china hutch.

We went up to the top of the arch, which was actually a very scary experience. You get locked in a tiny over heated pod. The claustrophobia sets in, right before reaching the top, at which point the fear of heights takes over..

I got Richard an iphone 5. Now I feel I am in a polygamist relationship, with Serie as my sister wife. He used to ask me questions like "what restaurant do you want to go to" or "what way should we go". The other night we had a concern about Levi, instead of discussing it only with me, he had the audacity to ask Serie to check the web. I hate my sister wife. She tells my husband, I mean our husband where to eat, how to get there and how to raise Levi. And the way she keeps calm when I say I hate you to her really annoys me. She replies with a surprised "Did I do something wrong?". When it comes to cell phone for myself, my policy is if flips, dials, and is free with a new contract than it is going home with me to get nestled into my gold fish cracker invested purse.

The upside to having a phone for a sister wife is after Christmas she navigated us to Chicago. We spent a few days there and had a great time. We visited the Shedd aquarium. I really enjoyed how interactive it was. Information was easy to understand and interesting The kids enjoyed the Christmas show with Santa and dolphins. The penguins were perhaps their favorite part

Our hotel was on the Magnificent Mile (which we are too poor to fully enjoy). It was beautifully lite up with just trace amounts of snow still on the ground. It was mighty brisk!

We had a great trip, it was nice to get away from home and have the energy of a big city. Naomi loved to beep along with the horns of the taxis. Richard and I were able sneak away one night on our own while Emily watched the kids. My favorite part of the trip was getting to spend an afternoon with my niece Hope, free of my children.

Because I still think of her as little Hope, and yet she is taller than me. I get some strange looks when I am out in public with her. I say things like "Come here sweet girl" or "No, you cannot get a soda". It looks like I am talking down to her. On our excursion she made Richy and I laugh, telling us about how much she love Panda Express (Yuck).
When Levi was 2, on his own he called Hope Oprah (I swear I am not racist). Here is little Oprah I in front of the Oprah studios.

Upon arriving at home, it was time to ring in the new year. We played games.

And Richard, Levi, Naomi, and I danced in what my sister dubbed years ago as "Dunns after dark". Several times a year we break out into a dance party. The music Richy selects is edited hip hop and rap, we would not normally listen to this.

Pieces of a Christmas card

It seems my blog is starting to look like a never ending Christmas card, a little too happy,so here are the real things going on with us.

December was a long month. Richard had been finishing up his anatomy class, which meant long hours at school in the lab. Several days went by with Richard leaving before the kids woke up or close to it and then returning home after bedtime. Naomi has been waking up in the night crying for Richy. Some nights I bring her into bed with us just so she can see he is still here on some level. While Richy lay in bed asleep Naomi kisses his face all over while saying "Hi daddy". In Richard's sleepy voice he says to me "Don't you dare take her out". This scene is played out several times through out the night. It became clear to me how much I missed him when I found myself being overly excited to go to church. At church I get to sit by him in class free of our children for one whole hour! We were able to escape for one real date to the St. Louis symphony

Luckily December was broken up by a flow of visitors. My best friend Bianca came for a couple days. Bianca and I spent a considerable amount time sitting in my car in the Whole Foods parking lot eating a variety of brownies. We were living the good life.

The elementary school shooting in Connecticut left me in a state I would not have expected given that my favorite show is the local news which is full of stories about shootings. Having an elementary school age child made this terrible story more real to me. As I watched the news I cried for the families. I cannot image what their pain must feel like. All I could do was watch the news and the clock, counting down the minutes until I could pick Levi up safely from school. I know intellectually that this is statically rare, but still the fear of not always being able to protect him looms over me. I am used to worrying that he did not eat a big enough breakfast to sustain him until lunch at school, I am used to worrying about his social interacting, like are kids nice to him, but this brought a whole new realm of worries associated with Levi going to school. Upon seeing Levi I gingerly selected my words and actions in hopes of not alerting him to the fact that something horrible had happened to children while at school. I may not be able to protect myself from that fear but I will do my best to protect him.
My sister Emily and my Niece Hope have been visiting us for Christmas. I love having them here. My kids adore Emily and I have no complaints about her doing my laundry and getting up in the morning with my kids. I consider myself a fairly productive person, that is until Emily is around. She takes over and gets things down, she takes care of me.


I have come to learn that even with all of the awful things going on in the world and the difficulties of our personal lives, there are still reasons to get together, make cheesy smiles, and take pictures of the happy moment as a reflection of our family life. I am too lazy to actually put together a Christmas card, but if I were not, than these would be the pictures I would send out.
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It was hard to get Levi to look at the camera.

It was even harder to get Naomi to pose. Naomi has a little piece of silk appropriately called her "silky". She brings it every where, so it was only right that it make it's way into our family pictures.

The silky took a back seat to the sucker!