My Fairytale

It's my husband's birthday on Sunday and I want to blog about him in lieu of my annual naughty birthday card.  (He buys the most beautiful, sentimental cards for me and I can't seem to stay away from the cards that shock him.  I figure it's okay because I'm having his second baby and all.)

I'm pretty sure I fell in love with this man the first time I saw him in boots and a cowboy hat.  Of course, it might have been when he watched me wolf down an entire burger and fries at I-Hop and it didn't phase him.  There was also the time he wrote out a Psalm in calligraphy for me when he found out I played the guitar, (he thought the 3 chords I knew were sexy.)  Actually, it was probably when he told me that he was not interested in being my friend- he was interested in being my man, and I needed to knock off the games.  Yep, that was probably it.  We've been butting heads and making out ever since.

It's not always a fairytale.  With 2 first-borns trying to navigate marriage, there are clashes. Marriage isn't really easy for us; we work at it. We take our unhappy hinies to marriage counseling when nothing else is working. And we sit, side-by-side, and work harder. We eat our pride. We say "I'm sorry."  Our fairytale probably looks different, but I see it everywhere:


I see it when he fathers our son...I see it when he talks to my growing belly and tells him/her about the many Daddy adventures they will have together...I see it when he makes Hamburger Helper for all of us when I can't muster the energy to get off the couch...I see it when he tells me I'm a great Mommy when I feel like I suck...I see it when he gets more angry than I do when a client or vendor is rude to me....I see it when he thanks me for doing household chores...I see it when he lets me sleep in on Saturday morning and then brings me donuts and coffee...I see it when he prays over our family...I see it when he writes me love letters and leaves them for me to find at work... And I think I actually swooned the day  he cleaned up my puke bucket after a rough night of "morning" sickness.   I mean, that's a lot of love, my friends.

At the end of the day, everyday, he comes home to me.  Night after night, I'm in his arms.  He tells my make-upless- death breath- sleeping in an old t-shirt- self every morning that I'm beautiful. Then, he goes off to work so thatI can live out my dream of stay-at-home mommying.  He also comes home early when said dream feels like a nightmare and I need alone time and a tub of icecream.

That's the stuff real fairytales are made of, I think.  And I am thankful.



Happy birthday, my love.