Anniversary, etc.

I want to start with a non-anniversary story because it's chronological even if it only fits in the "etc." portion of my post-title.  I took our girls and some friends and extended family to see Rebecca St. James perform the other night.  There is a lot to the overall evening that I could write about, but I'll just say, overall, it was a nice time even though there were some weird things about the whole situation.

Anyway, once we finally found seats and we were settling into the set, RSJ started singing a song I think is called "Beautiful" or "You Are Beautiful" or something (I haven't listened to her stuff for a long time, so I don't know her current stuff really).  It was a softer song and our daughter, J, who is normally pretty fidgety during those quiet moments, sort of leaned into me tenderly at that moment.

It was a moment of joy that I wanted to last.  Then she looked up into my eyes and sort of batted her eyelashes at me and I thought, "Wow, this is such a special mother-daughter moment.  Thank you, Jesus!"

Then she spoke, and in sort of a way where it fit with the music she said, "Mama, I wish this was done so we could go home now."

Crushed!

Oh man, I thought she was feeling it like I was, but no, she was just bored.  Sort of took the wind from my sails.  But then I laughed about the situation and I regained some of that joy I lost out on ... in a different way.

So skip forward to today.  It's our 19th wedding anniversary!  (Pause for cheering and gasps of wonder since it seems we're in the minority these days, making it 19 years and all.)  So yes, we met at ages 12 and 13, we married at ages 18 and 19 and 19 years later, here we are, still in love and still married.  This is a really good thing.

But this morning, I woke up feeling sort of under-motivated to do today.  C says it's because I put too much pressure on holidays and celebrations and then I'm always let down by them.  Nothing had happened yet, but maybe that was the problem.  I don't really know.  All I know is that I spent more than too much time playing a game on the floor of my closet with J that we called hanger-ball.  It involved two closet hangers and her little rubber ball and somehow combining those things to try to score goals against each other.  Meanwhile, the other kids were sort of wondering why I was MIA.

Finally, C stepped in (he was working from home today and found a quiet moment between meetings) and said, "Why don't we go get some breakfast?"

This seemed like a better choice for the start of the day, so I quickly put something on and started calling out to kids to get dressed and get their shoes on.  We were ready to leave in about ten minutes time.  Not bad for a family of seven.

When I got downstairs, C said, "I'm glad to see you got your clothes on finally."

I said, "Wow, you can tell we've been married 19 years if you're so excited to get my clothes on!"

Ha.

We had breakfast, which was particularly tasty today -- even though it's somewhere we eat frequently.  Then I was able to go get a haircut.  I'm not sure I love it.  I told the stylist the same explanation I give every time, but she was a bit scissor-happy and had her own take on my description.  Then she spent about twenty minutes styling my hair with various creams and special brushes (I rarely -- if ever -- give my hair more than about five minutes of attention a day) and then proceeded to snip away seemingly random chunks from the ends to provide extra layering.  I think my hair might be too high-maintenance at this point, but we'll see tomorrow when I try to give it my typical <5 minute treatment.

But at least it looked cute for today given the excessive styling help I received.

This was great because later, C took me to dinner (Sushi!) and shopping at a couple stores for household stuff we needed.  Time alone together is rare and precious, so I cherished this time with him.  I love him so!

The evening began to come crashing down because our boys, who listen to K-LOVE to fall asleep each night (and we have seen drastic improvement in their attitudes as a result) could not seem to tune in to the station.  Try as I might, I couldn't do it for them.  I grew frustrated and impatient.  H told me he can't sleep without the radio and he was stomping mad, even though as much as I wanted to help, I could not.  He was expecting the impossible.

Meanwhile, J and O had each lost something and were not able to find them.  J started complaining about her fears that something was going to get her in the night and she insisted it was real.  Z -- who is arguably our best item-finder -- was trying to help them find stuff, but then started turning things into a rambunctious game right before bed.

S decided to ask me for help on her schoolwork at 8:45 ... on what's left of our anniversary night ... and it was just more than I wanted to do.  But, I did help her.  I reassured J.  I sent Z to bed and told O to look for his reading wand tomorrow.  C was able to help the boys rig their radio alarm clocks with a hanger to tune in, but clearly, this is not a long-term solution.


Breathe deeply and look forward to the next 19 years ... happy anniversary, Husband.