Woulda Coulda Shoulda

I had pumpkin pie for breakfast, as I consider that the inalienable right of anyone who spends two straight days cooking. I’m sorry; don’t try to convince me otherwise. The rules are clearly such that the day after Thanksgiving means any red-blooded American must do a few (if not all) of the following things:

1) Sleep late.
2) Eat pie for breakfast.
3) Put away the (third) batch of Thanksgiving dishes that had been drying.
4) Start a pot of soup with the turkey carcass.
5) Announce that even though the fridge is stuffed to bursting with all manner of food, we need to go grocery shopping, because we’re out of milk.
6) Yell upstairs to the playing children “Have you eaten? No? You should eat something!” and then just leave them be, because really, they are not going to starve to death and they ARE playing nicely.

And that’s the true meaning of Christmas. Wait. (Oh, crap. Christmas. Number 7 is try to figure out where your Christmas stuff is.) (more…)

Dear Otto,

Happy halfiversary! I’m sorry I spent most of it on the couch and/or unconscious. I guess the stress of the last week finally triumphed, and the germs just had to have their way with me this weekend. It seems like YOU having your way with me might’ve been a more fitting way to celebrate this milestone, but the germs will go away and you won’t, so there’s that.

(I have already sent your brothers running for the bleach, to cleanse their eyeballs. Sorry, guys.)

This weekend was momentous for two reasons: First, it marked six months since we got married (AND! it goes without SAYING that we STILL LIKE EACH OTHER!), and second, we are just one week from the end of The Year of Living Changerously (if, indeed, we keep it to just a year, which I might not, because I am a rebel that way).

Yesterday I managed to miss my exit on the highway WHILE I was using the GPS—which is sadly, not at all out of character—and still, you love me. Screw the Christmas miracle of the baby Jesus; THIS RIGHT HERE is proof that God works in mysterious ways. (more…)

When Otto and I got married, he was a 36-year-old bachelor. He’d never been married, never lived with a woman. People would elbow me and cast meaningful glances in his direction while joking about how it would take me a while to “train him” (as if he were a puppy who would require frequent newspaper smacks on the nose to learn not to pee in the kitchen), and his friends would shake their heads sadly while telling him “Dude, life as you know it IS OVER.” And I had been on my own with the kids for over four years; we had our habits—such as they were—and bringing Otto in was sure to make for some difficult changes, we thought.

I am not going to sit here and tell you that it’s all been smooth sailing, because change is hard. Period. We’ve all had to adjust and that takes some doing, plus it just takes time for new routines to feel comfortable. So has it been a cakewalk? Of course not. Has it been the stressful calamity some predicted, ending with Otto fleeing from the house to the safety of the garage—where no one shrieks about being touched or poked or looked at, where cups aren’t left to put themselves in the sink, where everything is where he left it and no one needs to sit on his lap right this second? Really no. (more…)