1. Wearing clothes that (unless things go horribly wrong) don’t have another person’s spit-up all over them
2. Being able to eat in a leisurely manner, rather than scarfing food down in 3 minutes flat before the baby gets into something else
3. Those nice dangly earrings aren’t in danger of being ripped out
4. When you sit down at the restaurant, you don’t immediately have to move everything to one side of the table out of the grasp of little hands
5. Spending time with your significant other as a reminder of WHY you wanted to have babies with them
6. Adult conversation that isn’t punctuated by shrieks, screams, crying, or yelling
7. Speaking in a normal volume, rather than trying to talk over the above noises
8. Conversing about politics, science, entertainment, family, friends, and other topics that are a reminder that there’s a world outside of the baby
9. No shame when the conversation veers back to the kid, since you both find him totally cool
10. Getting a night off from the dinner to bedtime marathon that is a 7month old
11. Coming home to a quiet house, since the baby is already asleep
12. The sweet realization that you both want to check on the baby because even though time alone is important (!), you both missed the little guy

As always, more lists can be found over at Anna’s at abdpbt!

I realize I bitch and moan about a lot of different crap on this blog. I use this as a place (in part) to vent about the stuff that I hold inside around the rest of the world, and I love that I can do that.

But today, I’m looking at the kid and his dad play and I realize how fucking lucky I am. I have an amazing husband who loves me and supports me and pushes me to be the best person I can be. He makes me laugh and smile, and has been known to initiate a quick little dance everywhere from our living room to the subway and a million places in-between. He may not always be the most romantic (as he’ll admit), but he’ll stop and get me a Diet Coke and lemonheads because he knows I like them. And every once in a while, he’ll make me breakfast in bed, or bring me flowers…just because.

Plus, he’s an amazing father. I can say honestly that I always knew he’d be a great dad, and seeing him in action with Jackson proves I was right. He’s awesome with the kid–loving and caring and silly and playful. He doesn’t shirk any of the “dirty” work and takes on more than his share of the parenting. I may wish I could be home with the kid, but if I can’t, at least I know his daddy is with him and doing as good (if not better) than I would.

I’ve got a 7 month old kid who is, about 95% of the time, a ridiculously happy kid. He loves to laugh and giggle and shriek and smile, and good gracious is he fun to be around. I love being his mom–it’s so much better in reality than I ever would have thought. Even when I’m questioning myself (which I do plenty), I know I’m the best mom for him. I may not make 100% right decisions, but we’re learning this thing together, he & his dad & I, and we’re doing pretty well.

Plus, I get to watch him learn and grow and how freaking cool is it to see that? Watching him make connections and study things and work through problems is amazing. It’s awesome to see him pick something up, turn it around and around in his hand, with this crazy look of concentration as he figures out what to do with it. And then watch the next time when he just DOES it? Seeing that learning process in action is so cool.

I may not have the working situation that I dream of, or the financial independence we all crave, but I have an amazing little family. I’m well aware of how ridiculously blessed I am to have these two amazing guys in my life who make me happy. I’ve got my boys, and really, that makes me insanely lucky.

Three years ago, we stood outside on an amazingly beautiful Texas hill country evening, and said our vows while friends and family looked on. It wasn’t the beginning of our commitment to each other–a wedding that came after 6 years of being together just made it the solidification of a commitment that was already there. I was never unsure, never got cold feet, never nervous about what we were doing (only of tripping up the aisle!). It was absolutely right to stand at the end of that aisle and walk up to you, to see you waiting at the end for me, to be joined to you.

Three years later and I know you’re not my other half–I’m a whole person with or without you, as we’ve always known it should be–but you make the whole of me better. You bring out the joy in my life and I can’t imagine my world without you. And as we start our family, it looks like “when and if” have both come, and I thank the heavens everyday for bringing me you, the most unlikely yang to my yin.

I love you–Happy Anniversary

Sometimes I feel like my husband’s art is the other woman in our relationship. He comes home late after being with her all night, long after I go to bed. He sheepishly hides receipts for the things he’s bought her. He makes plans with her whenever he has free time. Sometimes he’s too tired from being with her to do things with me. I occasionally get jealous and force him to choose me over her, but he always goes back.

Other times, I feel like his art is our child. Our time revolves around it. We spend more money on it than we do on ourselves at times. We’re constantly running all over creation for its events (talk about an over scheduled child). We put all our energy into making sure it has a better chance of making it big. Work, friends, and private time for our marriage can be secondary to its immediate needs.

Either way, his art definitely puts our lives into a  vice grip at times. Deadlines and events and jobs have a way of taking over. I’ve learned over the years of being with him, it’s part of what I got when I said I would accept him and his career. But I’ve also learned over the years that I can: make him take breaks, give me a day (or evening) free from art, schedule better to allow us time off (like this past weekend), work differently so that he doesn’t end up in the studio until 4am 7 nights in a row. I can exert my influence over him as his wife to help him make LIFE and not just art a priority.

And when things get really bad, and he really can’t break away from the art, I do what wives have done throughout history when their husbands aren’t paying enough attention to them–I break out the lingerie.

So, I may have mentioned before, but hubby and I share a car. Yes, here in Southern California. Yes, with our commutes. No, we’re not crazy.

I’d like to say it’s because we were thinking about the impact of two cars on the environment, but the reality is, we’re cheap. When we moved to San Diego from New York, we didn’t have a car, so it was an almost immediate purchase upon landing in the sunny state. Proof: we drove the Uhaul right to the car lot (you just know the sales guys were seeing dollar signs), though we were smart enough to not buy on that first trip.

Anyway, we didn’t have enough money set aside to buy two cars, and given that neither of us had jobs, it just really didn’t seem necessary. I always assumed we would eventually get another car, when we both had work and could justify the cost. And then, when I got a full-time job a few months later, N.C. was working freelance jobs, and it still didn’t seem necessary. When he started working long-term contract work, we thought briefly about it, but his office was on the way to mine, so we just made it work. We just couldn’t see spending the additional money, when our income ebbs and flows depending on his freelance work.

When gas started going up, and up, and up, we decided to shelve the idea indefinitely. Honestly, between the car payments, the insurance, the maintenance, and gas, we just couldn’t afford another vehicle. And since we go everywhere together anyway, it’s not a problem most of the time.

Oh, sure, on days when we have doctor’s or dentist’s appointments it can be a pain, since we sometimes both have to take the time off. Or when we’ve got art stuff that requires the car and it means I can’t go run errands instead. Or if he picks up a new contract gig and we have to rework the schedule to make it doable. Or there are times when N.C. has to go up to LA for business which usually means dropping me off at work, him driving up, and then he drives back in time to pick me up from work. Makes for long days.

But being a one-car family hasn’t been that bad to date. We’ve definitely saved some money, we always get to use the carpool lanes, we are reducing the environmental impact a little, and even better–I don’t have to drive all the time!

Sharing the car all the time can be interesting though. On mornings where we’re both tired or grouchy, the car can be a little…quiet. Sometimes, one or the other of us will just ramble on and on and on, while the other one would prefer to just sit and stare out the window. We both do things while we’re driving that annoy the hell out of the other person–we have to be very aware to not always backseat drive all the time.

It can be a lot of fun at the same time. It gives us plenty of time to talk about our days & allows us to rehash the crappy stuff before we get home, which is kind of nice. Sharing a car also means we both get to see the crazy stuff at the same time, like the truck we saw with a 4 foot pirate flag on the back, or the crazy runner guy we see everyday on the way home, neither of which could be fully explained without seeing.

All the people at our respective jobs think its weird, and it can be, but mostly it’s…nice. I like the time we have together in the car, with no other distractions–no tv, no internet, no art, no blogging, no business, no cleaning, no nothing but time with each other. Everyday I have an hour and 1/2 of time just with my husband and I, and just for talking. Whether we’re talking about our days, about our weekend plans, about our families, about zombie overlords, whatever, it’s time for just the two of us.

Which is a pretty nice perk to sharing one car.