Before we go any further, let me just say this: I love my husband. He is charming and handsome and my absolute favorite person to spend time with. He is supportive in a way that is unflagging, he has an image of me that is better than what I know myself to be and holds larger dreams for me than I have for myself. To see that reflected back at me on a daily basis is a rare gift. When he laughs, no matter how tense or bad or harrowing the moment is, I instantly feel safe and fall in love with him all over again.
That being said, some mornings he just pisses me off.
“But, Lanie,” I hear you saying, “How can that be? He was sleeping until five minutes before you left for work.”
What was that? He was sleeping, you say? Interesting. I like sleeping. In fact, if there’s anything in whole world I love as much as my family, it’s a solid ten hours of shut eye. (I know, I know, as if that’s ever going to happen.) I would enjoy nothing more, in fact, than to sleep in until some lovely person brought me my frickin’ frackin’ coffee every dang day. I would be so happy and grateful that I might even be convinced to make that person a pie. An apple pie and not lemon meringue that, though I love it, someone has told me is a waste of a perfectly good pie crust. I would make an apple pie, but I’m too tired to peel apples. Harumph.
Apparently, though both of us have our mornings free, it is MY job to get five kids up…okay, that’s a lie. Four kids are already up by the crack of dawn, but the one to contend with, the TEENAGE girl who really, really needs to get up immediately, because, gosh darn it, I am so not taking you to school, missy– that one is still resistantly, defiantly asleep. I can’t even be mad at her. I would be too, given my druthers.
This draws to mind an old Roseanne episode where Dan and Roseanne write new wedding vows after many, many years of marriage. They were things like; “If you try to put your dirty underwear in the hamper, I’ll try to not cut my toenails in the living room.” Stuff like that. And though you laugh at it when you are younger, that is really important stuff. It shows that you have respect for your partner’s feelings and care enough about them to try to remove at least a little stress from their lives. Even if that means you have to go alllll the way to the bathroom to cut your toenails. It’s where the rubber meets the road. Personally, I love getting flowers on our anniversary, but I appreciate it a whole lot more when my husband cleans the gunk off our stove. He didn’t put it there, but he knows how much I hate to scrub it off. See? Love in action.
So to my darling, well-rested husband I propose these vows;
I will occasionally put onions in the stir fry if you stop complaining every time you see a red pepper in the salad.
I will enforce your edict on the kids’ mandatory piano practice if you remember to clean the downstairs bathroom every once and again, INCLUDING the shower.
I will stop trying to get you to watch animated movies if you stop cluttering up our Netflix que with garbage you don’t even remember ordering.
And if you let me sleep in one weekday every week, I will make you a pie at least once a month.
And not lemon meringue, either.
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