Cynical Mom: Open mouth, insert sap.

I am generally not a huge fan of holidays other than birthdays and major events like hannukah and christmas... partly from the hallmark-created aspect of many of them, partly from the "What are the rest of the days of the year for?" aspect, partly from just pure laziness (I really hate cursory "I'm expected to call on this day" phone calls, plus I'm just no good on the phone). I didn't make a big deal out of Mother's Day (actually we were in Hawaii, childless, but it was just a coincidence that that happened over mother's day) either. So today was Father's Day. I didn't do anything particularly special for David, because I knew the holiday wasn't that meaningful to him either.

Tonight I was reflecting on this holiday and I realized what a gem I captured. We started dating about 9 years ago. I brought him home for thanksgiving in 1996, and I smile now thinking about what my mom must have been thinking when this guy walked in the door with me. He had short hair, was wearing khakis and a collared shirt, ate dinner with us including the vegetables (which I certainly didn't do that at the time) and thanked my mom for the great cooking. Compared to the last serious relationship I'd had ("That's a nice haircut dear, what is that, a Daniel Boone?"), my mom was probably in heaven. He also flew me to Seattle to meet his parents a couple of months after we started dating; he wasn't scared of commitment or talking about the future and three years later we were married.

So first off, he cooks. Pretty much every night. Now admittedly, this is partly because I used to cook more often and well, I'm not a very good cook and he actually is, and so he took over more of that role. But still. The man cooks. How many women can say that about their husbands? One night last week I actually made dinner for us (garlic chicken, mmmm) and I was so proud of myself that I brought it up in conversation at work the next day, like "look at me! I made dinner!", all proud of myself. The guys at work thought I was insane because of course all of their wives cook dinner for them every night.

Secondly, he does his own laundry. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have thought this was that amazing, until a lunch discussion with some male coworkers where I found out that this is not universally the case, that many wives do their husbands' laundry. This blew me away.

Third, he cleans. He's actually much more clean than me (I belong to the "life's short, who wants to spend it cleaning?" school of thought). A couple of days ago I saw him dusting. DUSTING! He also vacuums. I hate vacuuming. My version of cleaning is decluttering, putting things in categorized piles. This man actually sees and removes dirt.

Fourth, he can fix anything. Whether it's fragile software that needs hacking around or wires that need soldering or a watch that needs an adjustment or a sprinkler pipe that needs to be rerouted, he knows exactly what to do (OK OK I'm onto him here, sometimes he just reads up on it in advance, but he does know how to research), what is needed in order to do it, and then he does it. Meanwhile I buy our son a Sit & Spin and get to Step #1 in the instructions that tells you to insert the pole into the base. I spend 2 minutes huffing and puffing and trying to fit the pole into the base, double and triplechecking the directions to make sure I'm doing it right, before I give up and wait for David to get home. David gets home, spends 10 seconds doing the same huff & puff before realizing that something's wrong, reads the instructions more closely and realizes that I was trying to jam the wide end of the pole into the top instead of the actual base, i.e. the part you sit on.

Fifth, he usually takes Jared in the morning and lets me sleep in. Nearly every day of the week. On the weekends he'll take Jared down and make him waffles or pancakes and sometimes I even wake up to breakfast in bed for no special reason at all. On the weekdays I get that precious extra 30-45 minutes while he plays with Jared downstairs. To someone who is a parent and not a morning person (i.e. me), this is one of the greatest gifts you can receive. He is actually a morning person (I just don't get how someone grows up to become a morning person, when exactly do you stop sleeping in until 11AM? Outside of having kids and a job of course), but I still give him full credit for this one.

Sixth, he helps me improve myself. I mentioned vegetables before... over the course of our 9 years together I have actually added (a few) vegetables to my diet. OK, OK... I'm no vegetarian and am not that big a fan of meat either (I probably qualify as a "cheese-and-pastatarian"), I admit, but I will no longer gag at the smell of green beans, have been known to get second helpings of broccoli and will even order certain kinds of fish in a restaurant. He hasn't managed to shake me of my "cereal and mac & cheese is a perfectly appropriate dinner" attitude yet but I suspect some day he might.

Seventh, he not only always puts the toilet seat down, but usually the lid. Where did this guy come from???

I love you, David.

</sappy blog post>

Comments

I got my wife a necklace for Mother's Day. For Father's Day, we went out for hot dogs, then played some miniature golf and a couple rounds in the batting cages.

It was awesome.

Posted by: dbt | June 20, 2005 at 02:27 PM