Shiny

I tease my hubby pretty often...well ok, all the time, but the fact is that I truly have the best husband that has ever existed. He doesn't do laundry, cook and suffers from what my mother calls "18 inch disease" but he is a hard working guy who is completely devoted to the happiness of our little family. 

When we first met, I was going through a hellaciously contentious divorce and swore that I would never get married again. I even went so far as to tell him that if he ever asked me to marry him I would break up with him in a heartbeat! I was so scared of relationships that I wouldn't even call him my boyfriend.

He was, "The guy I was seeing." 

Early on, the guy I was seeing and I had a blast together. Being together was fun and everything was a fantastic adventure. In those days I traveled a great deal for work. If his schedule allowed he came along to help or meet me at the end of the event and we would take a long weekend to sightsee. 

Even though we were acknowledged as a couple, he eventually became my official boyfriend and we professed our love for one another. We talked often about how much fun we had together. Having endured a nasty divorce I told him that we'd see how we felt once the "shiny" wore off. 

You know the shiny right? 

The excited feeling you get when your special someone arrives at your door or butterflies in your stomach. 

The “new car smell,” if you will. 

As time went on my "I'll never get married again" resolve began to erode. I loved this man. He was kind, gentle, sweet, funny and one of the most loving and accepting people I have ever met in my life. Why would I not want to marry him? 

One weekend in October, while staying in NC, I showed him the website for a Bed & Breakfast in MD that I had won a gift certificate to. I specifically showed him the Weddings and Elopements page. With tears in his eyes he asked me if that meant he could propose to me and just as teary-eyed I told him yes. 

The next day we drove from NC all the way to Baltimore to get our marriage license...and received a parking ticket. 

In January we will have been married a whole three years. 

In the possible span of a marriage, three years is the equivalent of a drop in a bucket. But, in those three years we have moved my hubby to VA, seen his mom through two very serious shoulder surgeries, buried my father and his uncle, sold my townhouse in VA and moved in with my mom in MD, bought a house and moved to PA and given birth to (the most adorable) twin boys. Yeah, I’m tired just reading it too!

We live a sort of controlled chaos. Our days are still filled with fantastic adventures they are just different now. Traveling consists of trips to Walmart, the doctor’s office and visits with family.

Jet setters we are not.

My days are no longer spent on the road or in an office. Most days I am home. I work from home and I work on our home. There is never a shortage of laundry, and I understand that only gets worse as (the most adorable) twin boys get older. Something always needs to be cleaned, vacuumed or scrubbed and most of that falls to me. No big deal, I clean better anyway. He does the yardwork, takes out the trash and builds things. He also helps out with bottle washing and dishwasher emptying. But the 18-inch disease is bad.

In fact, as (the most adorable) twins get older, I expect the 18-inch disease to triple. What is 18-inch disease you ask? The condition that prevents on from moving a dirty dish the 18 inches from the sink to the dishwasher. Hubby’s affliction is bad. He has been known to put his dirty dishes in the sink even if the dishwasher is open. We might consider possible professional intervention.

Having kids has changed well…everything. Sleeping in, if we’re lucky, is 7:30; we no longer have our Sunday morning coffee-in-bed ritual; a trip to the store feels like work; dinnertime is a moving target and laundry is no longer a “one day and done” chore.

Don’t get me wrong I am not complaining. Just acknowledging the changes.

The romance that was so effortless now requires planning. It’s really tough to be romantic when you’re busy wiping up puke and changing poopie diapers. There are no candle-lit interludes unless the power goes out. Candles are dangerous.  

Seriously, it’s amazing what I now consider dangerous that I never even noticed before! That’s a post for another day.

Even with all this work, puke and extra laundry, life is still wonderful. Hubby will surprise me from time to time with a clean kitchen or scoop up the kids in the morning to let me sleep. He says he’s still trying to “impress his girl.”

It’s working.

We each work on helping the other. My shortcomings are his strengths. He is not perfect; he’s just perfect for me.

My tummy still gets butterflies when I hear the garage door alarm go off at the end of the day letting me know that he’s home. Five years after I started seeing this guy I am happy to report that the shiny still has not worn off.

The Blow-Out System

The list of things that gross me out is getting pretty long. I didn't used to be the type of person that one would consider squeamish (well unless you consider my arachnophobia but that's a fear not a gross-out factor) that was before I stepped in cold baby puke on my way to bed. Hubby asked why I didn't step in it while it was warm? Funny guy.

When the boys are in their highchairs snacking on Cheerios they tend to drop a considerable amount of them into the chair alongside their thighs and near their adorable little behinds. We usually reach down, scoop them up and put them back on their trays. This is an every day, sometimes multiple times a day, occurrence. So much so in fact that I no longer do the full-body flinch when coming in contact with wet, mushy Cheerios. Its just part of the experience.

Imagine my surprise the other night when I reached into the highchair to do the usual Cheerio harvest and came up with a handful of poop! Yup, baby poop! Not the brownish-yellow poop that one usually envisions when the words baby and poop are uttered in the same sentence; this was spinach week. The poo was exceptionally dark and well, leafy.

I screamed.

Hubby ran in from the other room to see what was going on only to discover me standing in the middle of the kitchen with my left hand covered in poop (oh and I was overdue to cut my nails - I'll let you draw that picture) telling him to get the paper towels to put down on the changing table.

We have come up with a "system" for dealing with blowouts, which for one of my boys seems to be a way of life. One of us grabs the paper towels and lays them out on the changing table. The other, carrying the baby, as my grandmother would say, "Like they were carrying a dead cat," brings the child in and puts him down on the towels and commences to change the diaper and clothing. While that is being done the first parent - usually the hubby - returns to the scene of the crime to deal with the clean up.

Minor blowouts are dealt with Clorox Clean-Ups. Major blowouts require the use of the garden hose which, I believe, we have resorted to at least five times now. If the hose is necessary, once the chunks are removed the highchair cover - which by the way is made of the most incredible material known to man - is taken to the washing machine where it is then washed on the "sanitize" cycle.

Once the diaper has been removed and all traces of poop have been scraped off the tushy, the diaper, wipes and paper towels go directly into the trashcan. This keeps us - and when I say us I mean me see Wash, Dry, Fold, Repeat - from having to wash the changing pad cover every time there is a blow-out.

My hubby thinks I take pity on him when I choose to change the diapers but really I am taking pity on the babies. Hubby is wonderful and jumps in to help out on nearly everything but I am a better diaper changer in these scenarios so it is less stressful for the kids and, as much as I am humored by the sound, it keeps him from gagging!

He has come close the throwing up about three times, which in the span of nine months is not that much but I have never gagged. I guess that's because when I know there is a poopie diaper I expect it to be um...poopie.

There is nothing about poop that is attractive to look at.

I can't even begin to tell you the number of times that I have heard, "Oh! My! God!" when he is changing a diaper. Initially the OMG! was followed by the very distinct sound of gagging. He’s gotten better with the gagging but is still surprised on a regular basis.

I just can't fathom the shock.

Seriously...You couldn't smell that?