The hubby

Today Nathan and I celebrate eleven years of marriage. I could bemoan the fact that he has left me behind for the day to golf with his dad and his dad’s drinking buddies, but since tomorrow is Father’s Day I’ll celebrate the man and some of the reasons I love him.

1. He used to guard nuclear missiles at an Air Force base in Montana and looked hot in the one picture I’ve seen of him in his dress blues.

2. The world “tomorrow” is not in his vocabulary. Seriously. He will not use the word. If it’s Thursday and we’re talking about what we’re doing the next day, he’ll refer to our plans on “Friday.” I’ll reply with, “You mean tomorrow?” because the world “tommorow’ exists for a reason and how am I supposed to know if his mind is 24 hours into the future or a week? He really gets tired of me pressing that point. I’d drop it if he’d just start talking like a normal person. How about we start working on that TOMORROW?

3. He has denied me almost nothing whereas I’ve denied him lots. Mostly sex.

4. He is not able to take as much of Autumn’s crap as I am. This really surprised me because I was almost sure I was going to be the more impatient parent. All I have to say to him is this; Dude, just wait until she’s a teenager.

5. When I tickle him, he has this really high-pitched goofy laugh that sounds just like those campy ghosts from the old “Scooby Doo” cartoons.

6. He can’t talk on the phone without pacing the room. I’ve never seen him just sit still and talk. If he’s on the phone, he’s on the move. I understand this is a quirk that drove his office mates crazy when he worked in tech support taking calls all day.

7. He’s a chatterbox and always has been. One of my favorite stories about him was one his parents told me about an incident from one of their family vacations. Nathan was being his usual loquacious self and driving everyone bonkers. After his numerous requests for Nathan to shut up were ignored, my father-in-law pulled over, yanked his eldest son out of the car and shoved him into the trunk. I’m not sure how long Nathan was back there, but it was long enough for him to eat an entire package of cookies.

8. He has a crush on Genevieve from Choo-Choo Soul.

9. He has to have chocolate following a sushi dinner. We only go out for a sushi twice a year now, but every time we have to stop at the market across the street from the restaurant and get some Ghiradelli squares afterwards.

10. He hates Neil Diamond, raisins, and won’t eat most egg rolls because he thinks they taste like soap. We’ve decided it’s probably the ginger that gives the egg rolls their “soapy” taste.

11. He’s the most patient man I’ve ever met. He’s my soul mate and I would be remiss if I didn’t include this fact in my list.

Happy anniversary, hon. I love you.

Nathan turns 38 today.  I found this picture years ago while going through some old photos at his parents’ house and immediately asked his mom if I could have it.  Nathan hates the picture but I think it’s adorable.  I showed it to my dad recently and he laughed, saying Nathan looks like Harry Potter here.  I never saw the resemblance before, but yeah, he really looks like he could be Harry Potter.

I know this isn’t going to be the greatest birthday for him.  Aside from working and having to come home to take care of my useless ass, this will be the first birthday he won’t be receiving a call from his mother.  I think that’s going to be a little hard for him.

Last night we were sitting at a booth at the Chinese buffet. Our attractive waitress would coo and smile at Autumn every time she stopped by our table to take our plates or fill our drinks. After about her third visit or so, I looked at Nathan and said, “You’d totally score if you were a single dad, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh yeah,” he said.

This morning Autumn woke at 4:30 am crying. I went in to check on her and found her with one leg sticking through the slats of her crib. I picked her up, soothed her and decided to nurse her as long as we were both up.

While we were in the rocking chair, Molly entered the room, sat in front of us and stared. I sighed. “Do you have to go potty?” I asked.

She shook as though a jolt of electricity had just passed through her, which is her way of saying, “Yes, Mom, I have to pee.”

I sighed again. “Go tell Daddy.”

Molly left the room only to return a couple of minutes later in the same state she was before.

“Go tell Daddy,” I said, this time a little louder so that Nathan might hear me through the nursery monitor and get his sorry ass out of bed to let his dog out.

Again she left and again she returned. By that time Autumn was done eating and I had her on the changing table. I was through playing this game. Why should Nathan be the only one in house getting some sleep?

“Nathan! Molly needs to go out!”

Let me explain that Nathan’s way of taking care of Molly is to invite her into bed with him so that she gets comfortable and forgets how much she has to pee. Of course I was wise to this and told Nathan I was coming right back to bed and that Molly was going to have to move out of my spot.

“I’ll let her out when you get back in bed,” he said.

So what happens when I return to bed? I kick Molly out of my spot and Nathan invites her back into the bed on his side.

Ok. I was getting a little steamed. “Aren’t you going to let her out?” I asked.

“She doesn’t need to pee,” he said. “She just wants to go out and play.”

I sat up, looked at the dog and asked, “Molly do you have to pee pee?” As soon as the words were out, she hopped back onto the floor. “See, she does have to go,” I said.

Nathan threw back the covers, and as he stormed out of the bedroom said, “You could let her out once in awhile, too, you know.”

Oh no he didn’t

“Excuse me?” I said. “Who gets up with your daughter and feeds her and gets her dressed EVERY SINGLE MORNING?” Not to mention I had just spent the last half hour nursing the girl with Molly doing the pee pee dance four feet in front of me. You know it’s pretty bad when the dog thinks the woman with the child attached to her chest is more reliable than the lump under the covers in the next room.

Nathan didn’t say a word to me when he returned. I tried to get back to sleep, but my mind couldn’t rest. I had decided to nurse Autumn knowing full well that I would be the one getting up with her at all times. I accepted that and Nathan, I thought, appreciated that as well. We’d be alternating feedings if she were getting formula and Nathan would be spending many early mornings sitting in that rocking chair instead of me. However, since I was nursing, his job was to take care of Molly in the morning. That had been our arrangement.

Later, at 5:45 am, Nathan’s alarm went off. “That thing better not keep going off for the next 45 minutes,” I said. Yeah, I was still pissed.

Nathan tried to apologize when he finally got up at quarter to seven, but by that time I was full into the silent treatment. He hates that. If it were me, I’d prefer the silent treatment to me yelling because I can get loud, but not Nathan. He must think he can better gauge his chances of survival by the tone and volume of my voice.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I said that,” he said. “I was tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.” I should probably add that Nathan has been sleeping with the aid of a CPAP machine in an effort to curb his snoring and sleep apnea. He has to wear a mask that makes him look like Darth Vader and it’s been hard for him to get used to.

I broke the silence by saying, “I think what you said calls for an apology with flowers.”

“Am I that far in the dog house?” he asked.

After that we sort of made up. I told him to forget the flowers because if I have to tell him to get me flowers then the sentiment is lost.

Of course the good thing about all of this is that I have one beauty of an entry for today. He really should know better than piss of a woman who likes to write.

Nathan has been doing most of the cooking since I’ve been pregnant, but last night was a tag team effort. He made soup and I made sandwiches. Grilled cheese sandwiches to be exact.

I grilled a sandwich for Nathan first and put it on a plate behind me. I let him know his sandwich was done and started to make my own. Not two minutes later I turned back around and noticed an empty plate with crumbs where his sandwich had been sitting.

“Where’s your sandwich?” I asked.

“On the couch,” he said.

I craned my neck. Sure enough, there was the freshly grilled sandwich sitting on the couch. No napkin. No plate. Just the sandwich. On the couch.

I yelled at him as only a wife can yell at her husband. “What the hell is wrong with you? I put that on a plate for a reason!”

He sheepishly took his plate over to the couch and placed the sandwich on it without a word.

And I once again thanked God that I’m going to have a girl.

It’s easy for me to make light of the silly things Nathan does because he makes up for them in spades. For every grilled cheese sandwich incident, he redeems himself by doing things like:

Making dinner.

Taping the last 20 minutes of “Law and Order” for me when he sees I’m starting to fall asleep.

Putting the laundry in the dryer after I fall asleep so that I have dry pants to wear to work the next day.

Not getting on my case about neglecting the dirty dishes after I promised two days in a row that I’d do them and he knows I wouldn’t be as nice to him if he didn’t do them.

And these are just the things he did for me last night. Just one night in however many nights we’ve been together. I always knew I’d be a pain in the ass if I got pregnant and I’ve pretty much lived up to my prediction. Nathan hasn’t complained much though. I tend to forget that he suffers even though he’s not the one carrying the child. After all, he’s had to put up with me.

I’m a very lucky woman.

I’ve heard it said more than once that the human race would die out if men were responsible for giving birth.

I was sharing with Nathan my hopes that this baby will come soon and on her own so that I won’t need to be induced. While he also hoped I wouldn’t have to be induced, he was skeptical that I could get through the entire labor without an epidural. This both offended and scared me because he’s supposed to be my main source of support throughout the whole thing.

“I’ve never seen you in pain before,” he said. “I just don’t know what to expect.”

Men and women handle pain very differently. Nathan and I are no exception. I tend to withdraw into myself and prefer solitude when I’m sick while he requires frequent attention and sympathy. Unfortunately for my husband, I’m more like a drill sergeant than a nurse when it comes to making him more comfortable when he’s needy.

I explained that if I do have an epidural it will be my choice to ease my pain, not his, and that I don’t want him by my side urging me to call the anesthesiologist if things get too intense for him. “You’re just going to have to trust me,” I said.

I also reminded him that never having seen me in pain should be a good indicator of how well I’m able to cope. “Remember when I whacked my finger on the ceiling fan when I was working on the baby’s room this summer? That hurt like hell but I sucked it up and moved on.”

I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t buy a word of it. I can’t blame him really. What we’re about to face is a whole lot different than nearly breaking a digit while cleaning. I’ve stubbed my toe and accidentally sliced my flesh while prepping food, but he has never seen me in the kind of pain that’s painful to watch. He’ll feel helpless, but I assured him that I will ask for that epidural if I feel I can’t take it anymore.

I guess we’re getting nervous. We’re nervous about the delivery, about becoming parents and about being able to afford this child. Yesterday Nathan told me he had a dream that my brother was our nanny and living with us. “You know,” he said, “it would save us some money if Sean could take care of the baby while we’re at work.”

My brother is unemployed and living off my grandmother’s good will in my great-grandma’s old house. Nathan figured we could have him move in with us, thus taking him off my grandma’s hands and saving money on day care. While I found the idea amusing, I couldn’t help but point out the obvious. “Sean knows nothing about taking care of children,” I said.

“Neither do we,” said Nathan. “But we’re going to have to learn.”

While I love my brother, I don’t like the idea of him taking care of my child. Right now he divides his time between television and Playstation with occasional trips to my grandma’s house and the blood bank to sell his plasma. “The idea here is to minimize the trauma we inflict upon our child, not add to it,” I said.

We actually ended up visiting Sean at home yesterday. We hadn’t seen him in a few months and were curious to see how he was doing. He and Nathan mostly talked about football while I enjoyed the vibrating recliner in his living room. Nothing was said about being a nanny. Even if we had made him an offer, he wouldn’t have considered it. Living under the same roof again would totally ruin our relationship.

As we stood outside and said our goodbyes, Nathan noticed a rather large, wet box resting against the house next to Sean’s side door. When asked about it, Sean said it was something our uncle, who lived in the house before him, had ordered but never picked up. “If he could care less about it, so could I,” he said.

Once we were back in the car Nathan marveled that Sean wasn’t even curious about what was inside the box and was willing to just let it sit outside and rot like that.

“And this is the person you’d like to watch our daughter?” I asked.

“Um, no,” he said.

So Nathan and I have an appointment to meet with a pediatrician tonight. Since the appointment is at 5:30 pm, we have to meet at the office since we both don’t get out of work until 5:00. In spite of my best efforts to give him directions to the office, Nathan just wasn’t able to visualize where he had to go. And he always likes to know exactly where he has to go.

“Ok, let’s say we just left the Chinese buffet by Family Fare and we’re at the light on the corner heading home,” I say. “Instead of going straight towards home, we turn left onto Port Sheldon.”

“Towards Wendy’s,” he says.

“No, Wendy’s is to the right. You want to turn left.”

“Towards Grand Valley,” he says.

“No,”I sigh. “Let’s try this again. You’re on Port Sheldon and 28th ave heading North. You need to turn left at the light.”

“Heading towards Wendy’s, ” he says again.

“Nooooo!” I wail. “Wendy’s is to the right. You need to go the other way, the opposite way of Wendy’s and Family Fare.”

He’s overthinking this or not thinking about it enough so I try another approach. “Do you remember where we used to take the cats to the vet?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Ok. You go that way, past the vet’s office about a mile west of the light.”

“Is it by where Uncle Dale used to live next to the Mobil station?” he asks.

“No, not that far. There’s a sign out front. You can’t miss it. It’s on the left side of the street”

Finally I think he gets it and we part ways for the day. On my way to work I decide to dial him up on his cell.

“Is it past the four-way stop?” he asks.

“No, not that far. It’s only about a mile past the light on Port Sheldon and 28th.”

“And there’s a sign?”

“Yes, there’s a sign.”

He’s so funny. I just love him.