I posted to Facebook about my kids being off school and how I was looking forward to it. On the first day of Summer, Laina was all…
Well that was nice.
When does school start back up again?
At first I was going to write a post about the 10 things my husband does better than me and then I was going to show it to him and be all “Happy Father’s Day honey, see how much I love you?”
But after staring at a blank screen for 30 minutes and then checking my email and Facecbook and Twitter and Pinterest and then instagramming myself on my computer and then staring at a blank screen for 30 minutes AGAIN, I realized…there really aren’t 10 things he does better than me.
I made the mistake of asking him for help which really just lead to bit of arguing.
me: Can you think of anything you’re better than me at?
Pat: Oh YEAH!
me: Name one thing.
pat: Finances, directions, math, doing homework with the kids, yard work, keeping calm, taking care of the dog, doing the dishes, cleaning…
me: Okay now you’re just getting offensive and by the way I said name ONE thing.
pat: Those just came off the top of my head.
me: There’s no way you’re better at cleaning than I am…I mean give me a break.
pat: Well what do you think I’m better than you at?
me: Lying.
pat: What?
me: Like that time you told me you were in a band called Kalapana with your friends in Hawaii and you sang Beach Boy songs acapella and toured the islands.
pat: Oh yeah…that was a good one. I’m also better at volleyball than you.
me: What a joke.
pat: Oh come ON Kat! You know it’s true…playing AND coaching.
me: pashaw…I don’t recall seeing YOU win any awards for being one of the best middle blockers in your ALL STAR LEAGUE.
pat: *cough* community college *cough*
me: You’re such a jerk…and by the way! I HEARD my little sister ask you who was better at volleyball…me or my older sister and for the record? Don’t you EVER hesitate with that answer again. You were really trying to think about it and give a fair answer and let me just be clear about what your answer to that question needs to be from here on out, “My WIFE.” Someone asks you who was better at ANYTHING, your answer is always “My WIFE.” Period. Do you understand?
pat: Well…do YOU think you were better than your sister at volleyball?
me: IT DOESN’T MATTER! My sister was voted prettiest in the entire high school, I’ve spent my life comparing myself to her beauty and unmatched kindness. LET ME HAVE THIS ONE.
So my brainstorm sesh didn’t go quite as planned. It doesn’t matter though. We both know the truth. I’d be lost without that man. I’m just glad he has such a great sense of humor, I’m not sure there are many men who would put up with my interrogating the way he does.
Reasons I Love My Husband:
Reasons I Love My Husband:
1.)He brings me warm bottles to give to the baby in the middle of the night when I am cussing him out in my head.
2.)He ignores my juvenile behavior and patiently waits for me to get over myself and discuss our finances like an adult.
3.)He sits back until I give him the “look” and then he swoops in and rescues me from a sure death of toddler suffocation.
4.)He sat at the door of the operating room, after I was rushed in following an emergency c-section, waiting for word of my condition…for six hours.
5.)He drives 45 minutes out of his way to go get me sushi on Friday night because I’m hungry and moody and tired and he wants me to be happy.
6.)He says things like, “Kat. Who are the most important people in your life? We are all here. We all love you. We’re not going anywhere. Just remember that.” and makes me feel better when things start getting to me.
7.)He takes time away from HIS job and comes home on a moments notice to help ME with MY job.
8.) When I’ve had a tough day with the kids he lets me talk it out until I run out of gas and then suggests we send them to a different daycare.
9.) He wears my pink polk-a-dotted apron without so much as a blink when I want to take a picture of him for The Blog.
10.)He will never leave me for Kathy Lee Gifford because he thinks she’s outdated and fears for his life.
11.) He supports my shopping habit and watches the children as I single handedly delay our family’s future for a few cute tops…ok a lot of cute tops…and some shoes…maybe a clutch.
12.) He’s one of those smarty pants people who is not on the up and up with hidden messages and does not care about superficial stuff…including the condition of my hair, windblown or not.
13.)He doesn’t take sides when I tell him to whack our son for an entire day of horrid behavior but instead delicately puts his hand on our baby boy’s head and turns to me to say, “My God Kat, he’s burning up!!” and then asks me to fetch the motrin.
15.) He buys me stuff to keep me from breaking his stuff.
16.) He writes me poems telling me he doesn’t want any more babies, but at least he’s being nice about it.
18.) He puts thought into buying me the most ridiculous Christmas present I could never ask for.
19.) He doesn’t bring home yellow apples.
20.) He let’s me rip on him about his man colds and even though I’ve got one of my own.
21.) I’m not sure there are many men who would put up with my interrogating the way he does.
Luckily Laina and her class pet Leo the Lion were here to keep me from sleeping too long! What would I do without them?
Most photographers would fall on themselves to be hanging out with @BethJansen and @seattlenewborn. Just another day for me. #NoBiggie #NameDropper
Just having a glass of wine with my best friends. #nobiggie totallynormal
My husband says he wishes I was as excited to see him as our dog is. Haha!
Just the happy face I want to see before I go to bed.
I hope they always stay this adorable.
On a field trip with my boys preschool. #thatslove
The girls got ice cream certificates at school today. We all win.
An evening walk…that should burn off a cookie or two.
Creepy Halloween cookies with kids.
I’m on Denver…my mouth doesn’t open wider than that. #ImLying
Me ignoring my #bbcden conference duties.
I take notes at blog conferences.
Crazy how accurate this wedding photo is. #unfortunately
My step-dad Bob married my Mom and was all, “I’d really love it if you kids called me Dad”. And poor Bob didn’t know that the last thing you want to do when you become the patriarch of a household filled with 3 prepubescent pre teens and three full fledged teens is request that they call you Dad.
Especially when they’re Dad died and they’re already a little unsure about your coming into the family and forcing them to clean up after themselves.
Bob’s point of view was purely coming from a place of respect. Simply put, Dad is what you call the man who is married to your Mother and helps to care for the family in every sense of the word.
We pushed back. We would not call him Dad and his asking us to do so is one of the things that put a major hurdle in building a relationship with him in the beginning.
Bob negotiated, what if we called him Father? or Papa? Or…any kind of nickname that could set him apart from being just any other average man in our lives.
Bob wanted us to adopt him and we refused.
We could not say the word. It was a matter of loyalty to us and the title of father was all we had left to hold onto. We loved Bob, but we would not give it to him.
We giggled about his request behind his back, “Did Bob tell you he wants us to call him PAPA?” and then we would sing Barbara Streisand’s “Papa can you hear me?????” to one another and break into a fit of giggles.
I kind of hate that giggling teenager.
2.) Share a lesson you learned from your Father that still sticks with you to this day.
One thing I really credit my Dad for is the impact he was able to have on my life in just seven years. I clung to the lessons he taught me after he died because they were all I had.
From 7th until maybe 10th grade I was in a bit of a dark place. My Mom was keeping a close eye on me, my grades were dropping, I was unhappy, and she was afraid I was going to get mixed up with the wrong crowd and start doing drugs.
One time, much later, she asked why I had always stayed clean and away from drugs even though I was in that dark place and I was all, “because Dad hated them…he told me to say no to drugs.” And since I had so little from him I was not about to disappoint him in one of his only requests of me ever in LIFE.
Upon hearing this my Mom threw her hands in the air, looked up to the sky and yelled, “THAAANK YOUUUUU!”
So I learned not to do drugs.
I learned to be nice to everyone…even though they might look different.
I learned to run the other way if a car is following me.
I learned that making people laugh is the best way.
I learned that there are bugs crawling through holes in your head and that’s what makes you itch.
And I learned how to say I’m sorry when I’m sorry is due:
I sure hope my kids walk away with some of the same valuable lessons from their parents as I did from mine!
The Prompts:
1.) Father’s Day is coming! Share something you’ve learned from your husband about parenting. What makes him good at what he does?
2.) Share a lesson you learned from your Father that still sticks with you to this day.
3.) Write a poem about the summertime blues.
4.) List the top 7 things you need for the perfect barbecue.
5.) Share something mean someone said to you once, why has it stuck with you after all these years?
I’ve been worried sick about myself and my lack of joint movement for the past four days.
Have you ever jammed a finger on the basketball court? Your finger swells up like four times it’s normal size, maybe bruise up and down the length of it, and you can’t bend it for weeks?
That’s how ALL my joints felt…and I have a lot of joints so it really wasn’t a happy place to be. Every time I moved I was all “Ohhhh sweet Jesus….” Up and down from the couch, reaching for water, walking to the kitchen for donuts and coffee, “Ohhhhh sweet Jesus…”
The frustrating part about it was not KNOWING what was wrong…and then I remembered!! Just like that, my brain was all DUH! you DID do something to hurt yourself!!
On Friday morning I was brushing my hair and I flipped it to one side to adequately brush and my neck snapped. I guess I’m kind of a violent hair whipper, because I totally heard it snap and I had to carefully moved my head back into place to kind of…realign it, and I actually thought to myself, “Hmmm…I wonder if that will hurt later…”
But the rest of the day was fine. So fine, in fact, that I completely FORGOT about my hair whipping incident when later that night before my flight home, my neck began cramping up.
I texted my husband from the airport, “The day went well, but my neck is killing me. Not sure what I did to it, but…ow”.
I then followed up an hour later with, “I seriously feel like I’ve got whiplash.”
That’s because I DID have whiplash!
I’m convinced that because I whipped my hair back and forth so violently when I brushed it, that not only did it hurt my neck, but it hurt the nerves in my spine that carry my head and attach all my joints together. Surely such a joint nerve exists in your neck, no?
Since the violent hair whippage hurt my joint nerves I proceeded to hobble around like a 90 year old woman with joint pain for three (going on four) full days!
I write this only to be a lesson to all of you.
Be careful with your hair whipping.
It’s not safe.
I tease my husband a lot about what a giant baby he is when he gets sick. Mostly I’m just jealous that he gets to take days off when he’s feeling under the weather, whereas I work unless I’m throwing up. That’s really the only exception.
I’ve had days where I’ve been laying on the couch with a fever and as parents drop their kids off they say, “Okay baby, stay away from Ms. Kathy today, she’s not feeling good mkay?”
This weekend I’ve been hobbling around like an old lady. I have no idea what happened. One day I went to bed fine, the next day I couldn’t move my neck or any of my joints. Ankles, knees, elbows, wrists, shoulders, fingers…you name it. EVERYTHING is in pain.
Other than a moderately stressful couple days I spent filming for a fun cooking series with She Knows in Arizona last week (stressful only because I’ve never in my life done something like that) I can’t think of anything that would cause my body to feel 90.
I’ve re-run the past week over in my head. Have I been in a car accident? Did I fall from a tall building? Did someone push me down a flight of stairs? What in the world might have happened to completely cripple all of my joints? Am I 90 years old?
Naturally I ran a quick Google search because that’s always a smart thing to do and discovered I could have absolutely nothing wrong with me other than joint inflammation OR I could have any variety of arthritis, Lupus, Lyme Disease, MS, Bone Cancer, Toxic Shock Syndrome etc. Nothing I read said “your body is lacking in banana…eat one and you’ll be fine”, which is pretty much what I was looking for.
Either way I’m sure this means I’m going to die, and just like my husband when he’s taken ill, you can find me slowly shuffling through the house, moaning just audibly enough for him to hear and recognize I’m still in pain, and sighing every time I sit down or stand up so that everyone in the house knows that DEAR JESUS I CAN’T MOVE MY BODY ANYMORE.
Everyday.
I’m shufflin’.
Accepting donations of flowers, chocolate, alcohol, money and jewelry today.
And forever.