The tree trimming at our house, it all looks so serene and full of the peace and grace of Jesus Christ, doesn’t it? You can almost imagine the God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen in the background and smell the hot chocolate sprinkled with marshmallows, bubbling in oversized mugs.

Here’s what tree trimming was really like in our house this year.

1. First of all there was definitely no hot chocolate because I was completely caught off guard by the need to trim the tree this year. Christmas? It comes every year? On the 25th you say? It only occurred to us sometime Friday morning, as we recovered from our turkey coma, that THAT very day was the ONLY non-working day we had free before December 25th.

2. …Which meant that I hadn’t even had a chance to remove all the Thanksgiving finery in my home. I piled the pumpkins and gourds and leaf garlands on my kitchen counters, creating an atmosphere of chaos! and clutter! This was a problem because I don’t do chaos! and clutter! well when inviting more chaos! and clutter! Christmas decorations into the house.

3. So we got started on the wrong foot! No hot chocolate! Chaos! and clutter!

4. I’m taking an online photo class from Willette called Finding the Joy and had received my assignment that morning to photograph our annual tree trimming festivities. Well finding the joy, INDEED, because my family gets highly irritated by my constant click, click, clicking with the camera. But I had an ASSIGNMENT! I was FINDING JOY for crying out loud.

5. So I may or may not have cried out loud out of frustration that our tree trimming was lacking joy.

6. I was doing the laundry in the midst of tree trimming. Frankly, folding a load of underwear does not get me in the Christmas spirit.

7. We allowed the kids to unbox and unwrap delicate ornaments, some of which are OLD (like 35 WHOLE years old). This was a mistake. This is tradition that won’t continue. Lesson learned.

8. We had to take a snack break during the “festivities.” Since I was unprepared, the kids had Super Mario fruit snacks, because nothing says Merry Christmas like gummies shaped like Luigi.

9. But really? It all ended up being perfect (in spite of myself and in spite of broken ornaments and clusters of ornaments on the tree. But mostly in spite of myself.)

10. We ended on a high note with a hearty chuckle about blue balls. Because nothing says Merry Christmas like, well, never mind.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Tate:  “Hey babe!  I was just thinking that since the kids are at school today, hows about you meet me for lunch today?  Just the two of us.” (Tate would never actually say “hows about,” but I added it for a little flair.)

Me:  “Really??!!  Just the two of us?  For lunch?  I can’t believe you asked me!!  YES!  YES, I’ll meet you for lunch today, I’d really love that!”

I know that if I want this to happen, then I’m going to need to ask Tate specifically if he would kindly invite me to have lunch with him.  It’s the fact that I need to directly ask this very specific request that just makes me kind of sigh heavily and roll my eyes.  It would be nice if he understood me a little better.

Me:  “I sure have been hungry for Mexican.  Too bad you usually eat Mexican food during the week and don’t feel like having it when we go out.”

To me, this sounds like, “Honey, please invite me out for Mexican food.  The kids are in school and we could have our very own date!  In the middle of the day!  How cool is that?!”

I’m not a psychologist or reader of men, but I suspect that when I mention my Mexican food craving to Tate he hears, “My wife is hungry for Mexican food.  I am going to take off my socks now.”

Last night, Tate told me he had tried the new Mexican place for lunch.  (This is where I sigh heavily and roll my eyes.)  Against my stubborn instincts, I said to Tate, “Maybe some time you could invite me to have lunch, you know, since the kids are in school.”  Why must I have to be so transparent???

The kids are in school tomorrow and we’ll see if Tate interpreted my sentence to mean, “Maybe I should call my wife and invite her to have lunch today.”

He’ll get bonus points if he invites me out to lunch AND it’s JUST THE TWO OF US.  Double bonus points if he takes me out for Mexican even though he had already had Mexican this week.

***

UPDATE.

He didn’t invite me to lunch.  Originally, at lunch time, I felt a little dejected.  I mean, why doesn’t he read my freaking blog and why didn’t any of his FRIENDS WHO READ MY BLOG, tell him.  (Hi Tate’s friends!!  I see you with my magic internetty powers.)

When Tate got home last night he told me that he had had an epiphany.

“Oh really, Tate,” I said.  “What was your epiphany.”

“Well, since the kids are in school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we should go out sometime for lunch.  Mexican?”

Epiphany, my butt.  I’ll take it, though.  And thank you to whomever let him in on my wish.  I think this is a true testament to the power of social media.

***************

One year ago today, Tate admitted that it was like “looking at a mom, or something.”  Three years ago, Tate and I had our very first online battle and I *gasp* lost.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

*******

“What is this REALLY about?”  I can’t say that I simply asked this, I screamed it.  Had a plate and not my MacBook been in my hand, I probably would have thrown it at his head.

*******

He told me what it was really about, but I know that’s not ALL of it.  There’s more bubbling under the facade of bread.  (Please see my credentials above.)  I’m not even certain exactly what it was about the four slices of bread for me, maybe it’s that I feel unappreciated.  Maybe I feel incredibly self-conscious about my role in the family, even though I know that his job and my job couldn’t be successful without the other.  Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bread.

*******

But DAMN.  Those four slices of bread pissed me RIGHT off.  And I’m not going to apologize.

*******

It doesn’t appear that Tate is going to apologize either.

Well.

*******

“I have to go to Chuck’s wake tonight.  You know?  The guy from work I told you about?  I’ll be late, will probably miss bed and bath time.”  Tate called me from the road, speaking politely, as if I were a customer service operator.

“Fine,” I said.  “That’s fine.”

*******

He called on his way home from the wake.  “We can’t fight like this anymore.  It’s so petty and ridiculous.  Chuck was a young man!  Only forty-five.  He was fine six weeks ago.”

Chuck started to feel sick.  They thought it was his gall bladder.  Six weeks later he died as a result of pancreatic cancer.  He is survived by his wife.

*******

I think that perhaps we should forget about those four slices of bread.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Three day weekends seem to magnify these MAJOR EVENTS minor fights.   Stupid three day weekends and their empty promises of relaxation and family harmony.  Hmph.  As if.

We own a blue, heat resistant spatula that we always use to cook eggs.  My wonderful husband almost always cleans the kitchen after these special weekend breakfasts, which is, yes, wonderful.  Except that it’s not wonderful when I’m emptying the dishwasher later and find that the blue spatula is still covered in egg.  This has happened every time he’s been in charge of “cleaning” since we got the spatula as a wedding gift in 2001.  I’ve tried explaining (Tate would say nagging.  Potato, pot-ah-to) that the blue spatula must be free of all egg debris prior to it’s insertion in the dishwasher otherwise my head explodes and I become unable to fulfill my wifely duties.

There has been no change in his behavior.  I’m starting to think my tactic isn’t working.

Tate is addicted to soft beverages.  Every morning I find at least two empty cans of Pepsi One sitting suspiciously around the house.  It’s suspicious because I’ve told (nagged?) Tate that when he leaves his empties around the house for me to throw away, I feel like an unappreciated, yet well-trained monkey.  I’ve tried just leaving the soda cans out for him to throw away, but I just end up having twice as many to throw away the next morning.  Threats and passive aggressive text messages go ignored.

Whenever I get on my phone or on the computer, or if I’m immersed in a good book, I’ve been told that I completely block out everything around me.  According to Tate, I’m very good at appearing to listen, nodding, even responding appropriately.  I don’t even realize that we’ve had a conversation until later when Tate brings up something that we allegedly talked about.  (I swear this is entrapment!) The disagreement almost always turns into a full-on argument about the time I spend clicking away on my phone/computer and I get defensive and Tate gets all, “why are you so defensive,” and then I get all screamy about the importance of Words with Friends.

Every night after the kids are finally bathed, read to, tucked in, watered, supplied with specific, hard to find bedtime toys, kissed, kissed again, hugged, hugged again, Tate and I settle on the couch to battle over the remote control and television volume.  Whomever is in charge of the remote control seems to feel that the television show chosen is the only thing worth watching at that moment.  Honestly, neither of us is usually very willing to consider the other’s viewing interests.  I like to watch House Hunters at a nice, low volume.  Tate likes to watch Shoot Em’ Up gun shows at blaring levels.  I’m sure he’d say that I watch Crap and Drivel at ear deafening volumes, and that he watches Important Educational Shows about Home Defense at a comfortable volume.  (He’s completely wrong, but whatever.)

I’m looking forward to the day when I’ll laugh about how ridiculous these tiffs are, which will probably be when I’m old and rich enough after winning the lottery to afford someone to come in and clean up after Tate, and deaf enough not to care that Tate loves to watch the TV with the volume as high as it will go.

What ongoing fights do you have with your spouse/significant other/partner/[insert politically correct terminology here]?

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

As always, from the very bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for your kind words and for your own personal stories regarding my State of our Marriage and rotten parenting worries.   Each of your comments meant such a great deal to me.  One in particular, from Rima, ended with a quote that I ADORE and want framed or tattooed somewhere on my body. I’m leaning towards framed rather than tattooed.

“Let everything happen to you – the beauty, the terror. Just keep going, no feeling is final.” ~Rilke

Is that not perfect?!  Thank you, Rima, truly.

I took your words and heart felt advice and talked to Tate before leaving for Nashville.  I knew that leaving with such a heavy burden on my heart and on my mind would have furthered the rift in our marriage.  In my mind, I planned to sit Tate down and have our much needed talk, but only after I had completely gotten ready for the next day’s departure.  Tate, however, decided to confront ME while I was in the middle of preparations.

Unfortunately I was completing a VERY IMPORTANT pre-conference beauty ritual when he decided it was time to talk.  I had just put whitening strips on my teeth.   How sherioush a convershation can you reary have when you’re wearing whitening shtripsh?  Yeah, I don’t know.  We might need to have a do-over very serious conversation since it was hard for both of us not to laugh with spit and speech impediments flying out of my mouth.

At least it was a start.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

As the minutes of the still night turned into hours of a panicked night, I grew angrier and angrier as Tate seemed to rest easily, completely unaware that there is even a crack in the State of our Marriage.  Maybe it didn’t even matter that he was sleeping.  Even when he’s awake I haven’t felt like we could really have a heart to heart conversation anyway.  I am continually on a quest to improve myself, as a mother and a wife, trying to figure out ways to hold my tongue and not break every marriage confrontation rule in the book.  And yet he slept, soundly and without worry while I carried the entire burden myself.

I always do.

***********

I woke up in a sleep deprived fog and mentally willed myself to put on a smiling face.  Carson was, of course, in his true form, mouthy and argumentative from the moment I whispered, “good morning my sunshine boy,” in his ear.

I read somewhere online about choosing a word to strive for as your goal for the year.  My word is calm.   As Carson’s protests continued, I kept repeating my mantra.  “Calm.  Calm.  Calm.  Calm.”

Humor sometimes helps to ease the mood and repair rifts that develop between Carson and I.  His humor can be as healing to me, even though it’s in no way his intent.

“My elbow hurts,” Carson whined, as he had whined about every single detail of the morning.

“Well you know what that means, don’t you?”  I inquired, as seriously as I could.  “It means that I’ll have to saw your arm off.”

Concerned, Carson protested.  “But then I won’t be able to hug you and daddy and Ella!”

I hugged him and told him that mommy was making a joke and just wanted him to laugh.

“But mommy, I can’t laugh.  I’m too tired.  And I’m thirsty.”  WHINE, WHINE, WHINE.

“What would you like to drink?  How about some beer?”  I jested, hoping he caught my joke.

“But MOM!  Only people who are OLD year-olds can drink beer!”  He giggled.  “Chocolate milk.  Please.”

Before we left for preschool drop off, I tried to get Carson to take some cough medicine.  He was not having any of it, claiming he didn’t need it.

“GOING TO BED IS ANOTHER WAY TO TREAT A COUGH!” he screamed at me as I chased him with the dose of medicine that eventually spilled all over me, Carson, and the floor.

***********

I wish I could say that the burdens and worries of the State of our Marriage and the lack of sleep and dealing with Carson’s four years of difficult behavior didn’t finally trigger my switch.

Calm?

Not this time.  I lost my cool.  I yelled, in a way that could not be described as calm or using humor to diffuse the anger.

Now I have even more to lose sleep over tonight.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

This particular day was Wednesday, though, and he was doing a lot of throat clearing and some ridiculously pitiful semi-moaning.  After hearing him not so quietly closing closet doors and not so quietly rooting through his sock drawer, I peeked my head out from under the covers and asked him through clenched teeth, “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I’m sick.  I feel terrible,”  he managed to say weakly.  Moan, moan, woe is me, woe is me, blah, blah, blah.

“Oh.  Sorry to hear that.  Feel better soon,”  I replied flatly.  I’m an asshole, okay?  I’m 50% of the reason that our marriage isn’t perfect.  (Tate is the other 50%, he is also an asshole.)

I closed my eyes and went back to sleep for the two minutes before my alarm sounded, got out of bed, and promptly forgot all about Tate’s complaint of being sick.

Now in all fairness, Tate can be a bit of a drama queen.  It gets particularly noticeable when he’s sick and I, being an asshole AND a very weary mother of two small children, don’t have a lot of patience for his whining and his needs.  He has a history of blowing little head colds and minor illnesses way out of proportion.

So I’d forgotten all about his “illness” until 5:00 when he called me from work to say, pitifully, that he was on his way home.   I realize that calling at 5:00 doesn’t seem particularly significant, but OH YOU WOULD BE WRONG.  Tate very rarely leaves work before 6:30 or 7, he might if it’s a Friday and things are running well, or he might if his family is coming into town, but he NEVER comes home early on a random Wednesday in the middle of the week.

I still wasn’t fully convinced that his illness was little more than a cough and a headache.  I quickly updated Twitter (because that’s what you do in times of fake crisis).

Further evidence for my assholishness.

When he got home, his face was grimaced and he sounded weak.   He slowly trudged to the bedroom and laid down on the bed.  I felt his head and he seemed to actually have a fever, a really high fever.

“I’ll try not to complain too much,” he said as I gave him his Advil and glass of water.

The next day he went to work, but at 1:00 (1:00!!??!!) he called and said that he was on his way home because he was just so sick.  He actually didn’t do his over the top, pitiful “Woe is me, I’m so sick” routine.  He just really sounded like he was actually SICK.

Never in 11 1/2 years of his working life, had he come home that early due to illness.  He immediately went to bed and slept for the whole afternoon.

I think that maybe, just maybe, Tate wasn’t exaggerating this time.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Tate came home, vibrating with excitement.

“Hey kids!  I got you a surprise for your breakfast tomorrow!  Grapefruit!”

Grapefruit. (Imagine I’m saying that like Seinfeld used to say, “Newman.”)

“And how is it a surprise, ding dong, if you just told them about it?”  I said this to myself, I’m not the type to have silly arguments with my husband.

(On a side note, he paid $40 for these surprise grapefruit.  One of his coworker’s daughters was selling them as a fundraiser for her high school.  I just have to say that had _I_ brought home a surprise $40 box of grapefruit, Tate would have thought I was nuts.  Now, if I had bought $40 worth of Girl Scout Cookies (two boxes), he’d have jumped for joy!  We didn’t even get ONE box of  Girl Scout Cookies this year because when I tried to buy Samoas from the cute little chirping Girl Scouts at the Kroger, they were OUT.  Frankly if I can’t have Samoas, I’ll just do without Girl Scout Cookies for the year.)

So where was I?  Oh right! Grapefruit. (Newman.)

Of course, since Tate had mentioned this magical, surprise grapefruit right before Carson went to bed, there he stood at 7 AM at the side of my bed.

“G’morning, Mommy!  I’ve been thinking about eating that special surprise grapefruit!  Get up!  Carson said, bounding out of my room and down the stairs.  “I’ll go wake up Ella so we can eat!”

There’s a few things that could potentially go wrong with this whole surprise grapefruit scenarino, besides the fact that we are having to get up unnecessarily early.  1)  I’m not sure that Carson or Ella really knows what grapefruit is.  They could be thinking it’s a “grape”-like fruit and will be undesirably shocked to see that it’s a giant orange.  And 2) I’m not so sure that my two children’s palates are sophisticated enough for grapefruit.

This was a (possible) giant fiasco just waiting to happen.  “Thanks, TATE.” I thought to myself.  “So glad you’re at work and are going to miss out on their ‘surprise’.”

I was torn as to whether I should try to make this a learning opportunity or just be nonchalant about it.  I mean, if I made an even bigger deal out of these surprise grapefruits, I could pay dearly with my sanity.  But maybe the educational lesson could be just the diversion enough to make the surprise grapefruits less of a disappointment.

Because I’m a pretty awesome mom and overall human being, I decided to go the educational route.  We studied the no longer surprise grapefruit, inside and out.  We talked about how they could roll, how they look a lot like oranges, how they have seeds, and how MUCH THEY WERE GOING TO LOVE EATING THEM.

My wager paid off, they did love eating them.  They also loved the grapefruit juice that I squeezed fresh for them.  (See?  Pretty awesome mom and overall human being.)  Tate is off the hook, for now.  Well, at least until next week, when I’m sick of segmenting grapefruit and hand squeezing their juice.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

**Ella has this really red rash that started yesterday.  By last night she was practically covered with it.  I took her to a doc in the box this morning and the nurse practitioner thought that it she could be having an allergic reaction to her antibiotic that she’s been on for almost 10 days for an ear infection.  So that lazy Sunday I mentioned in the first paragraph was not, in fact, lazy.  It was filled with worry and tender kisses on itchy foreheads, calamine lotion, oatmeal baths,  and holding and rocking a sweet baby girl.  I fully embodied the spirit of Ma Ingalls.

**I came home from the doctor to my husband questioning me, which is completely different than asking me questions.  “Why didn’t they do a histamine test?”  “The doctor didn’t even know WHAT the rash was and was just giving a cop out answer that it’s a drug reaction, wasn’t she?”  “You ARE going to call the REAL doctor in the morning, AREN’T YOU?”

In case you were wondering my husband does not actually earn a paycheck as a hard-nosed detective.

**There is a direct correlation between the number of sunny days and the amount of housework that gets completed.  My house is a freaking disaster area.  Can you guess the weather?!

**I never, ever (EVER) write reviews, but an opportunity to try out a Shabby Apple Dress came my way and wouldn’t you know, I wrote a review.  You can check out my review here!

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I remembered on November 6, the eleventh anniversary of our first date.  (Jesse James’ Hideout in Rolla, MO.  Jealous much?)  (I also puked the next morning right in front of him.)  (Again.  Jealous much?)

I can’t believe that neither of us even REMEMBERED that October 31 was the TEN YEAR anniversary of when we became engaged.  How could we have both completely forgotten!?!  Since I feel like he and I are having some blips on our marital radar, and I tend to overanalyze A LOT, it made me particularly sad and introspective to have forgotten.

I’ve been thinking about all of our special dates.  We don’t celebrate any of these days except for our wedding anniversary anymore, but I remember those early days when we at least acknowledged (wink, wink) all those significant days.

December 29, 1998, This one is none of yo business
December 30, 1998, The first time we told each other we loved one another
May 17, 1999, The day we moved in together in Knoxville, the day after I graduated from graduate school.
July 14, 2001, Our wedding day

I miss those days when we celebrated that we’d been together a WHOLE MONTH! or a three months or eight months. When we got married, we decided that it would be too much to try and remember all the milestones.  Celebrating our wedding anniversary would be plenty, we’d agreed.

Maybe we should reinstate celebrating those milestones.  Maybe we should do what we did before.

Do you still celebrate those little days?  Or do you only celebrate your anniversary?

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.