I've come to realize that our family is a little...well...different. The last nine years (can you believe it?) of marriage has provided lots of examples of this, and I have shared some here. When Greg proposed to me and we went to my parents' house to tell them, my dad asked Greg if he liked me. He said that love is one thing, but that marriage will only work if you really like the other person. I'm not sure if you would call the ways we show our love for one another strange, or weird, or maybe just normal. You can decide. I think the four of us have a good thing going.
1. Greg's willingness to drive up to Boston to see my family...and in the course of the visit tasting Gifelte Fish and participating in a Ceder dinner, complete with readings, singing, and some interesting food (see above) You just had to be there.
2. Standing over the portable crib that is still in our bedroom, and admiring the "roasting chicken" that is actually Marianna, and then squeezing her rump a little.
3. Deciding that when Kiley turns 8, we will probably have to stop squeezing her rump.
4. Making up all sorts of silly songs...usually right in the moment.
This one is to the tune of Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel...we made you out of clay. Dreidel, dreidel,
dreidel...we play with you all day!
Daddy, daddy, daddy...we made you out of gas.
Daddy, daddy, daddy...it all comes out your (beep). (Kiley said rump, but we all know that is
not how the song goes.)
5. Sharing these songs with the general public, as in this blog, and knowing that I will still be married when I get home tonight.
6. Going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast on my last day of summer vacation.
7. Racing from the car to the post office box we had in North Carolina, and later in Pound...and sometimes falling and injuring ourselves in the process. (There never was anything good to be racing for, I guess we just thought it was fun?)
8. Kiley running around the house right before a bath yelling "Naked free!" and Marianna trotting right after her in a similar manner.
9. Community bathroom time. Um, how do I explain this. Marianna, and Kiley when she was little, seem to enjoy some alone time with Daddy and a few books while he is in the bathroom. Trust me, I do not take part in this, except to let the girls out if needed.
10. Greg heating up leftovers and making them pretty for me so I will eat them. I am a little weird about leftovers.
11. Greg taking Kiley to the bathroom in places like Wal-Mart and gas stations because he knows I can't stand the bathrooms in places like that.
12. Not even flinching on trips when I ask to stop at Starbucks because they have nice bathrooms (oh, and yummy coffee and treats).
13. Listening to me rant or vent, and then instead of immediately responding, Greg usually says, "Do you want me to say anything, or did you just want me to listen?"
14. Packing up my breastmilk supply from the freezer into a cooler, and burying it in the three feet of snow from the blizzard of 2010 in our backyard while we waited for three days for the power to come back on (If this isn't love, I don't know what is).
15. Greg, who at the time was not a cat person, taking two wonderful kitties in while we were dating. Maybe he was just trying to impress me, which he did.
16. Allowing one of those kitties to reside in our freezer next to the pizza and ice cream after she died, because I didn't want to bury her at the rental house we were in. (She is now safely buried in our back yard, surrounded in cat mint, her favorite.)
I'm sure I will think of more examples...and I'll be sure to share them in the future. In the meantime, I think I'll go squeeze a rump and sing a silly song.
