Anniversary Goodness

The Spouse frequently says I use him as a rhetorical punching bag whenever I mention him on a blog or in a column. And he's got a point. He's oftentimes thrown under the bus when I'm making a point, however he has given me a blanket permission slip to do so, even though he frequently cringes when he finds out what I've written about him. ("You wrote about that?")

But I'm writing this post to do something unusual: To write something nice about him. He recently sent me red roses for our 18th (!!) wedding anniversary and took me out to dinner at a place which doesn't use paper placemats and doesn't dole out packets of crayons. We had a lively conversation that wasn't interrupted by a single, "Hey Mom!," "Dad! Dad!" or the sound of the dog knocking over a trash can and chomping on the garbage. Our anniversary dinner was squeezed in between dashing around to three youth sporting events, getting new tires put on my vehicle (which failed inspection that afternoon because it needed new tires) and delivering baked goods and donations to our church's fall fair.

And even though when we got home from dinner we both fell asleep well before Saturday Night Live -- we had gotten up at 5 a.m. that morning to take The Youngest Boy to his hockey game and he had an 8 a.m. practice Sunday -- it was nice to take a few hours to remember that before we were the parents to the Picket Fence Post kids with their schedules from hell, it was just the two of us. And besides, I got to watch SNL on DVR on Sunday and fast-forward through the commercials.

So while the kids are enjoying their Halloween candy, I'm enjoying the roses.