Ten

And here it is, my favorite picture from our wedding day for my favorite guy on our tenth wedding anniversary.

Thank you for making the past ten years so wonderful. Not perfect—because come on, even if I don't post a lot here anymore, I'm not about to start lying now—but overall pretty darned great. There's no one I'd rather have push my buttons, straighten things I just straightened or make me laugh. And that's the truth.

I love you. I love our life. Here's to us.

Now I get it

In February we went on a vacation with three other couples. It was a five night stay, so I packed five books. My friends were not pleased. Like, not pleased in the sense that one friend in particular hid a book from me and even wrestled it away from me at one point. If it weren't for the fact that the book was from the public library, I'm pretty sure it would have ended up in the pool. Suffice it to say, I only made it through one book (and some magazines).

Mary Clare discovered chapter books about two months ago, and she is just tearing through them. We drove with my parents to dinner a week ago, and Mary Clare sat in the back next to my dad, with her nose buried in a book the entire time. When we pulled up, my dad said, "Mary Clare, it was great talking to you." She just gave him a confused look and asked, "Where are we?" To which my dad replied, "You are so your mother."

Fast forward to this morning, and I felt both my friends' and my parents' pain. I asked Mary Clare to please put down her book and get dressed. Five times. I then asked her to put down her book so I could do her hair. Five more times. And as I did her hair, she just stared longingly at her book.

"Mary Clare," I said, "I love that you love to read, but we have to figure out a better plan. I don't like asking you multiple times to do things, and you don't like it when I interrupt your reading. Maybe you need to get dressed first, and then you will have all of the time you need to read, uninterrupted."

Huge sigh.

"But Mom, I wake up in the morning, and I just can't wait to read my books. I just see them* and have to have them." She continued, "And then I don't want to put them down. Because I just have to know what happens next."

To which I could only reply, "I know what you mean."

We'll come up with a plan another day.
 

*We have started removing books from her room at night, both to keep her from reading at night and to encourage her to roll over and go back to sleep at 5:30 a.m., as opposed to getting up and starting to read.

Always

Saturday night Mary Clare and Chip went to the Holy Redeemer father-daughter dance, so Charlie and I had some quality time together. We cuddled up on the couch, watched some Inspector Gadget episodes, ate "apples what are cut in slices" and then one of us wore the empty bowl on our head for awhile. (I'll never name names.)

Bedtime came and went, and around 8:30 p.m. I finally convinced Charlie that it was time to hit the hay. As we walked out of the family room, he grabbed onto my leg and nuzzled his head into my side.

"Charlie," I said, "What am I going to do when you aren't my little Charlie Bird any more?"

He stopped, lifted his arms to me and said, "Mama, I'll always be your Bird." 

Well, you better believe I carried those 40 lbs. of sweetness up the stairs. And from room to room as we changed, used the bathroom and brushed teeth. 

The boy has me right where he wants me, and I am completely okay with that. 

Pets: fake, lost and found

Charlie and Mary Clare have a decent amount of Beanie Boos, the modern day Beanie Babies. While I am admittedly freaked out by their oversized eyes and teeny-tiny bodies, the kids love them. Mary Clare has four that she lines up on the pillow next to her each night, making sure that I tuck the covers up to their chins, the way she prefers to be covered up as well. Charlie, well, he loves them because Mary Clare loves them. And I love that Charlie calls them "Peanie Poos," no matter how many times Mary Clare tries to correct him. And he's not even going for the bathroom humor audience on this one. For once. 

In the living pet world, the kids are obsessed with missing pet flyers. If we are driving along, they beg me to slow down or wait at the stop sign long enough for them to read the flyer. After I get the okay to go, they then proceed to look for said missing animal. And they're serious. We've found two cats so far. Not necessarily the cats that were missing, but we've found two cats. According to Charlie, that is. The other funny thing about this is that if, say, we're about half a mile past the point where we first saw the poster, Mary Clare will suddenly declare, "Okay, you can stop looking now, Charlie. There is no way the cat would have made it this far." I don't bother arguing with her. They have found two cats, after all.