Keep a Smile on Your Face

I know the answer already, but I'll ask anyway. Do you ever feel like you just can't catch a break? I'll spare you all the long and probably boring story of how I spent two weeks trying to get an appointment with my perinatologist, whom I love and who has taken care of my previous two pregnancies and delivered both my girls, so it's only natural that I would do everything I can to have him take care of this one and deliver this baby, only to find out that my insurance company will NOT budge on the whole "referral" from a regular OB first, who I couldn't get into in the first place for the referral because everyone was either not taking new patients or not giving referrals or couldn't see me until January, or whatever their excuse was, so I finally told a small, tiny, little fib to get into a doctor who happened to be almost an hour away, and when I got to the office for my appointment I had already thrown up three times that morning (before 9 am), had a killer migraine headache, and discovered NO ONE was in the office because they schedule MY appointment at one office and the doctor was seeing patients at a different office (another 30 min. away) that day; and after he tells me he WILL refer me to my beloved doctor and I finally get in to see him, I discover the first doctor does not want to turn over the total care and delivery to my doctor, the one I want, but only wants me to see him periodically for higher level ultrasounds, so now I'll have to fight with him to give me up as a patient or drive an hour down to his office every couple weeks, which I'm not willing to do. Okay, so I spared you nothing. Deal with it. (My English teacher would have KILLED me for that paragraph!)

Actually, I really was talking more about The Man. He works so unbelievably hard (and long), and sometimes it seems like it's all for nothing. He spends twelve-hour days at the office, only to come home to cranky kids and an emotionally exhausted wife, lately with no dinner on the table. Then when the girls are in bed, it's off to the "honey-do" list or the office to spend some time desperately trying to accomplish the goals and dreams he's set for himself. Finally, somewhere between midnight and 2:30 a.m., it's the long-awaited and short-lived bedtime, where he battles with sleep apnea and terrible sinuses as he tries to get some quality sleep so he can wake up at 5:00 a.m. and - dare I say - be ready to do it all again. Saturdays and Sundays are usually no better as they most often begin with a raging migraine. (Aren't we a pair?!?!) He'll fight it off so that he can get up and "get something done," like the backyard (which is now done - yeah!!!!), preparing his lesson for his gospel doctrine class, take care of logo clients, and try to spend time with me and the girls.

Sound fun yet? Sound like a lot of complaining? But it's with good intentions. I write this post to let The Man know that I really do see the gazillion things he's juggling while he still manages to be a fabulous husband and daddy. I am unbelievably grateful for a man who is willing to kill himself working so that I can stay home with our children. I am even more grateful that he's a man who, after six years of marriage, still loves me, even though he probably knows way too much about who I really am. I am lucky. I am blessed. I am so proud of him.














A friend of mine and I were talking about what we would do if our husband's died. I know, morbid, but I'd like to know what my plan is just in case. Anyway, she was talking about how they've planned for her and the kids to be taken care of financially, and that her husband thinks that's the most important thing. She said he's worth more dead than he is alive. And she said how she told him, "I'd pay twice that much just to get you back." I'm sure we all would.

But it got me thinking about money and the routine of our lives and what we're actually working for. We work so that we can earn money to live in our nice houses and buy the things we need and want. If I lost The Man tomorrow, I would not care one bit about where I was living, what car I was driving, what I was going to wear that day or if I was going to go out to eat a nice dinner. My friend was right; I would have everything taken away from me - everything - if that's what it took to keep him. And I would do it with a smile on my face.