Archive for the 'Antique Daddy' Category

School Cancellation Policy

May 16, 2008 | Antique Daddy, School, Sometimes Sweet

We are not a co-sleeping family.  It’s just not what works for us.  But I will admit there are times when I think it would be so very nice if we were.  There are times when I still want to hold my baby close to my heart as I did when he was an infant.  I want to look into his sleeping face and listen to him breathe.  These sweet and uncomplicated days, they are waning.  Too quickly they fly away into the star encrusted galaxy, into forever and beyond. 

 

Lately, Sean will wake up about 5:30 and come get in bed with us.  The gentle jingle jingle of Mr. Monkey announces the arrival of our visitor.  He tip toes to Antique Daddy’s side of the bed. Without a word, he throws a leg over and then clambers over him before wriggling down under the covers between us and falling back to sleep.  Shortly thereafter, I usually get up and enjoy that first cup of coffee and 30 minutes of a peaceful, sound-effects free house.

 

Wednesday morning, I sat at my desk with my coffee and listened to the rain patter against the kitchen window as I worked on a writing project. When I looked up again, I was astonished to see that it was nearly 8am.  The house was still dark.  A storm grumbled quietly off in the distance.  Sean should be up by this time, eating breakfast and getting dressed.  We would be late for school.  Again.  I made my way to my bedroom to get him up and going.

 

In a tangle of sheets and legs and arms, they were folded into the other, like an unopened flower.  I stood there for several minutes, watching them sleep, their breathing, synchronized and as steady and even as the rain that was falling against the windows.  I wondered if their dreams intersected in some unknown and secret place. I thought of how they are linked together for all eternity through me.

 

I could not make myself disturb them.  I did not want to send this moment hurling off into the galaxy.

 

There will be plenty of school days in his life, but the days when he can nestle into the protective curve of his daddy’s arm and dream little boy dreams are too few now.

 

I backed out of the room and quietly shut the door.

 

School was cancelled that day due to snuggling.

Stripes Are In

March 24, 2008 | Always Real, Antique Daddy, Snips And Snails

Apparently during the great blog blow up of March, this post went missing as well as the 45 or so comments, (except that I still have them in my email, yay merciful cyber gods).   I didn’t even realize it until I started cleaning up some files. Wonder what else I’ll find that’s not there….

 

In keeping with my quest to provide Sean with a perfect Norman Rockwell childhood, we stopped by Taco Bueno on the way home from church after Easter services and picked up some party burritos for lunch.  Who wants a ham and all the fixin’s served on the family china when you can have a burrito on paper?  I figure if I keep his expectations low, it will make it easier on his future wife.

 

Anyway, as our little tribe of three sat around the kitchen table quietly eating our pathetic Easter dinner of burritos off paper, without warning Sean turns to his father and says, “Daddy, I love you more than all the stripes on your shirt!”

 

“Why thank you Sean,” Antique Daddy says looking down at his shirt.

 

“In fact, I love you more than all the stripes on all the shirts in the world.”

 

“Wow,” Antique Daddy says, “That is a lot.”

 

Sean sets his burrito down and looks up at the ceiling.  In little boy fashion, he has shifted his brain into overdrive thinking how he can escalate this unquantifiable quantity of love he wants to describe into the realm of the absurd.

 

“All the shirts in the word - plus all the stripes on all the zebras in the world!”

 

He grins wildly at his daddy and then returns to his burrito.

 

When I am an old and brittle and I look back on the Easter that Sean was four, I won’t remember a big fancy dinner or a noisy table full of chattering people dressed in fancy clothes or overflowing Easter baskets.  I won’t even remember burritos.

 

I’ll remember that unquantifiable, unimaginable, unrestrained love is best described in stripes.

The Little Boy Who Sleeps In the Crib

January 6, 2008 | Antique Daddy, Faith

Guest Post by Antique Daddy

As I was going through my files from my old computer, I came across an email from which the following was excerpted.  It was written by Antique Daddy when Sean was about a year old back in 2004.  His words serve as a much needed reminder that both time and life are fleeting, delicate, miraculous and inexplicably intertwined. And that these things belong not to me, but to the one who created them.

* * *

Late every night, long after Sean has gone to sleep, I make my way through the darkness and quiet of the house to his room to check on him. Through the faint glow of the nightlight, I look down on his sleeping face. I touch his little fingers. I put my hand on his little head. I look and listen to see that he is breathing. I think about the life that is in him and the life that he will lead.

I put my hand on his tiny chest as it rises and falls and I say a prayer of thanksgiving for the miracle that God has performed. I thank God for taking what the doctors had said was impossible and making it possible. I thank Him for answering the prayers I offered in the dark of night, when I would awaken and feel the emptiness of knowing I would never have a child.

Those prayers were not just that He perform the miracle of allowing a child to be conceived, but that He would form that child whole and safe in the womb, that he would write His name on his forehead, that he would form in him, the heart of a servant, that He would only do all this on the provision that this child would be dedicated to His kingdom.

I raise my hands in praise and I thank Him from the depths of my being and vow that I will praise Him and thank Him all the days of my life for this little boy who sleeps in this crib.

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Sleeping Miracle -  Jan. 2005

 

Cobbler

December 10, 2007 | Antique Daddy

I read recently that the top five things couples argue over is money, sex, work, children and housework, in that order. It’s not true. Sometimes we change up the order and argue about housework first.

At the house of Antique, our arguments tend to center around cobbler.

The other day at a local BBQ joint there was this stupid conversation:

AD: This is good apple cobbler.

AM: It is good, but it’s not apple, it’s peach.

AD: No it’s not, it’s apple.

AM: Peach.

AD: No, apple.

AD: I think I would know if I were eating peach cobbler

AM: I would think so too, but this IS peach cobbler and you seem to be unaware of that fact.

AD: Well maybe you have peach, but I have apple.

AM: I wonder how they got that one scoop of apple cobbler in the middle of a pan of peach cobbler.

AD: It could happen.

AM: Of course it could.

Pre-Marital Couseling - Now Available At Home Depot!

November 6, 2007 | Antique Daddy, Reruns and Leftovers

I’ve got company today, so I am running this so-called perfect post from last December.  Only two more days of shamesless (shameful?) self-promotion and begging for votes. If you haven’t voted yet, you can do so here.  And you can do so again in 24 hours!

* * * * *

If there is one thing that defines my relationship with Antique Daddy it is this: gutter covers.

Before we were even married, we embarked upon a home improvement project together and in the process, we discovered everything we needed to know about surviving and sustaining a marriage partnership: Never do home improvement projects together.

Forget premarital counseling. Before couples are allowed to marry, they should be required by law to complete a home improvement project together. If both parties emerge with all their limbs in tact, then that’s a good indication that they can tolerate being married, having kids and having their gall bladder removed without anesthesia.

I met Antique Daddy in the fall of 1996 and as it happens in the fall, the leaves had fallen off my trees and my neighbor’s tree and all the trees in Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, and into the gutters on my house. Being a childless person at the time, I had more time than sense and things like scrubbing the grout around the toilet and removing leaves from the gutters were on my To Do list. Now my To Do list includes things like brush teeth, bathe, sleep. I am all about goals these days.

And so.

One day when Antique Boyfriend was over at my house, I mentioned that removing the leaves from my gutters was on my To Do list and that I thought I would buy some gutter covers so that I wouldn’t have to clean my gutters every year. His eyes lit up as visions of power tools danced in his head. So off we went, hand-in-hand to Home Depot in search of true love and gutter covers.

When we got to the gutter covers department, as luck would have it, I saw — gutter covers! And I was elated. And like the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:36 who said, “Here is some water! Why not be baptized now!?” I said, “Here are some gutter covers! Why not buy them now!?” And I put them in my cart and skipped happily toward the checkout lanes. There’s nothing a girl loves more than a cart full of gutter covers!

Cue sound of a needle dragging across a record - Skreeeech!

Antique Boyfriend is not like the spontaneous Ethiopian eunuch, who by the way, was probably a lot more fun to take shopping. Antique Boyfriend needs to study, analyze (notice the root word “anal” in analyze? I don’t think that is a coincidence), read the fine print, go to three stores to comparison shop, take measurements, read up on how gutter covers are made, talk with gutter cover experts, make a spreadsheet and then return to the original store and stand in the gutter covers aisle with arms folded while scratching his chin for three additional hours or until I try to remove my gall bladder with a gutter cover.

Therefore.

In the middle of Home Depot, we had a “discussion” about the proper way to purchase gutter covers and I may have even cried. In the name of Bob Vila, was it too much to ask to buy a girl some gutter covers? I think because he wanted to win favor with me because he hoped to eventually sleep with me, Antique Boyfriend acquiesced and we ended up leaving the store with the original gutter covers upon which I first laid eyes and fell in love.

We went home and attempted to install said gutter covers together, a simple process which involved a ladder, a box of Band-aids, a bottle of Cabernet and more tears. They did not fit or work worth a flip and then I got aggravated, stomped them into an abstract environmental sculpture and then threw them into the garage along with all the other ghostly remains of home improvement projects past.

Yet we married anyway, because we learned so much about ourselves and each other in the process. We learned that a home without gutter covers is a happy home. We learned that Antique Daddy should be in charge of purchases requiring anal-yzing - cars and gutter covers and that I should be in charge of purchases requiring impulse - gum, lipstick, shoes.

And we learned why you never see Bob Vila’s wife on the show.

Antique Daddy: Will Work For Crackers

October 14, 2007 | Antique Daddy

Prayer is part of our family tradition.  We say prayers with Sean before bedtime and we offer prayers of thanksgiving before every meal whether we are at home or out at a restaurant.

When Sean and I pray together, one of the things we always thank God for is daddy who works hard so that we never have to worry about having enough to eat and so that we can have so many nice things, like a roof over our heads.

The reason for this is twofold. One, aside from the fact that as a Christian family, we are teaching Sean that all blessings flow from God, our Father and Creator, I want Sean to learn to be grateful for all that we have.  I want him to always be aware that not everyone has everything they need — that we are fortunate. Second, I want Sean to understand that all the nice things we enjoy cost money and that money is provided by his father who has to work for it. 

So then, last week, we were all three in the kitchen eating lunch and I handed Sean the last sleeve of Ritz crackers.

“We’re almost out of crackers Mom,” he said.  “We need to go to Wal-Mart and get some more.”

“What if you didn’t have any money for crackers?” Antique Daddy asked him.

“Well you would give us some,” Sean countered.

“Well, what if I didn’t work and didn’t have any money to give you, then what?” Antique Daddy pressed.

“Well, then we’d get someone else to work for us,” Sean reasoned.

What a career opportunity – you “get” to work for us AND! give us money for crackers.

Playing With Fire

July 23, 2007 | Antique Crazy, Antique Daddy, Parenting Gone Awry

 

So, lets say you are a fireman.

Let’s also say that at around 6:45 am, you are roused out of your slumber by the smell of smoke. So you spring out of bed and you start putting out fires. Even before your first cup of coffee.

At first, the fires are small and you can keep up. You kind of just step on them and smother them with your flip flop. But then, there are more and more little fires and you are river dancing on fires all over the place. And in between the little fires, big fires flare up here and there.

And so all day long you are putting out fires. You are running from fire to fire, stomping on them and spitting on them and whacking them with whatever you can find. And every time you sit down or try to grab something to eat or even try to run to the restroom, another fire starts and so you just keep putting out fires, all day long.

And then around 5:30, all the fires are subdued and the smoke has cleared and you are whipped and you realize you haven’t even brushed your teeth today.  So you sit down and wipe the soot from under your eyes. And you try not to cry.

About that time someone walks in and says, “Wow, you look beat!” And you say, “Yes, your son has been a pill today.” And then that same someone says, “He seems fine to me.”

Is that an okay time to whack that someone with your charred flip flop? Hypothetically speaking of course. Or should you finish your martini first?

What I Said

June 28, 2007 | Antique Daddy, Use Your Words

What I said:  Done with the milk?
What I meant:  Would you pleeeez not leave the milk out?
What I wanted to say:  Stop leaving the damn milk out.

What I said:  I need to go to the store (sigh).
What I meant:  I have to defrost or chop something for dinner and I don’t feel like it.
What I wanted to say:  I’m not really hungry. Y’all are on your own for dinner.

What I said:  Are these papers important?
What I meant:  These papers have been on my kitchen counter for a week and you need to move them. Now.
What I wanted to say:  I’m throwing these papers away.

What I said:  Can I make you a sandwich?
What I meant:  Do you have to spread the contents of the fridge and pantry across the entire kitchen to make a measly sandwich?
What I wanted to say:  Get out of my kitchen before I turn on you with a spatula.

What I said:  Thanks for fixing my computer.
What I meant:   I love how you take care of me.
What I wanted to say:  I’m glad I married you even if you leave the milk out. 

Four Score and Seven Pounds Ago

April 27, 2007 | Antique Daddy

When Antique Daddy and I married, we hired a free-lance wedding photographer. Her deal was that she would take all the pictures for a fee and then turn over the negatives. In the intoxicating afterglow of the wedding, I spent a fortune having pictures printed which I subsequently stuck in a box and haven’t looked at since. Wedding fever. It’s responsible for pens made of large white feathers and keeping the ribbon and tulle industry afloat.

In the intervening eight years, digital technology has come of age. And so when I ran across the box of wedding pictures along with the negatives, I decided to take the negatives and have them put on a CD. Which proves that the spending on the wedding just never stops.

At any rate, now I have them on my computer and Antique Daddy and I were looking at them the other day and reliving what a fun day that was and how much we enjoyed our wedding. We also took notice of the damage eight years of marriage can do to a waist line.

“Look honey,” I said whistfully. “Here I am about seven pounds skinnier.”

“You were too skinny if you ask me,” he replied without prompting.

And at that moment, I was never more attracted to him.

Photo: temporarily unavailable.

The Partnership of Marriage

April 21, 2007 | Antique Daddy, Faith

Last night, a long-time friend dropped by the house for a visit. His wife had recently decided to end their marriage of 20-some years. He was hanging in there, but as we chatted with him, heartache just seemed to fill the room clear up to the ceiling.

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

And so today, I find myself thinking about the partnership of marriage.

I think of my own parents who have been married for 52 years — all of their adult lives. I’m sure there have been times on their journey when either could have come up with about 50 ways to kill the other with everyday household appliances. But they persisted for another day leaving small appliances in tact. And sometimes it’s just one more day that can make all the difference. Eventually, all those one more days add up to a lifetime.

As a product of that union, their marriage has been a reassuring thing to behold. It has been an anchor in my life and the security it provided was perhaps the greatest blessing of my childhood.

I hope and pray that our marriage might be a reassuring thing for Sean to behold. That it might anchor and bless him in these tender years. And I also pray that earlier in life, rather than later, he might find a Godly woman to love and who would love him in return for a lifetime — a woman who will hang in there to make the journey with him into forever one day at a time.

Love… It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

1st Corinthians 13:7

The Date

March 25, 2007 | Antique Daddy

Saturday night, Antique Daddy and I went on a date for the first time in a long, long while.

Since Sean was born three years ago, we have been woefully negligent in making the time and taking the time to be together as a couple. We even got a nice hotel room and made dinner reservations and made a night of it. We looked forward all week to a night out without a diaper bag and having dinner where we didn’t have to request the check at the same time we ordered our food and drinks. We could relax and focus on each other.

When we got to the restaurant, we sat at the outside bar to enjoy a glass of wine before dinner. The weather was as lovely as could be, the air was summertime sweet and noisy with chatter and laughter. We had not a care in the world.

We sat knee to knee, not speaking, just smiling at each other like two shy 4th graders. It seemed almost as though the previous ten years had never happened. Then he casually put his hand on my knee. It felt warm on my leg. I sipped my wine and twirled my hair. I felt the familiar but long-forgotten awkwardness that comes with a first date. I leaned into him in such a way that I could smell his aftershave and he could look down my shirt. It was fun to flirt with my husband. He looked long and deep into my eyes before leaning in so that we were cheek to cheek. I could feel his breath on my neck and in my ear. Then he whispered, “I wonder what Sean’s doing.”

Which was exactly what I was thinking.

The Credit Card

January 12, 2007 | Antique Daddy, Mildly Amusing, Sometimes Tart

Sometime before Christmas, as I was getting into my car, I noticed something stuck between the seat and the console. So I bravely stuck my hand into that deep dark black hole where loose change, French fries and Goldfish go to die. And lo and behold it was a credit card! It was Antique Daddy’s credit card.

At least once a week, Antique Daddy loses his money/credit cards/keys and I freak out and turn the house upside down looking for them. And while I’m busy freaking out and digging through the trash, he’s busy helping me freak out by watching the news or eating a bowl of cereal. And then later, I usually find the lost item in a coat pocket or some other unlikely place. And so then I lecture him on the benefits of being OCD and how that when you obsessively and compulsively check your wallet for your credit card four or five times before you leave a store or a restaurant you rarely lose those kind of things and clearly, it’s a better way to live. And then I invite him to sign up for a free trial.

So when I found his credit card along with an earring and a petrified tootsie roll (at least I think it was a tootsie roll), I decided I would teach him a lesson. I would stash his credit card somewhere for a while and let him freak out while I ate a bowl of cereal. So I did. I wrote a clever little note telling him exactly when and where I found his credit card and then I put it in his sock drawer. But then Christmas came and apparently he never wore socks in December and I not only forgot that I found the credit card, I forgot that I had hidden it, let alone where I had hidden it.

So then.

Earlier this week when Antique Daddy reported that he couldn’t find his credit card, I once again freaked out and turned the house upside down and dug through the trash looking for it. And I guess you probably know by now that I didn’t find it. Yes indeed, these blonde roots go clear down to the brain where they tangle up and choke the intelligence out of the logic/thinking/recalling lobe.

As I’m bent over the trash can and digging through it for the third time, Antique Daddy shows me the credit card and my oh-so-clever note that he found in his sock drawer.

Perhaps it was the coffee grounds under my fingernails or the stench of things therein that, truly, you do not want to know, but somehow the note wasn’t nearly as clever as I remembered. And the spousal object lesson wasn’t nearly as gratifying as I’d imagined either.

Accept No Substitutes

January 8, 2007 | Antique Daddy, Reruns and Leftovers, Sometimes Sweet

This post was originally published in October of 2005. It explains a little bit about The Crib.

Like most modern households with children, we have divvied up the child-care tasks. Antique Daddy handles the bedtime routine and I handle everything else up to that point. And I must say that he does an excellent job. With very few exceptions, bedtime is a happy and special time that both he and Sean look forward to at the end of the day.

Antique Daddy was gone a few days this week, so I had to cover the bedtime routine. And I really thought it went well. Sean happily went to sleep each night. I thought I had tasted a little bit of that end-of-the-day magic that he shares with his daddy. I thought I had been accepted into the boy’s club.

When Antique Daddy returned home from a long day of work and travel, I decided that I would give him a pass and let him relax while I put Sean to bed. I seated myself in the rocker and pulled out one of his favorite books to read. I patted my legs and motioned for Sean to crawl up in my lap. But he just looked at me like I was from Mars. He grabbed my index finger and yanked on it making it perfectly clear I was in the wrong seat. After I removed myself from the seat of honor, he patted the seat of the rocker and said, “Dah-dee. Scheep dow.”

As Sean crawled up into his daddy’s lap, I sat down on the floor at the feet of the master hoping to gain some wisdom if only by breathing his rarified air. Sean looked down on me from his perch as if to say “Are you still here?” Pushing the book aside, he crawled down out of his daddy’s lap, and again by the finger, yanked me to my feet and showed me the door. He literally escorted me to the door — with a little push from behind lest anyone be uncertain about his intentions. At the door, I bent over for my goodnight kiss. He blew me a kiss and waved bye-bye, as in “buh-bye” and then slammed the door in my face.

Daddy was home. Without ceremony, my services were no longer needed.

The Crib

January 7, 2007 | Antique Daddy, Sometimes Sweet

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Yes, my three-year-old still sleeps in a crib. Not because he’s not ready for a big boy bed, but because his father is not ready for a big boy bed.

We have a BBB in the attic. Several times in the past year, I’ve mentioned to Antique Daddy that since Sean easily scrambles in and out of the crib, tightrope walks the rails and dive rolls out like a Chinese acrobat that perhaps the crib no longer serves it’s purpose. Perhaps it’s time to get the BBB out of the attic and let this little boy take a baby step towards becoming a big boy.

This suggestion is always met with some sort of vague response like “Okay, maybe this Saturday” which translates to “No.”

If you’ve been reading this blog very long, then you already know that there are some fundamental differences in how Antique Daddy and I approach life. I gobble, he savors. I cut and run, he hangs in. I move on, he lingers. I am impetuous, he is thoughtful. I cross my fingers, hope for the best and jump in with my blindfold firmly in place, he anal-yzes, plans, proceeds and then backs up. Because I am intimately acquainted with death and loss, my grip is loose. Because he is intimately acquainted with death and loss, his grip is tight. I look forward to the future, convinced that something wonderful is waiting for me just around the corner. He looks back and mourns the loss of each today. He is sentimental, I am crusty.

That is to say.

I have been working on him for the last six months to get the BBB out of the attic. I’m not foolish enough to think that the transition to the new bed won’t be without a few issues, a few sleepless nights, but I’m ready. I think Sean is ready. He is an adaptable little boy. It is time.

So this past Saturday was the “maybe this Saturday” Saturday. After breakfast, I mentioned to him that it was the perfect day to get out the BBB since he could get it out at the same time he was hauling the tsunami-sized wall of Christmas decorations into the attic.

A wall of silence went up. He turned his back to me. And when he turned back, he had tears in his eyes. “I’m just not ready,” he said. “I didn’t know that last night when I put him to bed that it would be the last night that I would ever get to put him to sleep in that crib. Give me a few more days.”

Now I know what men deal with. You just can’t counter tears.

It’s going to be really embarrassing when we haul Sean’s crib to his freshman dorm at UT. And his daddy insists on being his roommate so he can read him books and rock him to sleep each night.

Premarital Counseling - Now Available At Home Depot!

December 21, 2006 | Antique Daddy, Mildly Amusing, Perfect Post

If there is one thing that defines my relationship with Antique Daddy it is this: gutter covers.Before we were even married, we embarked upon a home improvement project together and in the process, we discovered everything we needed to know about surviving and sustaining a marriage partnership:  Never do home improvement projects together.

Forget premarital counseling. Before couples are allowed to marry, they should be required by law to complete a home improvement project together. If both parties emerge with all their limbs in tact, then that’s a good indication that they can tolerate being married, having kids and having their gall bladder removed without anesthesia.

I met Antique Daddy in the fall of 1996 and as it happens in the fall, the leaves had fallen off my trees and my neighbor’s tree and all the trees in Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, and into the gutters on my house. Being a childless person at the time, I had more time than sense and things like scrubbing the grout around the toilet and removing leaves from the gutters were on my To Do list. Now my To Do list includes things like brush teeth, bathe, sleep. I am all about goals these days.

And so.

One day when Antique Boyfriend was over at my house, I mentioned that removing the leaves from my gutters was on my To Do list and that I thought I would buy some gutter covers so that I wouldn’t have to clean my gutters every year. His eyes lit up as visions of power tools danced in his head. So off we went, hand-in-hand to Home Depot in search of true love and gutter covers.

When we got to the gutter covers department, as luck would have it, I saw — gutter covers! And I was elated. And like the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:36 who said, “Here is some water! Why not be baptized now!?” I said, “Here are some gutter covers! Why not buy them now!?” And I put them in my cart and skipped happily toward the checkout lanes. There’s nothing a girl loves more than a cart full of gutter covers!

Cue sound of a needle dragging across a record - Skreeeech!

Antique Boyfriend is not like the spontaneous Ethiopian eunuch, who by the way, was probably a lot more fun to take shopping. Antique Boyfriend needs to study, analyze (notice the root word “anal” in analyze? I don’t think that is a coincidence), read the fine print, go to three stores to comparison shop, take measurements, read up on how gutter covers are made, talk with gutter cover experts, make a spreadsheet and then return to the original store and stand in the gutter covers aisle with arms folded while scratching his chin for three additional hours or until I try to remove my gall bladder with a gutter cover.

Therefore.

In the middle of Home Depot, we had a “discussion” about the proper way to purchase gutter covers and I may have even cried. In the name of Bob Vila, was it too much to ask to buy a girl some gutter covers? I think because he wanted to win favor with me because he hoped to eventually sleep with me, Antique Boyfriend acquiesced and we ended up leaving the store with the original gutter covers upon which I first laid eyes and fell in love.

We went home and attempted to install said gutter covers together, a simple process which involved a ladder, a box of Band-aids, a bottle of Cabernet and more tears. They did not fit or work worth a flip and then I got aggravated, stomped them into an abstract environmental sculpture and then threw them into the garage along with all the other ghostly remains of home improvement projects past.

Yet we married anyway, because we learned so much about ourselves and each other in the process. We learned that a home without gutter covers is a happy home. We learned that Antique Daddy should be in charge of purchases requiring anal-yzing - cars and gutter covers and that I should be in charge of purchases requiring impulse - gum, Sterling Vinyard Merlot, lipstick, shoes.

And we learned why you never see Bob Vila’s wife on the show.

Contrast and Compare: HGTV and Football

December 5, 2006 | Antique Daddy

Apparently there was some sort of football game or whatever on Sunday and people around here who are into that kind of thing were all jazzed up because the Cowboys won. I don’t know.

So by Monday, after I’d listened to 48 straight hours of some Bubba on the the television or car radio say the word “cowboy” about billion times, I turned to Antique Daddy and said, “Goodnight, how much is there to say about one football game? Hour after hour, show after show they just keep talking. It’s been said already for Pete’s sake.”

And he paused for a minute and said, “Yeah. Sorta like HGTV.”

Blaspheme!

Complementary Psychosis

November 30, 2006 | Antique Daddy

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

The major difference between Antique Daddy and me is that he will patiently spend six hours fixing a 98 cent strand of Christmas lights whereas I would wad them up, hurl them across the room, stomp on them and then head to Wal-Mart for more.

Complementary psychosis. That’s what makes this marriage work.

Eight Years Ago Today

October 24, 2006 | Antique Daddy

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Today I celebrate my 8th year of marriage to Antique Daddy. We have weathered a number of storms as all couples do - infertility, chronic illness and then my own cancer - but on the whole there have been far more ups than downs. I think I’m good to go for another eight.

Yet even on the days when it’s good that I don’t own a cast iron skillet, there is an anchor that is so solid and heavy and deep that it keeps us steady even in the most turbulent of seas and that is our common faith in God.

We met ten years ago through mutual friends. I was 36 and had been widowed for over two years. He was 39 and had been dating professionally for as many years - neither of us prime dating real estate. We had both had our boats rocked by life. I had lost a husband and he had lost his father at age 11 and then his brother when he was 18. It is in this deep dark place far below the surface where sunlight does not penetrate that for both of us, faith was born. Not in fullness, but in emptiness. Not in blissful blindness or in a dearth of intellect, but in seeking and searching. Not in a joyful hand waving hallelujah chorus, but in a sometimes silent, angry, knee-bruising wrestling with God and His church. Ours is a faith not so much inherited, but earned. It is faith that is at the core of our marriage. It is our faith that dismisses thoughts of walking away. It is our faith that keeps us focused on living beyond the moment and into the future.

And now there is the boy. The boy who has made our marriage more challenging, more contentious, more frustrating, more joyful, more meaningful and more worth the effort. The boy who represents the miracle of life and faith made manifest. The boy who binds us ever more tightly.

So today, we mark eight years into this partnership of marriage. We do not know what the years ahead hold for us nor do we much care — we know whose we are and what we are made of. We just pray that there are a lot more years to come.

Nature Call

October 23, 2006 | Antique Daddy, Use Your Words

Little known fact: The Navajo invented their super-secret code not to throw off the other Indians, but because they had toddlers. Everyone with a toddler knows that they are omniscient — they see all, hear all and are acutely aware of all. Navajo code is the only way to keep information, which they will use against you, out of their hands.

This past weekend we stayed in a hotel and we were enjoying breakfast in the dining room when Antique Daddy leans over to me and almost inaudibly whispers, “Nature calls. I’m going back to the room.”

As Antique Daddy makes his way towards the door, Sean announces to the other diners, “DADDY’S GOING ON A NATURE CALL!”

Anyone know Navajo for Nature Call?

The (Flash) Light of Truth

September 20, 2006 | Antique Daddy, Mildly Amusing

Sean cannot keep a secret. This is not new. He has been ratting me out since before he could even talk.

In theory, Antique Daddy and I agree that it is not good to indulge the boy frequently with material things. In theory, we agree that he should not expect to get something every time we go to the store. But I am spineless weak woman when I find myself within ten yards of the $1 bins at Target. And at that distance, that theory seems rather silly in view of all the fun cheap stuff you can get for a dollar!! Where else can you buy joy for a dollar!? (Except maybe at The Dollar Store.)

So while we were shopping at Target the other day, something from the $1 bin hopped right into my cart and it just so happens that it was something that would delight the boy - a little Halloween flashlight with interchangeable faces!

I told Sean that Mommy was going to buy the flashlight but there was really no need to bother showing it to Daddy, that he was very busy working and that he didn’t really need to see it because, you know, he’s seen a lot of flashlights in his life and he wouldn’t be impressed. His big blue eyes lit up and he nodded his head vigorously in agreement. “Daddy busy wook-ing. I not bother Daddy!” he said as he snatched the flashlight out of my hands and clutched it to his chest. I realized later that I probably could have said, “Mommy is serving rusty nails for dinner tonight!” and he would have said “Yummy! I love nails! Now gimme the flashlight!”

As we pulled into the garage, I reminded my pint-sized cohort that Daddy was a busy man (busy earning the money that I am doing my best to blow through one dollar at a time) and that we shouldn’t bother him with our little flashlight, m’kay? “Okay! Daddy busy!” he exclaimed, shining the flashlight on my forehead to indicate he had fully absorbed my exhortation.

As I put the key in the door, I turned to Sean and put my index finger to my lips making the universal sign for silence. Sean nodded and responded knowingly by doing the same. Then he pushed the door open and ran into the house yelling, “Daddy when you’re done wook-ing, come see my new flashlight!”