Sorry Girls, He's Taken!!

Have I dished lately about how wonderful my husband is? I don't think I have. So now I think I will!

Kelly has been playing Mr. Mom since December 18, which was about when my work hours went way up. He always takes the last two weeks of December and first week of January off of work because he lets his paid leave hours build up during the year. It's always really nice to have him around so much and gives him a nice break. I'm really proud of the fact that this year he has done NO JOB-RELATED WORK during his time off! I told him that's a sign of a recovering workaholic, LOL.

I'm particularly grateful that he has been willing to let me do what I wanted with working and has been completely supportive as far as picking up the slack at home. He's done (including folding and putting away) laundry, dishes, vacuuming, chauffering the kids around, etc. All of that has been really helpful. The biggest thing he's done that I'm grateful for, though, is. . .

Getting the kids caught up on their schoolwork. Both of our kids have some difficulties with how they process learning, and so we inevitably come to crisis points several times during the school year where things aren't turned in and grades are down. Even before the break and end of first term this year, he has taken that by the reins and worked with them to get on track with their classes. He's worked with both of them on schoolwork, getting Shane through his Government class and Astronomy packets and helping both, particularly Brittany, with Geometry. He is so patient and knows how to break things down into managable amounts. When frustrations are running high and almost everyone in the house is screaming, he is the one who is able to bring calm and approach/explain things in a way they respond to and understand. There is absolutely no way Brittany would be passing Geometry this term with the mountain of work she had to do (she missed a lot of class periods due to illness/migraines) if not for him working out a schedule for the holidays and sitting down and working with her. I'm eternally grateful for his patience with them and also with me (I am pretty high-maintenance since I have so much anxiety). He told me that it's his turn now since I did so much to help them when they were small. He really is so much better at handling teens than I am.

I'm grateful that when I've come home after a long day at work he immediately tells me to put my feet up, and he even massages them for me. One day I came home at dinnertime thinking I needed to get dinner ready, and he already had some soup on the stove. It was so nice!

Today we had a nice time together. After I played the piano at a baptism this morning, he went to the pool with me so I could do some water aerobics on my own and we had such a fun time just talking. After that we went grocery shopping and had lunch. I'm really glad that I enjoy just hanging out with my husband. There doesn't need to be anything special going on; we just enjoy being together.

It's a beautiful thing to me to see how we've grown together over the years. I have a sign in my house that says, "We may not have it all together, but together we have it all." I think that pretty much says it for our relationship--we fill in the gaps for each other when we think outside of ourselves and support each other. Kelly pointed out not long ago that he's known me for over half his life. That is pretty cool! We had our 19th wedding anniversary in December, and we met over 18 months before we were married. That is a long time!