November, 2009:

For the past couple of days I have been feeling a little less down.  I know why.  Because I’m avoiding the topic.

Actually, I was in the office Tues and was faced with the it 3 times.  Twice when I entered the building and once on the way out.  The people are really nice and I’m sure genuinely concerned.  I know they just want to hear that I’m doing better.  But one of the reasons I don’t go into the office is so that I don’t have to face the issue.  The hour+ commute is bad enough.  It’s one thing to think about things for that boring drive but another to have to respond to questions.  I’m not bitching though, it just is what it is.

So here we go, the reason for writing today…

I would have to say, this was one of the better post-baby nights out that we had.  E was about 7 months and C wasn’t on his way yet.  We had a hotel room and the Cari’s mom had E.  We could actually let go and have fun for maybe one of the first times in a while.  Plus it was my b-day so we had a little extra to celebrate.  And besides our two friends who were about to get married, we were going to be around a number of people we missed hanging out with, two of them being relatively new parents w/out baby responsibilities for the night as well.  So things might get a little crazy … and they did.

Most of the people there were those who we spent many many nights out with over the previous 5+ years.  It’s kind of amazing that we only became friends with these people post-college.  I can’t imagine life without them.  And don’t want to.  They, as much as Cari & the kids, mean so much to all of us.  I’ll write more about all the other experiences at some other time.

It’s labor day weekend 2007 (had to think about that for a sec, but def 2007).  Susie hasn’t always been around but she’s amazing for Gary.  One of the first times we met this girl and the first time she got to meet us was at our wedding in the Riviera Maya.  I think that they had only been dating for a month or two at a time so that little vacation for our wedding might either make it or break it.  It appears she was sold, despite a bit of drama surrounding her and a slightly crazy unwanted roommate.

So we proceeded to get a little silly this particular night.  It was like 18 months of built up partying for the girls who recently had little ones.  And since partying together was nothing new to them, it didn’t take them long to get back into their usual form.  It def didn’t help (or hurt) that the wine (a fantastic selection) was damn tasty and free flowing.

At some point during the night I lost one of my cufflinks and made a big, but rather entertaining, spectacle out of getting it back.  I’m sure Cari would tell you I had my drunk smile on by this point (or maybe 2 hours earlier) in the night.  For some reason I was intent on getting the cufflink back even if it meant snagging one from the groom.

Nevertheless, the girls just simply had a blast together.  One of our recently married friends, dating at the time, had one of their usual fights.  A drunk fight that didn’t mean anything in the end of course but it added to the entertainment. 

It’s actually a little hard to describe the night.  But maybe it’s just best if I say it was a needed night out.  A night with some really good friends.  A night we celebrated one of their marriages.  A really good night for Cari and me.  We had fun.  We loved each other so much.  We fully enjoyed raising our lil E but we needed some real adult time, especially Cari.  We got it and we made the most of it.

The ride home the next day wasn’t a pretty picture.  Cari had to go into work which was an hour away and we had a half hour to get there.  I think we went to bed, or passed out, only a couple hours earlier.  But we made it through and talked of the night many times over.

I’ll have to find some pictures.

I was laying in bed at our place in wrigley.  I don’t think it was all that late and I cannot remember which day of the week it was.  It was something like the 26th of June 2006.  I’m going to figure it out that date sooner or later.  I can’t believe I don’t remember.  But what I do remember is this …

As I lay there Cari comes into the bedroom and begins to talk to me about this little test she apparently just took.  I didn’t believe her at first.  She went, purchased the test kit, and took it without letting me know.  In my effort to find that precisedate I came across an e-mail between her and a girlfriend where she hadn’t had a period since mid-may and before she spent the summer drinking herself silly she figured she might want to take a test.  So there we were.  With this little plus sign on this kit thinking to ourselves OMG what are we going to do!  Of course we knew what to do, it’s not like we were preventing or anything.  We were almost speechless.  Our lives were forever changed at that very moment … well maybe our lives changed a little before that.

I think we pinpointed the actual day of conception to be the night of a friends wedding.  Whether that’s accurate or not it resulted in a story we told many times over.  We weren’t shy about it.  The funny thing is that we shared the room that night.  So we weren’t alone.  Our roomy knows.  She laughed about it with us.  She actually told us she’s a deep sleeper & encouraged any extra curricular activies.

So now what do we do???  We need to tell people of course!

Cari couldn’t keep a secret.  No way.  Never.  We knew the risks of telling people too early.  Good friends of ours, and a handful since, have had the joy of announcing their pregnancy followed by the pain involved in letting people know the baby(ies) was lost.  So we just said, wtf we’re going to tell everyone anyways.   But first we’re going to have a party and try to keep it a secret.

Cari always had fun.  Social smoking & drinking wasn’t uncommon.  I often nagged her about smoking but my efforts failed until that day we learned we were expecting.  She stopped cold turkey. 

So now she’s not smoking, which okay we might be able to get away with that, but she’s not drinking either???  Somebody is going to notice.  It’s Cari.  We’re having a party for a bunch of our friends & fam at our place by wrigley … on the corner of crazy and insane as we would call it … steps away from the ballpark.  She’s expected to have beer in hand regardless of location but especially here where basically everyone lives within walking distance.

There’s no way were going to make it through this party without spilling the beans.  Neither of us could keep the secret.  Ironically we both, without knowing, told the same couple.  I told him & she told her.  That was pretty funny.  And then we went and told each other what we had just done.  But I think people suspected it 100%.  We weren’t preventing and I think she made that known to more people than me.  And seeing Cari without some sort of drink was all too difficult to hide.   The secret was out.

I have a laundry list of things I want to write about so what better way to get started.

A phone call NEVER ended without saying these 4 words.  There would be times where we would just sit on the phone not saying anything because she would wait for me to say it.  And just to play with her I wouldn’t say anything.  Even if she had to go she would wait.  She would wait for me to say those words.  And only when those words were finally said would it be okay to end the call. 

Often we would say those words as fast as we could … I love you, bye (not easy to demonstrate it here, but just read the words and say them fast and you get the point).

You could NEVER leave our house or her P’s house without saying those words either.  It was mandatory, expected, a must-do, or else you risked facing their wrath. 

She had a family where this was normal while it wasn’t quite the norm for me.  Not that my fam doesn’t all love each other, it just wasn’t something we often said.  So it was a little unusual for me and something I didn’t always think was 100% necessary.  Not that I didn’t mean it or not want to say or hear it, it just wasn’t something I grew up accustomed to.  But she did.  And she expected and wanted and needed it all of the time.  It’s something I said to her and she said to me many times each and every day.

I miss it

I love you