Slow Down * Enjoy Life

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

Lately I’ve been posting only at the beginning of the week but thought I might get one done today before the busy halloween weekend. 

E has already dressed up 3 times.  Twice as a penguin and once as tinker bell.  I think we’ll stick with the penguin for halloween.  Although I think she’s grown an inch or two since we purchased the costume because she hardly fits in it any more.

It has been raining for another 24+ hours straight.  Where are we?  When does it ever rain this much.  It’s dreary.  At least it isn’t snow.  I think they had 20 inches in Denver today.  So it could be worse.

At my most recent therapy session I was asked the question, “What do I miss the most [about Cari]?”  I think I could go without these sessions.  They only cause me to dig up crappy feelings about this whole situation.  I couldn’t even answer this question.  It did make me think and I thought about as many things as I could without saying any of them.  It’s way too tough to say them and hard enough just to think about them.  Therapy???  Do I need it?  I guess I do some therapy here but it is much more difficult to be vocal about it all.

We have this jewel shop & share event coming up again.  Last time it raised over $2k for the kids.  I hope to do even better this time.  It’s all pretty simple it’s just a matter of getting people involved.  There’s no cost, we just get a small percentage of all goods sold during the 3-day period when people submit the coupon to the cashier.  Every little bit helps.  But of course getting support means talking about the reason for needing it. 🙁 But whatcha gonna do, right?

Well, I”m going to try and hit up the gym quickly b4 picking up the kids.  I need to get there a little more often than I do.