True Love

This is what love looks like on Facebook:

My husband made chocolate-covered strawberries!  Thanks, sweetie!  I love you!

Image: thanunkorn

 This is what love looks like in real life:

On Friday, I buy strawberries at the store and tell my husband what they're for.

Saturday morning, our alarm clock (the baby) wakes us up at 6:40am.  After my husband gets the baby, I ask him about something he was going to do a few weeks ago.  My asking turns to nagging.  My nagging turns to criticism.  My husband leaves the room, taking the baby with him.  (Always take the baby with you if you're trying to make a point.)

As I wrap up the kids' breakfast (two hours after I started), I remind my husband that I'm having lunch with a friend but that I will be back before the baby's naptime to nurse her.  When I get back from lunch 15 minutes before the baby's normal naptime, I find out that my husband already put her down because he didn't know when I would be getting home.

I get upset that I rushed home and skipped several errands to make it for the baby's nap.  We fold laundry together in silence.  I'm still mad, so I go check the tire pressure on my car and fill one of the tires with our manual pump.  I'm still mad, so I go outside to do yardwork.  As I'm angrily hacking away at the hedges, my husband makes chocolate-covered strawberries.

He burns the first batch of chocolate and leaves the pot in the sink for me to wash because he's not sure how to wash it out.  The second batch turns out beautifully.

Yardwork successfully burns away most of my anger.  After showering, I shove several chocolate-covered strawberries into my mouth while standing in front of the fridge so that my toddler won't see me.  I wash out the burnt-chocolate pot.

That evening, after we've put the kids down, we look at each other with weary eyes.  "Life is really tiring," my husband says, "but I'm glad I have you to spend it with."  He smiles at me.

"Thanks, sweetie.  I'm glad I have you, too."

We go to bed exhausted, knowing that we will be woken again at the crack of dawn the next day - to another day of coaxing a picky eater, taming temper tantrums, wrestling with a baby on the changing table, wiping snot from dripping noses.  I might get impatient.  We might argue.  But I never have to wonder if this is the last straw.  Because I know he meant it when he said he would stay with me for better or for worse.  And that?  That's true love.

"Good night, I love you," he says.

"Good night, I love you, too."