Hubby Rocks!

I bet that y’all thought that I’d forgotten about Father’s Day. Not so! I was just thinking about what I want to say, so it was awhile in coming.

First of all, I have to say that the moment that I found my husband the sexiest was when we watched the video of Tux’s birth. Seeing him getting dressed up to enter the surgical room, with that glow on his face – priceless! As we watched him exiting the room, carrying Tux…he said to me, “Now watch me float down the hall!” He did. He was so proud of his son! Then came a clip that I hadn’t seen before. We were home, and I had fallen asleep on the couch. Bedraggled, still puffy, and with no makeup, I was out like a light. He filmed me sleeping, then, on the tape, whispered, “Love you, baby.” Be still my heart.

He still gives me goosebumps when he is good to our children. I still remember him whispering into Musician’s cradle, “I know that I don’t spend as much time with you as I do your brother, but we will. I love you!”

And when he watches Todd dancing about and says, “I love that baby so much.”

They say that the best thing that a father can do for his children is to love their mother, but I would counter that the one thing that he could do to please his wife is to adore their children. It’s all connected.

I love the picture above, taken on Fourth of July a year or two ago. Seeing the silhouettes of Tux and his dad laughing together warms my heart. I absolutely love to see them spending time together, enjoying one another, and laughing together. (As long as it’s not at me!)

He is one of the new breed of fathers, who are completely involved with their children. I love that! Today’s Dads change diapers, tote the kids around, play with them, and never “babysit”, because they don’t consider spending time with their own children a chore. Hubby was an equal caregiver when Tux was tiny, because I worked days and he worked nights. (Great for Tux, not so good for us!) By the time Musician came along, he worked days with me, but still contributed to the care of both children.

When Musician was born, we knew that I was going to have a C-Section, so Hubby just planned to cook for a few weeks. When it turned out that Musician was a bona fide mama’s boy, those weeks stretched out to nine months! It was so much easier for him to cook, he said, than to try to comfort the baby while I cooked.

After I started cooking again, I would prepare dinner on four nights a week, and Hubby would cover the other three. The one cooking also cleaned, so that on the nights that you were off kitchen duty, you were free and clear to do your own thing. It was a beautiful arrangement, and one that many friends were jealous of. (Get your own Hubby!)

There have also been many times that I was travelling for work and Hubby was left with the kids. Which is not so bad, except that he kept having odd situations arise in my absence. Our animals died. The cat went into heat and the kids wanted to know what was going on…they asked strange questions of him at the dinner table…(Musician asked him one night what an “O” was…he explained it plainly and smartly, but then called me and told me to GET HOME!)…and he handled it all with ease.

So much ease, in fact, that when I ran into complications with Todd, he was ready and able to handle the load. The weekend that I was transferred to the University Hospital three hours away, he had one of the busiest weekends of the year at work. The next five weeks, he would spend his week working and making sure that Tux and Musician had all that they needed in their lives, and then spend the weekend with me and Todd at the hospital. The driving back and forth was brutal, and left him little time for himself.

All during this, he was trying to make things easier on me. He would take care of little details that I just couldn’t bear to deal with…just managing health care for the baby and I was all that I could handle. There were so many times that he would ask me what we needed to do about something and I would give him that blank stare, completely overwhelmed by the information that I was being bombarded with. He would just take care of things, and I was so relieved. I couldn’t have done it without him.

In addition to the stress and strain of maintaining a home and family, tending to a recovering new mother and premature baby, his grandmother was gravely ill. He tried to stop and visit on his way back and forth from the Hospital, which added to his load. I have no idea how he survived all of that. His grandmother died the day that we got to bring Todd home. A bittersweet day for him.

We learned at that time that we were a team. We could handle anything, as long as we handled it together. We try to pick up where the other one lets off, and make up the difference. After 21 ½ years of marriage, we are more solid than ever. I adore him, and I love the life that we have together. I couldn‘t be more pleased with the children that he has given me, and how we have raised them. We have weathered so many storms together that I cannot even think of facing another without him.

It has been so with our latest struggle: my unemployment. Not only has it been hard to deal with my depression, the financial struggles, and the adjustment to being the sole breadwinner…but he has also had to deal with health issues of his own that he has bravely battled without complaint.

After all of these months, he has never expressed anger or disappointment in me. We have not taken it out on each other when things got tough. I think that is pretty darn remarkable.

And HE is pretty darn remarkable. Definitely a keeper!

Happy Father’s Day, my sweet!