Sacramental Perks

Having been married for, like, five whole minutes, (156 days, to be totally precise) I feel I am now entitled to express my expert opinion and let you know that I think marriage is really great. Really, really.

There are just so many perks and cool features.

One cool feature, for instance, would be the app that used to count down for our wedding day and has now been reliably counting up since we got married. That's how I know I've enjoyed 156 days of marital bliss. (Wait, did you actually think I counted? Dude, pregnant over here. As if.)

An example of the many perks would be the sacramental graces that get "floooooowin' down to you and meeeee." Personally I think my husband got a lot of very interesting ones. Most notably: the Grace of Inexhaustible Good Humor and the Grace of Never-Ending Gentle Patience.

They're not listed in the Bible or anything but I really think that those are A Thing. 

I mean, he has always had a fantastic sense of humor and been incredibly patient with me, but seriously, you should see this guy in action since his little wifey went all crazy-pregnant-lady a few months ago. 

I shall elaborate for you: last night, it was getting late, and decisions had to be made, so decisions started getting made.

1. I decided Peanut and I needed to go to sleep.

2. Alex decided he wasn't ready to go to sleep, and was going to watch a movie.

3. I decided I couldn't go to sleep if he wasn't in the same room as me. Peanut agreed with this conclusion.

4. We decided he would watch his movie on the laptop with headphones next to me while I went to sleep. Peanut was again satisfied with this conclusion.

(In case you're wondering who translates for Peanut, that would be me. Definitely me.)

All these things being agreed upon, we started getting settled. Per usual, he took way less time than I did. After all, Peanut and I have a lot of pillows to arrange. Things like that take time. After he had gotten comfortable, he asked with no small amount of amusement: 

"Are you building your pillow palace?"

Me, haughtily: "I'm just arranging them."

Alex, grinning: "Okay."

Alex turns back to his movie but is interrupted two seconds later by:

Me, shrill with anxiety: "You have That One Pillow!"

Alex, alarmed: "What pillow?!?"

Me, getting hysterical: "That One Pillow!! I have to have That One Pillow! The extra-firm pillow with the special pillowcase on it that your mom gave me! I NEED THAT ONE."

Alex, instantly: "I am SO sorry, I didn't know, here you go! Here's your pillow, honey."

Me, starting to feel bad but still super serious about That One Pillow: "Here, you can have this pillow. And this pillow. Just not That Pillow. I need That One."

Alex, totally calm and gentle, taking the other pillows: "Okay. Thank you, honey. Those are great."

Alex turns back to his movie but is interrupted two minutes later by:

Me, poking his shoulder.

Alex removes his headphones, and looks at me with concern.

"What's wrong?"

Me, aware that this is a ridiculous reason to interrupt a movie but somehow unable to stop myself from being consumed with concern over it: "Uhm, is it okay with you if I eat the dinner leftovers for breakfast, or did you want to have some tomorrow?"

Now, that is a dumb question. But I was convinced I had a good reason. It has happened in the past that he has asked about leftovers, which it turned out that I had already eaten for breakfast. He's always super kind about it, and I always feel bad anyway. "I should have asked, I should have asked," so this time, I thought, I would ask. If he wanted them OF COURSE I would not eat them first thing in the morning like the ravenous pregnant woman I wake up being.

Once I had poked his shoulder though, I thought, "Oh, shoot - this is so dumb. I hate being interrupted, and here I am interrupting him to ask about dumb leftovers..."

All kinds of things could have happened at this moment. The poor man's pillow had been snatched, his movie kept getting interrupted for silly reasons...he could have rolled his eyes or something, you know? Something sad could have happened.

He just smiled at me. This really great smile like there was nothing more perfect I could have done in that moment, or like he'd never imagined anything more wonderful than his crazy wife poking his shoulder during a movie to ask about leftovers.

"No, sweetheart. You can have them. Thank you for checking."

And suddenly, everything was okay. I smiled back, and fell right to sleep.

That's the amazing thing about my husband.

Not that he has an inexhaustible good humor and never-ending patience, which he does, and which are also amazing things, but that my husband helps me feel like I could actually be the kind of wife I really want to be. Not just the kind that gets hysterical over pillows and can't sleep because of leftovers or has a little anxiety attack over poking someone's shoulder or gets crushed by someone rolling their eyes when, really, my execution is pretty bad and I deserve an eye-roll but I did mean well...Don't get me wrong, I am well aware I am that kind of wife. But he doesn't just see me that way. He sees me as the kind of wife who, after all, does mean well. The kind of wife who wants to consider her husband first. The kind of wife who is trying. 

I am positive that's a sacramental grace because I'm positive that's how God sees us. He doesn't just see our little anxiety attacks and moments where we spazz out and moments where our execution is really, really pretty bad. He sees our efforts, and in seeing them, helps us be more next time. Marriage keeps teaching me that. It's definitely a perk of this wonderful sacrament.

As I said before, there's a lot of those perks: this morning I woke up right before the sun was rising. I was sitting in our bed when it rose, in my pillow palace with my sweet warm husband in our room surrounded by all the beautiful sacred art our friends and family have given us, with my hot honey tea and everything glowing in this incredible orange-gold light. I thought about that sweet smile this precious man had given me the night before and all I could think was, "This is beautiful, Lord. This is really, really beautiful."

Crumb Confusion (Or: A possibly frightening glimpse inside a Pregnant Brain)

There are crumbs in my bed. 

It's really annoying. I keep trying to figure out why there are crumbs. I suspect I have started looking like a psycho lady springing up at random moments swatting at random spots in the pile of white cotton fluff that decks my bed while shrieking, "WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?" 

I do not recall previously experiencing this phenomena. I was tempted to blame it on my husband (okay, I might actually have gone ahead and blamed it on my husband) because, hey, there were no crumbs before, and there was no husband before. Obviously. Husband. 

However, the husband WAS present a fairly good amount of time before the crumbs, so I suspected my deduction in this case to be...faulty.

I think I figured it out this morning, though. 

I woke up at 4:30 this morning...wait, I WAS AWAKE at 4:30 this morning, I don't know what time I woke up, I just know I was already awake when the alarm went off for my aforementioned, long-suffering husband. I felt positively ill. That is not an unusual occurence for the mornings in my recent experience. The tricky part is finding a solution to this Illness Which Does NOT Confine Itself to Mornings, HA. The trickiness of the solution lies in the fact that it varies based on the day/hour/current energy level/previous night's dinner/food sources available/possible surrounding smells, etc. This morning, part of the solution was to eat Triscuits. 

In bed.

You know what Triscuits have? 

Wait for it...

Crumbs.

Like, a lot, you guys.

I challenge you to eat an entire Triscuit. You can't. You really just can't, because Triscuits are so full of crumbs (as if they were, like, genetically engineered that way, in case that's a thing) you literally cannot get the entire thing in its entirety into your digestive system no matter how careful you are especially not if you are half asleep and possibly ill and around you there are SO MANY SMELLS OF ALL THE THINGS EVER and probably if you eat a Triscuit at 4:30AM or any other hour of o'dark'thirty or even during the day probably there will be crumbs around you in all the places ESPECIALLY...

In. My. bed.

I therefore conclude conclusively that there are crumbs in my bed because I've been eating in my sleep.

I really don't have much proof for that, since I don't actually remember it or have it on Candid Camera (creepy) or anything like that, but in all honesty it makes more sense than the husband theory.

I was going to write an amusing and helpful post about "Things Which Help You Not Be Sick If You Are Pregnant, At Least For Me They Work" but this Triscuit business distracted me, so...Priorities. 

Maybe later. 

If I remember.

Oooh, look! TRISCUITS.

I love Triscuits. Triscuits are Great. They are a Thing Which Help You Not Be Sick If You Are Pregnant, At Least For Me They Work, maybe they would for you. If you're pregnant. Which, maybe you are, I have like twelve pregnant friends right now who might be reading this. I have a list of those things. Things Which Help You Not Be Sick, not my twelve pregnant friends. I have a list of them too. I love lists. I should write a post about that sometime. The Not Sick Things, not the friends. Or the lists...or maybe the friends.

Maybe later.