A Tale of the Leftover-Keeper Man

The evidence

My former initials might have been LKM, but M is truly the one who deserves those initials... the Leftover-Keeper Man. I finally recognized this when I was showering the other day. I put a bar of soap on the soap tray, which is above my head. It slid straight off onto the floor. I couldn't figure it out until I stood on tip-toe and saw two tiny bars of soap on the tray. I'm not sure who M thought would use them up! I finally came to the conclusion that my husband is incapable of getting rid of things he thinks he MIGHT someday use (though he actually relies on me to use them, since he considers them useless).

Other instances:

- At one point, early in our marriage, M left FOUR bags of bread heels. Even now, the heels remain in the bags until I finally eat or toss them.

- We often have multiple bottles of Clean Shower in the shower... each will have about an ounce left. I consolidate them.

- I always reach for the spray starch and realize that all four canisters have one spray left in them.

- Six... SIX... tubes of mostly-used toothpaste in the vanity drawer. M's response to this is that he planned on squeezing the toothpaste from the bottom when he "had a day [he] didn't have anything else to do." Yeah, right. I used them up and tossed them out.

I have decided that there are two ways to look at this with regard to our marriage:

1) Even when I'm all old and used-up, M will still keep me.

2) Once I'm starting to get old and used-up, M will replace me with someone new, but keep me in the shed or under the bathroom sink.

I've decided that Option One is the best way to think of the situation.

Tip for success: Surround yourself with brilliant people

I'm so proud of my good friend Julie from grad school-- she was published in the Burnside Writers Collective! Julie is the gorgeous blonde you see above. She wrote a great article about The Christian Scholar in Academia. If you click on the link you can read it. Julie is a great Christian, a brilliant writer, a wonderful English 104 instructor, and is oh-so-funny! M and I both just love her. And to prove that she's incredibly cool... Julie attended a conference last summer in Ireland and presented a paper she'd written. I told you she was great! (And single... I'm always looking to set her up with a great guy... so if you know any... call me)

Fun with Feral Swine

I love my husband. Here's why: only he could talk to an 8-week old baby about feral swine, ticks, and fire ants and make the conversation seem sweet. Oh yeah... he can also add fun facts about the sleeping habits of Thomas Alva Edison and Albert Einstein and keep C completely enthralled.

Last night as I was getting dinner ready, I was thinking my own thoughts and half-listening to M and C's mostly one-sided conversation when an odd word caught my eye: ticks. Hmm. I listened in and realized that M was telling C about ticks and cattle fever. He explained to her that there aren't too many ticks in North Texas because of the fire ants. Apparently you only have one or the other around. C appeared intrigued and cooed a bit at M before breathing heavily into his face.

At this, M remarked upon her milk breath and how she was a little piggie about breastfeeding. This led into the feral swine discussion, and how feral swine are pigs, but perhaps not little piggies like C is. While I couldn't quite follow the logic of that distinction, I'm pretty sure C did. She believes everything her Daddy tells her (this will, unfortunately, likely not last into her teenage years). At this point, C decided she was more interested in the lamp behind her dad's head than in feral swine.

Thus, Thomas Edison entered the picture. M explained to C that Edison only got to sleep for 4 hours a night, while Einstein slept for 12. M's reasoning was that Einstein was so brilliant and worked so hard during the rest of the day that he was able to sleep 12 hours. Edison, on the other hand, had to keep working and working to invent the light bulb. [This is the part where I suggested that perhaps it would have benefitted Edison to get more sleep at night in order to be more productive, since it must have been hard to work the other 20 hours (particularly the darker hours) until he actually invented the silly light bulb.] I'm hoping that C picked up on the sleeping LONG hours instead of just 4. Otherwise, I'll be one tired lady for the next few months!

C is sleeping a lot better and usually gives me 5 uninterrupted hours of sleep before she needs to eat. I'm pretty sure she laughed yesterday, though I haven't gotten her to repeat this yet, and she's becoming so much more fun. The evening random shrieking is not so great (but she did stop last night when M was talking about pigs and inventors and bugs), but the daytimes are wonderful. She's alert and so cute and even takes naps in her "big girl bed," aka her crib, as opposed to the Pack 'n' Play she sleeps in at night. It's hard to believe she'll be 2 months old on Monday! We go to the doctor for her check-up on Tuesday, so I'll be able to see how much she's grown. She's definitely filling out with adorable baby fat and is decidedly longer-- I feel like her legs are getting longer each day! Every day I love her more and more. I never knew motherhood was this great. Wow.