Latte for two

The evening was August 8th. I had [lazily] wrapped a baby micro fleece for Mr W. to open before we were to head out to celebrate our 2 year marriage anniversary. We were also celebrating Mr W's amazing work recently at his job. Lots to celebrate. I believe the baby news took up all the available space in our brains and we entirely forgot the other reasons until looong into dinner.

I was dressed up [for California's standards] and eagerly awaiting for Mr W. to get home.  I had no idea he also had a surprise waiting for me. Once home and dressed for a night out, we were both left sitting on the couch. Music was playing, I think it was Matthew Kearney.  I had decided to let the non literal cat out of the bag before we left for dinner. I had this bizarre day dream of telling Mr W. in the restaurant resulting in a loud-profound I'M SORRY DID YOU SAY YOU'RE PREGNANT!?l; thus interrupting all other's dinner around us. Mr W. would probably start sweating bullets. I wasn't expecting the dreamiest of ways this could go but I certainly felt I could avoid that specific day dream. So I decided it was time, Mr W kept checking his phone in an almost nervous twitchy way and I wasn't sure how long I had before we needed to leave.  

As calmly as I could muster I turned to my husband I've got an anniversary surprise for you. He grinned and waited on the couch while I retrieved what felt like a tick tick ticking bomb I'd stashed in the closet. -I actually started shaking.- Mr W. smiled and starting opening the bag actually exclaiming Oh, I think I know what this is!. Oh you Sir, have entirely no idea. He pulled out the teeny tiny micro fleece, then [because I didn't want him to doubt whom this gift was for] the positive pregnancy test toppled out the bottom of the bag. His eyes became so big. As you can imagine, the whole look down at the pregnancy test, look back to the fleece, gaze back at me tango happened for not as long as it seemed like before he actually spoke. My husband, speechless We're are having a baby? It was both a statement and a question the way he said it. I was already crying [the hormones already a very real thing]. I smiled and said Yes, I'm pregnant and you're going to be a daddy! Although, there was a lot more sniffling and mascara-catching in person. I honestly saw both excitement and fear momentarily race across Mr W's face. I think we said the same things back and forth to each other for another 8 minutes. Only this time, Mr W was doing an excellent job of only being as joy filled, happy and encouraging any wife could ever wish for when sharing this news.

Suddenly, Mr W hopped up and stated how he had a surprise for me, only now it was serving a different purposed. He walked me outside where he had arranged a car to take us to dinner. He explained he thought it responsible to have a car pick us up because in his words he had hoped we'd get tipsy over dinner and enjoy being driven home.  Now that I would not be partaking in the festive part of the festivities, it seemed silly but still a good way to celebrate. We talked the whole drive to dinner of the baby news.

Dinner was phenomenal. We threw caution to the wind and signed on for the 12 course tasting menu. Mr W. also partaking in the 12 course wine pairing. I partook in small tastes of all things bubbly, rationing that only 2 days ago [pretest] I had downed 2 beers over pizza with friends. As the wine pairings went on, Mr W. was more easily able to express himself about the news. Both sides of excitement and [forgive the french] Holy Shit You're Pregnant! were exchanged.

Dinner, which had started at 7pm, had stretched into dessert nearly at 1130. It was the perfect way to share in the news together. Delighting in the calmness on that night that we were the only two people who knew. A secret between us [and The Lord] and well, our waiter Michael; we let him in on the secret after I made a big production of not ordering a drink. I ended dessert with the best [decaf] latte I've had in a long while. 

A latte for two.

At 1130, we were more than thankful for a car waiting to pick us up -spoiled-.

cheers,

Mrs [Mama] W.

Positive.

We are going to be parents! [who's nervous?!]

Technically Mr W was the first to say that I was pregnant. I vividly remember meeting him at work for lunch on a random weekday afternoon. It was towards the end of July. Mr W had traveled most of June/July so we were spending an unusual amount of time together making up for the month apart. Sitting down to lunch across from him I mentioned feeling like a sloth because I had felt sick. I thought NOTHING of this statement. Mr W looked up from his plate and met me square in the eye, asking in a whisper and a glint in his smile "are you pregnant?". I hardly paused and replied with "no way, just a headache that made me sick". We continued on with lunch and our lives for another 10 days.

Time for discernment. Girl talk ahead.

Then on August 8 instead of pouring over books and blogs with my coffee I was pouring over a positive pregnancy test. Rewind, I had felt prompted by a weird dream early that morning. I was compelled to confirm it with an at home pregnancy test. Pee hadn't yet breathed upon that test before a positive plus sign appeared. I immediately thought it was a false positive and took another brand of test. I've always been a fan of repeatable results.

Upon seeing a second plus sign, I instantly smiled and began jumping around our apartment.  [sidebar] Growing up with dogs whenever something exciting in life happened I'd jump around all crazy like to get them excited too [end]. Forgetting our cats run and hide over too much excitement, I did two laps around our place jumping, grinning and practically shrieking.

Then in what I can only assume was the beginning of my pregnancy induced emotions; I cried. I cried because as much as the plus sign(s) were confirmation, it totally wasn't. I have many friends/family/acquaintances who have experienced miscarriage and my female heart was immediately afraid. I thought over and over Lord, protect my heart.  Its not that we were exactly expecting to be expecting at this point in marriage but I have been so looking forward to the day I became a mom.  A contributing factor for Mr W taking his new job last year was better pay/benefits to allow me to stop working full time sooner.  This was all in preparation for one day when I would be raising our children at home. Realizing NOW was God's timing for all this was very overwhelming.

So, I promptly dried my tears and went off to run errands; stopping extra long to graze over the infant onesies at Costco -they all have animal-ear hoodies! My last stop was to the Patagonia store where luckily they were having a sale. I picked up the most not-needed baby thing I could buy, a 12m baby micro fleece.

Mr W and I ironically had special dinner plans for that night and I had the perfect way to share the news. Although, technically, he had already discerned that I was pregnant and I totally did not even entertain the notion.

Until later,
mama and daddy Dubyah to-be

Personal Life Slacking

Mr W and I have this phrase personal life slacking. It very much means exactly what it says. We are slacking on our personal lives.

Now I don't mean slacking on our relationship, although our goal of bi-monthly dates sometimes looks like devouring a season of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix [in preparation for the final season starting this Sept!] while I make homemade pizza. I mean we are slacking on the [gestures hands] general area of social life outside of work life.

In risk of sounding melodramatic, if we're not at work, we seem to be recovering from work.  I realize I must be very careful to talk about this because both Josh and I think we have been blessed with slightly greater than average awesome jobs. I wont go into specifics other than a sampling of evidence..

As you can see there are plenty of reasons to spend extra time at work. And if Mr W and I were both single instead of married, it'd probably be a huge perk to us. However, we are awesomely married to each other and don't appreciate repetitive evenings spent at home, alone without our companion when we work at companies located in our neighborhood.  Thank The Lord for short commutes!

California Silicon Valley is so weird in a way in that work appears so awesome that we feel ready to give it all of ourselves. I'm not being melodramatic here, neither of us can recall a big-person job we honestly looked forward to almost every day. If we said so previously, it was because we had yet to be enlightened. 

Our jobs can tempt us pretty hard to spend just a little extra time at work instead of home.  There is a huge problem with this though, we give our best selves to our coworkers instead of to each other. Some days [trying to make this less often but I still totally fail] I am completely spent from having used up all of my social-ness on people at the gym.  On those days I can't listen to Mr W. tell me about his work, successes and anxieties. That is when my patience is drier than the Mojave desert and I'm totally not giving him the fresh-and-able-to-listen-and-respond-wife that I am called to be. Now this doesn't mean Mr W. is a saint; he has his days too but I am not about airing his dirty laundry.  However, mine is fair game.

So I've cut back on my hours at the gym, though I do love what working there does for my inner-child extrovert self. Mr W. has made our [mini] vacations a priority on his calendar. Some morning coffees he spends with me instead of pouring over his inbox. We set two alarms for church on Sundays because we STRUGGLE to get going on the weekends. No plans get made for Sunday afternoon so we can freely chat over lunch. I have made more friends with wifes of Mr W's co-worker's. Mr W and I make time each week for each other that is non-negotiable. However, on the occasion that a once in a lifetime opportunity comes up [funny these come up way more often since we moved out of the Midwest] I totally encourage Mr W to prioritize for it. Usually it means way more hours away from me and our home but I know this is temporary.  Notice I said prioritize, which means we try to ascribe to the whole emotional bank account. Meaning deposit before you over withdraw. Took us a lot of IOU's to figure out we didn't yet truly understand that system.

Living in California has completely strengthened our marriage because it's thrown so many 'nice things' at it that sometimes it feels too easy to be distracted by something new and shiny. But --we've also got a loooooot of work ahead of us!

slack no more

-Mrs W