Several weeks ago Emily wrote a post titled
"Lucky Wife" about what a swell guy I am. I remembered her post when
we were in the Bountiful temple in a sealing session last week, and saw that
her coral-colored fingernail polish was past its prime, for lack of a better
expression.
"Well," I thought, "There had
better be a good explanation for her nails not being perfectly polished, and
for all the food and spilt milk on the dining room floor (which I partially
blame the cat for since he habitually misses spots in his attempt to lick it up
after Scarlett spills her bowl of cereal almost every single morning), and why
there's still a load of clothes in
the dryer, and why the weeds are overtaking our parking strip, and why the
little screws in the outlet covers haven't all been turned so the slot in the
screw is parallel with the floor – a suggestion Martha Stewart made years ago
to increase the harmony in our home."
Well, there was a good explanation. Three of
them. Jack, Scarlett, and Tommy.
Somewhere between Emily's trips to the grocery
store, the bank, the doctors' office, scouts, the children's museum,
breastfeeding (maybe TMI), preschool, nap time for three children with Tommy
still taking multiple naps daily, snack time, swimming lessons, lunch time,
another snack time, monitoring Jack's computer usage, the dentist, filling out,
scanning, emailing, faxing, mailing, and filing forms for foster care, and
getting up several times every night to tend to Tommy who will never even be
able to remember things like night feedings or diaper changes or whether or not
he got "tummy-time" to strengthen his neck muscles – and who will
probably never specifically say thank you for any of those things – there's
simply no time to keep up on things like…herself.
No time to braid her hair in one of the 28,013 styles
that can be found on Pinterest. No time to paint her nails four different
shades of pink in a beautiful gradation of stunning hues. No time to make sure
her makeup is perfect, or that she actually gets to finish eating an entire
meal, or make an uninterrupted phone call, or even go to the bathroom without
some miniature intruder storming in complaining about something
life-threatening like dry play-doh.
I suppose somewhere out there, there's a guy
whose wife has her nails always polished, and her hair always braided, and the
house always clean, and the car always vacuumed, and a hot meal on the table
when he walks in after what he'll stupidly call a hard day at work.
But he's not the lucky husband, because he's nothing like me – and
I'm the lucky husband.
