Patience

There are points in every marriage when it's all you can do not to kill your spouse...I am fortunate that I have a kind and caring spouse, with whom I share the same values and beliefs, same sense of humour, and a mutual tolerance and respect for the interests that we don't share...we get along pretty well most of the time. Every once in awhile, however...

• 5 years ago he wrote an IOU in my birthday card...the week after he'd gone out and spent a ridiculous amount of money on computer junk that was still in the original packaging a year later...his rationale for it was that we were being paid in a few days and he would make good on it then. (I can hear the groans from the women from here, and I can see the puzzled expression of the men wondering what my point is...) His head did eventually grow back...and I was sent roses for Valentines Day (to the office) a few weeks later. He has never forgotten my birthday again.
• He arrived home after Boxing Day shopping this year (his favorite thing) with a big grin on his face. He first pushed a grind and brew coffeemaker into the house...and followed it up with a robot vacuum-the kind that is supposed to clean the floors for you. He told me the vacuum was to "help me keep the house clean." He was smart enough to give me the coffeemaker first... And the vacuum? I have named it Spot and refuse to find out how to use it. If he wants to "help me keep the house clean" he can operate it...
• And this week...he woke me first thing in the morning to tell me that he felt sick and that he'd seen blood in his stool. He's been having ongoing medical problems for the past year, and has had every test, scope, oscopy, xray and scan known to modern medicine and they have found nothing. After he insisted on a "show and tell" (before coffee...) I agreed that something looked off...so off he went to the ER for what turned out to be the day. Our daughter was turning 4 the next day, and she was going to be taking pink and purple cupcakes to pre-school the next morning, and that night we were having the grandparents. I spent the day getting the house ready, baking, icing and decorating cupcakes, fielding calls from my mom and his parents and his work colleagues and refusing to think the worst...When he arrived home, he announced that the red in the stool had not been blood...it had been too much red licorice.

Sometimes, you just have to walk away...and pour a very large glass of white wine.