Category Archives: Husband.

NOLA.

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I’m happy to report that I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth. Hooray! Right?

RIGHT?!?!?!

I’m currently having a very restful (code for “kid-free”) vacation with Robbie. This time of year is so insane, it’s kind of ironic (code for “stupid”) that we decided to take some time away NOW, but fairly often we do things that don’t make sense. Like go to a 3-hour-long timeshare presentation in exchange for $75 in Bass Pro Shop gift cards. Or stay at an inn that Marie Laveau used to reside in.

New Orleans is normally not my favorite place to visit because it typically smells gross and is hot as hell, but New Orleans in December is magical. I’m not just saying that because we are kid-free … although now that I think about it, perhaps that has skewed my world view a bit.

1653523_10155169491075508_4748471109472420477_nThere are Santas and violinists on every corner, with the same festive air that is normally found here, just more so. Everyone is merry. It’s nice.

On an unrelated note, I have eye crinkles. I worked very hard to get them, so I’m working very hard to not freak out. This has brought on a lot of deep breath-taking and repeating of phrases like “This is normal, I AM NORMAL,” and “35 is not THAT old.”

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Hold me. I’m terrified.

It’s Tuesday.

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My husband and I crawled into bed last night like a couple of geriatrics. I’m so sore, I groaned. Me too, he whined. My shins are killing me.

I knew I was sore from a tough exercise class, but what was HE sore from?

Bowling. That’s what. And this is how I looked at him.

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I tried to stop the nagging from happening, I really did. But as I laid there in bed thinking about his sore shins, I had a sudden flash-forward of what life will look like when I’m 64 and he is 62, and … it scared the crap out of me.

I jerked my earplugs out and I began to tell him all the reasons why he needs to exercise. I’m sure he was riveted by my tirade, which is why he didn’t respond. Finally, I demanded to know WHY HE REFUSES TO EXERCISE. That is when Robbie Hobbs made the following speech:

“I don’t exercise because it makes me miserable.

It does not make me feel ‘elated.’

It does not make me feel ‘happy.’

All of the things it makes you? It does the opposite for me.

It makes me feel tired, hungry, and sore.

It makes me miserable. THAT IS WHY I DON’T DO IT.”

I explained my fear that a motorized shopping cart is in his future, something I know I am not equipped to handle (because my bedside manner sucks), and he said not to worry because I’m going to end up with Alzheimer’s and I won’t have a clue what’s going on anyway.

And so I put my earplugs back in, and silently worried about that instead.

9 Years.

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Here is what a 9-year wedding anniversary for a couple with three children under the age of 6 looks like:

We won’t get each other gifts because our gift is going to see a movie in an actual movie theater tonight after we eat dinner with our kids and put most of them to bed.

We can’t recall the last movie we saw outside of our living room.

I bought him a card today, the day of our anniversary. I had two small kids with me. One was destroying the card aisle while the other one screeched from the cart. I grabbed the first thing that didn’t look lame and jetted out of there.

The envelope and card are both rumpled.

I asked Robbie last night, “Did you set your alarm?” Thinking to myself that I could make a special breakfast for us to eat. “Yeah, I set it,” he said. WRONG. We overslept by an hour and he barely had time to throw on clothes and brush his teeth before grabbing me in a bear hug and wishing me a happy anniversary. So romantic.

Our children are unimpressed by the fact that our love is the same age as a third-grader.

None of this matters, because I have had 9 years with this man experiencing his selfless love. Oh, he’s an ass. But he loves me so much that he always puts my happiness first, which makes me wants to put his happiness first, and on and on it goes in a sickeningly sweet circle that just keeps growing like a rubber band ball.

Happy anniversary, Robbie Hobbs. I knew when I married you that my life would never be boring.

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The Ass-Saint.

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Sometimes I think my husband is an ass.

Sometimes I think my husband is a saint.

In reality, he’s somewhere in the middle; an Ass-Saint, just like me. Sometimes I look at him and I wonder how I got so lucky. Other times I want nothing more than to dump a box of dry cereal on his head and scream “HERE’S YOUR DINNER, MOTHER F-ER!” Do you think I’m a bad person or a bad wife because I am willing to admit that out loud? If so, then maybe you’re not so much an Ass-Saint … maybe you’re a Saint-Saint. And if that is the case, you have no business reading my blog.

Our 9-year wedding anniversary is next week and we haven’t even discussed it. I remember a time when I planned things way in advance — I would have selected a gift and a card and a special outfit for the occasion by now.

That particular season is now a memory. This season is chaotic, leaving little time for me to file my fingernails or think coherently, let alone plan ahead. I miss planning ahead. It’s one of my strong points.

Right now we are two Ass-Saints working together to raise our three children so that that they will not turn out to be Ass-Asses. And no matter what my husband may say or do that rubs me the wrong way, when I see a scene like this one, all is immediately forgiven.

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We Do Not Own A Bar.

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Yesterday afternoon Robbie texted me something called “23 Brunch Recipes To Knock Your Socks Off.” He asked me two different times if I’d had a chance to look at it, and I just shrugged him off.

This morning he mentioned it again and, fueled by my coffee, I proceeded to explain that NO, I had not looked at it, because why should I go to all the trouble of making Nutella and Bacon-Stuffed French Toast? The kids never eat anything I cook, and half of the time you don’t either because YOU ARE SO DAMN PICKY and I have never in my life experienced a grown man who wrinkles his nose at nuts in banana bread.

Once I got going, I couldn’t stop. I ranted on and on about how at the beginning of our marriage I was so gung-ho about cooking for my husband and while I tried to work around his absurd pickiness it seemed like I always fell short — the man much preferred McDonald’s over whatever I cooked at home. Sometimes I make things that aren’t fantastic, obviously, but most of the time everyone else eats it so it can’t be that bad. One Christmas I made, from scratch, a huge chocolate cake from a Southern Living recipe and brought it to our family gathering. Robbie was the only one who didn’t even want to taste it. I recall my grandpa being aghast. I just shrugged and said “He’s picky,” but really and truly, it hurt my feelings.

I don’t know why I chose this particular situation to air my frustrations over almost 9 years of trying to feed a man who won’t eat anything that doesn’t come from a box. But I did. And even as it was happening I thought, I need to shut up. But I didn’t.

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A few hours later I chatted with one of my gym friends after our class. Her three children are grown now, and one is dating a boy she really likes. “I don’t want to get too attached to him,” she said. I nodded in understanding before telling her my mom tried hard not to get attached to my boyfriends after I had a really bad breakup. But then I went on to say that when she met Robbie, she really liked him even though my dad couldn’t STAND HIM for at least the first year.

She laughed and asked me why. Oh … let’s see. Probably because the first time he met my parents was when they popped in at my apartment at 7 a.m. to hang blinds and I was like, “Oh, hi, you were supposed to call first. Mama, Daddy, meet Robbie.” And once it became apparent that he was sticking around for awhile, they took us to dinner and my father asked him “What do you want to do with your life?” And he answered, “I’d like to own a bar.”

But here we are, 9 years and 3 kids later and still married. Robbie and my dad work together now. We do not own a bar. My friend cracked up before saying to me: “Love your husband. Love your kids. You’re doing something right — you just keep doing it. ”

So Robbie, I’ll keep trying to cook for you if you agree to keep trying to eat it. But I draw the line at Pancake Fried Sausage Patties.

Gorilla Glue.

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I asked Robbie to screw down this hutch thing down that sits precariously atop of Maverick’s desk because it was a major hazard. My kids don’t have a great track record with furniture, and every time the baby went in there, I had visions of it toppling onto her.

Yesterday he was completing his “list” and crossed that item off. But I didn’t see where it was screwed together, so I asked him about it.

“I super glued it,” he said.

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Oh. Okay.

F##K THAT.

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If you are easily offended by adult language, stop reading now because I’m going to say fuck.

I don’t use the F-word aloud very often because it’s unladylike and I wasn’t raised that way. When I was pregnant with my firstborn I told Robbie that I was worried he would say bad words around our kids on accident, and asked him could he please work on his language? Little did I know I would one day be a stay-at-home mom to three children and find myself fighting back F-bombs on the daily. Sometimes, no other word will do. Ah … irony. We meet again.

Sometimes people who have never met me feel like they know me because they read my blog or my articles online, and expect me to be a certain way. Then we meet, and they’re like “Oh.” I’m not that funny, angry, or even smart in person. I’m a calm, mild-mannered Southern girl who has to tamp down her emotions while she’s parenting, and all of that energy has to go somewhere. So I write it out. If I felt like it was acceptable to verbalize my every feeling, such as telling my kids “I hate meal times in this house,” or, “You are annoying the shit out of me right now,” I might not have as much angst to channel through my writing.

Robbie’s last day in the car business was Thursday. He started out as a car salesman at a dealership in Birmingham, AL when Maverick was small, and I was still working at State Farm. I got pregnant with Asher and continued working full-time until he was born. Then, all of the sudden, I was a stay-at-home mom to a three-year-old and a very colicky newborn with a husband that worked 12-hour days. It. Was. Hell.

I remember tearfully telling him I couldn’t go on like this, and he agreed that we needed more help. We moved back to Baton Rouge, our hometown, and he got a job as a salesman at a huge dealership.

He quickly got a reputation as someone who could SELL. I got pregnant with Penelope when Asher was 12 months old, and all the while Robbie was working every holiday (except Christmas and Thanksgiving), every Saturday, and 12-hour days minimum. Pepper was born in June 2013, and Robbie was promoted the next day to Finance Manager. He continued working like he’d been, and I kept on doing what I’d been doing. We were surviving. We were making it work. But it was insanity.

I was grateful to be home with the kids, so I didn’t want to complain … but it was so hard. I kept telling myself it was a season, and all seasons eventually come to an end, right?

And suddenly, it did.

Robbie is now working at the business my grandpa started in 1950, and I don’t think it’s actually hit me yet that he will be home for dinner tonight. We have this entire weekend free! Two consecutive days! This is all new to us.

Here’s what he looked like last night when he got home from his last day. I thought he’d look happier, but I think he was too tired to put effort into it.

20140731_183212-1Yesterday morning before he left for his last day of work at the dealership, he said, “This is weird, it’s my last day and I’m not sure how I should feel.”

I stopped in my tracks and said, “I’LL TELL YOU HOW I FEEL. I feel like I could walk in there with you and do this.”

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A job is a job and I’m grateful that we somehow made it through that impossible few years, but parenting alone all the time? What we’ve been doing?! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THAT.

Carry on.