This is why I married a foreigner

Hubster, Babylicious and I were sitting at a table in the Chinese Food Restaurant, as we often do, having a lovely conversation about winning the lottery the economy. As per my usual, I have a glass of water with my meal. Hubster is drinking a coke, and babylicious is gnawing on the end of what used to be the straw to his milk.

We’re having a grand ol’ time, when, for just a second, I glance away to ponder my next trip to the buffet. As I turn back to voice my need for another egg roll, I notice my glass of water is missing. I look to babylicious, the usual suspect when something is amiss. No empty glass. No ice in his lap. No grin that usually accompanies his mischevious ways.

I then turn to Hubster. He has his right hand immersed in my drinking water.

blink. blink blink blink. blink.

I watch in astonishment as he removes his right hand and replaces it with his left. Upon completion of this act he wipes his hands on a napkin, finally looking up at my face.

“What?” he says innocently. I just stare.

“Are you washing your hands in my drinking water?” I ask.

“Yes. Could you ask for lemon next time. My hands still smell like pork”. He states, as if he didn’t just take my glass of water from in front of me and put his hands in it.

“Seriously, did you just take MY drinking water from in front of me and use it to wash your hands?” I say, quite loudly.

He laughed. Babylicious laughed. I couldn’t help but break out into a smile. Really, what harm was done? All I had to do was ask for a second glass of water, but this whole encounter had me thinking about the differences between his culture and the American culture. In his culture they usually have a bowl of water with lemon in it to rinse their hands after a meal. Here in America, we use wet naps. Or we lick our fingers (which, on a side note, I am in the process of teaching Babylicious).

Hubster continued to giggle, and I said “What would your mother think?”

Later that evening we were skyping the in-laws across the ocean and I was telling them what happened at the restaurant, including that Hubster was drinking a coke instead of water.

And do you know what his mother said?

“Well, if you wash your hands in coke they will get sticky”. Because she doesn’t speak English I have no idea if she was kidding or not.

Awesome.

At least I know from where Hubster gets his mannerisms.

Dear Law School…

Blow Me…

Seriously, I have been unbelievably busy the past few weeks. I had a paper due, a few estate planning documents to finish, and a presentation. It doesn’t seem like much after I see it in writing, but good lord, it certainly took a long time to complete. Not to mention, I still have a child and husband who need attention occasionally.

Oh, and to put it a little mildly, I loathe public speaking. I know, I KNOW!! You’re thinking “How in the world are you going to be an attorney if you don’t like speaking in front of people”, because, let’s be honest, that is all attorneys do. And this is what I have to say about that: a very high percentage of attorneys have some sort of substance abuse. I feel sure I will fall into that category at some point or another, either with Prozac (of course you can abuse prozac. It’s prescription isn’t it) or alchohol, and I’m hoping it’s the former rather than the latter, as I don’t think Prozac is as hard on the liver as Malibu Rum. Seriously, the hours leading up to my presentation were some of the worst this semester. Next semester is going to be even WORSE because I’m taking a class that requires speaking almost EVERY SINGLE CLASS SESSION! Kill me now. Please.

But, I do have a little bit of breathing room until the first week of November. I have a big test to take the first Saturday in November, and then a big final paper due at the end of November.

Anyhoo…

Some big decisions have been made between Hubster and me in reference to future plans. It’s going to be a busy year.

What’s Babylicious been up to?

I’ve never done those monthly updates on the life of Babylicious. I tried, once, on one of my previous blogs, but got sidetracked after school started back up, and I’m pretty sure I only got to month 4 or 5. However, he seems to be picking up something new every single day, so I decided I should document some of those milestones (seriously, they’re milestones. They should be found in child development books.)

At 17 months and 5 days, your child should:

• Understand most of what you say (even if he can’t repeat everything) including: “Take this to Ati/Mami”, “Let’s go take a bath”, “Are you ready for a nap?”, “Will you find me a ball?”, “Can you please pour Mami another glass of wine”.
• Upon hearing that it’s nap time, run to his room and begin climbing on the chair next to the crib to get just a tiny bit closer to the wonder that is Monkey and Eeyore, before Mami even has the ability to change diaper or clothes.
• Upon hearing it’s bath-time, run to bathroom, immediately lean as far over the tub as humanly possible while still maintaning contact with the floor, and attempt to turn the water on.
• When prompted to do so, lean forward to give kisses. If it so happens that the forhead is what hits the mouth, then so be it.
• After waking up from bed-time/nap-time immediately runs to the noisemaker and tries to turn it off (mami helps if need be), then does a 180 and turns off the heater.
• Says the words “Bye, Ball, Hot, Blue, Duck”, and seems to know what they mean.
• Mimicks sounds from mami and ati, including but not limited to that sound that you make at the back of your throat when you are trying to clear something, as well as screams (happy screams, obviously) and squeels.
• While playing with trucks/cars/or any other toy meant as a vehicle (his chair, the mami duck, etc) he makes the truck noise with his tongue as he moves said toy across the floor.
• Upon hearing a train whistle (this may seem odd to most. You may be thinking “How often does he hear a train whistle?” But believe me when I say, it’s quite a lot) he runs into mami and ati’s bedroom to look at the tracks while the train goes by. (He can see it clearly, as we live only about 30 feet from the train tracks. Yeah, that’s a story for another post).
• Can get almost all 9 shapes (well, 7 since we lost two of the shaped blocks) into his shape cube.
• Is actually interested in looking at books. In addition, he likes to take mami’s hand and point to things with it, while mami recites the name of the picture.
• Can run, walk (but not yet skip), and adores jumping in puddles.
• Enjoys helping with laundry. Will attempt to close dryer door after every.single.sock he places into the dryer, all the while Mami is saying “We’re not done yet, here’s another sock to put in”. Also, loves to put the dirty clothes in the washer, but can barely reach the top so usually just tosses the article of clothing up, hoping it falls into the giant opening.
• Eats yogurt, cottage cheese, and macaroni beautifully with his own utensils. Still has problems with most foods.
• Refuses to eat most vegetables, fruits, meats, or anything that has a weird consistency or temperature.
• Loves crackers, yogurt, jarred veggies (I know, we’re going to work on that soon) cottage cheese, macaroni and cheese, soups, and grits.
• Officially weaned from the pacifier.

I know there’s more, and perhaps I will add to the list as I see things happening, but for now I think this gives a fairly good idea on where he is.

I just love him. Dearly.

Two years of wedded bliss…

Today is Hubster’s and my two year anniversary. Two years. You know what’s funny about that? We haven’t even known each other for three years, and we’ve already been married for two years. ALSO, babylicious is 17 months old, and we’ve only been married for two years. You do the math… 🙂

Generally speaking I adore being married, and Hubster and I have a lot of fun together with Babylicious. I’m not saying it’s all peaches and cream, as we most definitely have our rough days (coincidentally, our last rough day was this past Thursday, the day before we left for our anniversary weekend. But that’s a story for later), but for the most part we work well together. We are both madly in love with Babylicious and each other, and we try to work through most of our issues.

(side note: Does anyone else think that ALL couples could benefit from couples counceling counseling*? I’ve mentioned to Hubster that we should go to counseling while things are wonderful, because most couples wait until it’s gotten bad before considering counseling. Have you ever noticed that. It’s only when the wife/husband can no longer stand the site sight**/voice of her/his significant other that couples counseling is even put on the table. Why is that? Why even let it get that bad? Is it because most couples don’t think they need it until things are unbearable? I think that’s Hubster’s opinion, as he tends to laugh it off whenever I suggest it. But I’d really like to start with Hubster, because we DO have our issues, and I seriously think we could benefit from a counselor to help us talk through said issues.)

Anyhoo.

Two years ago today Hubster and I drove the hour to Pikeville Kentucky (That’s right. I was married in Kentucky. Don’t judge me) where two days prior we’d filled out our application for a marriage license (on which we were asked our kinship to each other. We had a nice chuckle about that). On a cool Thursday afternoon, after my classes were complete, we picked up our license and headed to the judges chambers in the Pike County Courthouse. However, the judge we had chosen to marry us was unavailable at the time, so we were sent by his secretary to the Family Court Judge’s chambers, located just across the street at the, get this, BB&T bank.

No Joke. We were married at the bank. To the credit of the Family Court, however, the courtroom was located on the top floor of the bank building (which is a spectacle in itself) quite far from any sort of banking business. It was just like a regular court that just happened to be located in the bank building.

We met the judge who would marry us, who was a very nice older gentleman. We were taken into the empty courtroom. It was just Hubster, the Judge, myself, and our two witnesses (the Judge’s secretary and an officer of the court. We recited our vows, exchanged rings, and then had our first kiss as a married couple. It was perfect. It was exactly what I wanted.

After we became legally bound, we walked around Pikeville and had lunch at a cute place called Sandy’s. The sun was shining and because it was still early October the temperature was past the scorching heat of September, but not too cold. It was just right.

The only thing I regret about the day is that we didn’t get anyone to take our picture together. We had a camera but for some reason we only have pictures of us taken seperately. I think we were just so deliriously happy, that we just didn’t think about taking our pictures. I guess that’s one plus of actually having a big ceremony with lots of people and flowers and such. You actually PAY someone to take all those pictures so you don’t have to think about it.

My wedding day was absolutely perfect. It’s not exactly how I pictured it would be, but I knew it’s what I wanted as we were living it.  I know there are some people who wouldn’t understand how I could possibly love having eloped and being alone on our wedding day, but for Hubster and me, it worked out beautifully. I know having a bigger ceremony would have allowed for family and friends to witness our marriage, but if you understood the history I have with my family, you would understand why it’s better that they weren’t all there. With a big celebration comes the obligation to invite all those family members who you loathe, but recieve an invitation strictly for the reason that they are “family”. That is certainly not what I wanted AT ALL.

I do wish that my mom, sister, and grandmother could have attended, and I know had I given notice chances are they would have come, but in a way, I really like that it was just Hubster and me. We were begining our lives together. We now lead a very simple life together with babyliciou, and it seems only fitting that we had a very simple wedding to begin the journey.

*Special thanks to my editor Aunt J. She’s an art teacher, and apparently a spelling and grammar fascist.

**See above.

Random ramblings…

1. Mi Madre is here!!! It is such a breath of fresh air to see her. I’ve told some of my friends that my mom is coming for a week, and their response is “Oh, really?”, as if it is a bad thing. And I always have to clarify with “Oh, no, it’s fantastic. I love having her around”, because, you see, I truly do.

2. Hubster said another sweet thing to me today. He said that if I were to ever die he’d have to commit suicide because he would be too lonely to continue on without me. I know it’s kind of morbid, but still sweet.

3. We got Babylicious’s halloween costume (Courtesy of Aunt J)(Shout out to Aunt J)(Actually, this whole blog is a shout out to Aunt J, since she’s likely the only one reading this, other than mi madre). Anyhoo, the costume is a pumpkin, which is what I wanted him to be last year, but he was much too tiny to go trick or treating last year. We broke the costume out last night and took some early pictures, and oh.my.god he is so PRECIOUS!!!! Probably the cutest 17 month old pumpkin I’ve ever seen. No. Really. There will be pictures at the beginning of next month.

4. I’m contemplating a tattoo. I know, I KNOW, this coming from the girl who has two tattoos and loathes one of them to the point of wanting to get it removed. But one reason I truly dislike both of my tattoos is that they don’t MEAN anything.  I was the 18 year old who walked into a tattoo parlor, looked at the pictures on the wall, and chose a tribal design to have done. And it was an UGLY tribal design. I love WHERE I have it (on the top of my foot), but if I have to go one more day looking at it, I may cut off my own foot (regardless of the fact that I just bought 5 new pairs of clarks). Anyhoo, I swore I would never get another tattoo until the one on my foot was dealt with. However, the sister (another shout out to AUNT JIZZLE IN THE HIZZLE!!!) is a horrible influence, and has been telling me that she wants more tattoos. She goes so far as to send me sketches of what she has planned (I know, right? Including me in her plans. The audacity). But whenever she mentions tattoos I start to twitch. And see, the thing is, I totally have a reason to get a tattoo now. I have a son. My newest tattoo could actually MEAN something. I’ll have to mull it over a bit more before taking the dive, but I want to get rid of the one on my foot, and right now that is looking more like having it converted to a giant shamrock (I love Ireland and anything Irish, but that is a story for another post) because the laser is incredibly expensive, painful, and not guaranteed to actually work. So… yeah… we’ll see…

5. My anniversary is coming up next weekend. It will be two years. I feel like it was just yesterday. Hubster and I are going away for the weekend while mi madre is staying with Babylicious. I’m really looking forward to it, as Hubster and I always have a blast when we are able to relax and spend time with each other.

I think I’m done for now.

Toodles.