The I Do's | Heir to Blair

This Week’s THING ON THE INTERNETS!

22 May posted by heirtoblair

The big discussion this week is whether or not you love your husband more than your kids, thanks to a recent survey where 75% of mothers said they love their children more than their husbands.

Geez, people. CAN’T OUR MOM BRAINS GET JUST ONE WEEK OFF?! First the hot chick on TIME breastfeeding her kid, now this. I feel like I’m about 2.5 seconds away from imploding from the sheer exhaustion of swirling around the media’s porcelian bowl. On the other hand, this topic totally sparks my interest because we’re in that stage right now where we’re molding our little family, deciding what works for us.

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I love Doug & Harrison in unique ways to what they bring to my life. I love them for the different people that they are. I love Doug for the strong partner he is & that’s not something Harrison can provide. But I love Harrison for softness he gives my life & that’s not something Doug can do for me. If there was a burning fire & I could only save one of them, I’d stand & sob that I couldn’t choose until Doug told me that he wants me to save Harry.

I’d do that because I know that’s what Doug would want, what I would want if it was Doug having to choose, but I wouldn’t be okay with it.

On the other hand, I put Doug first in our family & I hope that Harrison understands & respects that.

When Doug walks in the door, my goal is to greet him. When Doug needs to talk, I give Harrison an independent activity. If I’m serving up dinner, I serve Doug’s plate first. (Doug does the same for me.) I don’t always do it perfectly & I get distracted & sometimes Harrison is sick & demands my full attention. Little spurts of life happen, but I try to focus on the bigger picture of our relationships.

I remember as a little girl watching my parents do the same & it never filled me with resentment, but rather a peace knowing that no matter what happened, my parents would be there together. Their solid marriage was a comfort & coming home was a comfort.

For me, putting our marriage before children says “Hey babe, I know this is rough but I’m on your side.” Parenting is work. Marriage is work, hard work. So in the hustle & bustle of coming years, from more babies to new houses & soccer practices, I remind myself that it will all fade soon. My babies will grow & take on their own life adventures & their own families; once again, it will just be me & Doug.

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I don’t want to wonder in 20 years who I’m married to & whether he only liked me because I was the mother of his children. I don’t want to wish back these years of babies & cling to the past.

I want to look at him & say, “Holy cow. Look at this life we built together.”

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Filed Under: Adult Club, All about BA, Finding Balance, Life in General, The I Do's, Unpopular opinions

It’s even better than Hermione Granger’s time-turner.

16 May posted by heirtoblair

6023a8de919411e1abb01231381b65e3 7 300x300 Its even better than Hermione Grangers time turner. I wrote a post about how I missed Doug on the weeknights, how it felt like we were dating again & the only cool part about it is the “hey, I remember you!” sex every Friday night.

But it sounded whiney & frankly, that pissed me off because living apart 5 nights per week isn’t ideal, but it’s far from troublesome. Military spouses do far worse. & having a queen-sized bed to myself isn’t so bad.

Except when I roll over at 4am to find a two-year-old staring at me like the child of the corn & there’s nobody there to hold me while I scream. Because that totally happened the other night.

I wrote a post on Babble about how I completely freaked when I thought Harrison’s class was having a “Mother’s Day Tea” that I would have to miss due to work, but there’s a tiny piece in that article that speaks huge volumes:

THIS is the work-life balance that I fought so hard to get as a working mom – the ability to do my office job well, but have time to be the wife and momma my family deserves.

These days, we wake up at 7am & have breakfast together. I get Harrison dressed & out the door & I’m in my office at 9am. I’m not frantic or exhausted or stressed because I haven’t spent an hour in the car with a screaming toddler. I work, walk/run on my lunch break since my boss doesn’t mind me being sweaty the rest of the afternoon. I pull into the driveway at 5:30pm. No more bumper-to-bumper traffic with an exhuasted kiddo. No more 6:30pm arrival times with dinner & bathtime looming. Instead, we took a walk last night before dinner & it was lovely.

Which is why seeing “contingent” next to our house listing gives me happy tingles.

It’s like I got 3 hours back in my day.

p.s. why doesn’t doug stay with us? other than getting mail & keeping an eye on the house, he just does not sleep well at my parents house. doug sleeping well = i don’t sleep well. us not sleeping well together = cranky. cranky = me not a nice wife, not an efficient worker, not a patient momma. as hard as it is to be apart, this is the best solution overall.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, Life in General, Moving on up, The I Do's

Why You Should Know Who Christian Grey Is

19 Apr posted by heirtoblair

A few weeks ago, I heard this little whisper about some book called “Fifty Shades of Grey” & then saw an article calling it “mom porn” & I was all, Twitter! Should I read it? & the Twitters were like hellz yeah.

So I got my hands on a iBooks copy & settled down into Chapter 1.

An hour later, I woke up my husband for sex.

Since then I have finished all three books & perhaps coincidentally, Doug has taken to bringing me flowers & wine in the evenings.

fiftyshades Why You Should Know Who Christian Grey Is

The writing leaves a lot to be desired, there are blatant grammatical errors, & it feels a little wrong that this chick is making cash money off twisting Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight characters into literary porn stars. I felt incredibly naughty reading it & not in the naughty minx way but in the oh shit, I am so glad nobody can see me reading this. On the airplane the other day, I felt like whispering to the gal three rows in front that while everyone else on the plane thought she may have been reading a thriller mystery based on the black & white tie cover, I knew she was reading about some mealy-mouthed chick being tied to a table.

In short? OH. MY. ::fans self with tulips::

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Filed Under: BA is effing crazy, BA's a nerd, The I Do's

Moving back to the homestead.

18 Apr posted by heirtoblair

Starting Monday, I will be living at my parent’s house during the weekdays. My new job (so freaking excited & nervous!) is even further from our for-the-love-of-God-please-sell-already house, which means that Harrison & I would need to leave the house by 6:30am to begin a roughly 2-hour commute including daycare drop-off.

That ain’t happening. My sanity can’t take it & my Twitter stream cannot handle any more LOOK HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO GET HOME! that they had this past winter.

So to cut back the time by roughly an hour each way, Harrison & I will be living out of suitcases on work nights & then trudging back to our home for the weekends. Doug will be doing a 50/50 dance of checking on the house & staying with us. I’m not looking forward to being without my husband so much, but we know it’s temporary.

This is the room I’ll be staying in – one of the guest rooms that has zero of the personality it used to have with college banners & football trophies from when my brother lived in here. I’ll be moving in my desk & computer & I switched out one of the nightstands for a bookcase (I love having my books close). The Momma is clearing out space in the closet as I type. But I’m at a loss as to what to do…I’ll be here 5 nights out of the week without my husband for who knows how long & I am wondering if I should try to bring a little of “us” to this room. Bring pictures of our little family, use a bedspread from home.

I’ll need to remember to bring over Harry’s favorite bedtime books & toys for the evenings. I’ll need to leave a post-it note reminding Doug to water the garden every night. It’s going to be crazy-weird living under my parent’s roof again, except now I’m an adult & it’s so temporary. Hopefully our house will sell this spring so that we can put all this nasty commuting mess behind us for good.

But for now, I guess I’m moving back to the homestead.

Y’all.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, All about BA, Finding Balance, I share DNA with these folks, Life in General, Moving on up, Outsourcing Parenting Skills, Potential for Doocing, The I Do's, Things that aren't perfect despite my best efforts

On Dating my Husband

3 Apr posted by heirtoblair

datenight On Dating my Husband

It was a gorgeous spring night where the flowers bloomed. I slipped into a little black dress long-forgotten in my closet & curled my hair. Doug pulled a polo shirt over his head for the first time since…well, I can’t remember.

He tells me I look pretty & I smile.

Sometimes I forget how handsome he is.

Sometimes it takes breaking away from our house to remember how much he does for us & that load of dishes he took care of & how pretty our lawn looks thanks to his hard work.

I like watching him try new beers with dinner & he always teases me until I take a taste, too. It makes me feel 21 again at Corner Bar – that time when I told him that I could never marry a man that wouldn’t say prayers with my children & now he kneels beside Harry’s bed every night.

I forget how he drives with one hand on the steering wheel & one hand holding mine & I wonder if we’ll be like this in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years.

I forget that we’re more than Momma & Daddy, more than another load of laundry & a “for sale” sign in the front yard. That the day-to-day can wear us down but our marriage makes that routine feel magical.

But only if I let it.

If I remember the small things that I fell in love with, like the way he gets wrinkles beside his eyes when he smiles or how his idea of a perfect dessert is to swing through Krispy Kreme after an expensive dinner. If I roll down the windows & pretend for a moment that nothing in this world exists outside of us; we’re still the same ten years later but with a few more pounds & responsibilites.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, Finding Balance, Life in General, The I Do's