Laughing

I have an extremely patient husband–about as laid back as they come, really.  Not too much rattles Chad.  I struck gold when I met him, and believe me, I know it.  Throughout our relationship he has always been a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.  This is an advantage for me as he has always been very tolerant of my quirks.  For example, he seems to just accept my obsessive need to sweep and mop the kitchen floor. . . several times a day.  He rarely says a word about some of the strange “rules” by which I live. . . rules like no ice cream before dinner.  Oh, and the way that I compulsively need to delete items from our
DVR. . . he just shakes his head and patiently waits until I hand the remote back to him. 

Seriously, few things really get to him.  Few things, that is, except my wedding rings.

Oh man, I am always losing them.  The only time I wear them is when I leave the house.  They are a little loose and the first thing I do when I walk into the house is slip them off my finger and put them, well, wherever they land.  The thing is. . . I just never remember where they land.  Countless times we have searched every corner of the house from the bedrooms to the bathrooms and from the kitchen to the living room in search of those two little rings that belong on my finger.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard him say, “You need to find a specific place for those so this doesn’t happen all the time.” 

I know I should. . . I just haven’t yet.

This morning I found myself in the same quandary before I left for work.  Where are my wedding rings? I thought to myself.  I knew I had seen them on the kitchen counter early in the morning, but when I checked they were nowhere to be found.  Chad was already gone and for a moment I wondered if he was trying to teach me a lesson and had taken them.  Then I remembered that I had seen them on the counter after he left for work.  Where are they? I picked up the laptop, my purse, the bag on the counter, my briefcase, the paper towel I had been using, and the mail that had been left from the weekend. 

Nothing. 

For a few minutes I was distracted by something and forgot about the missing rings.  I knew they would turn up–they always do.  Things like this seem to be happening at an increasing rate. 

Just last week there was a day when I spent well over a minute trying to figure out which hand my rings go on.  Seriously?  What is happening to my brain?!  I’ve talked about it before, but I continue to claim it–pregnancy brain.  And the further I move along in this pregnancy, the worse it seems to get.  And the worse it seems to get the greater the reality hits me–another child is going to join our family.  Without a doubt, I am excited about this.  I am looking forward to it even more than I am looking forward to the return of my brain.

In the meantime, I am soaking in these final weeks of just the four of us.  Enjoying what we are now before our family becomes something different.  Something new. 

I find myself allowing my gaze to linger just a little longer as I watch them interact with each other and interact with the world.  I watch the way that they play together–all three of them–and I wonder how it will change.  I know it’s inevitable–it will change, but right now its a thought that is kind of scary. . . so I don’t allow my mind to stay there for long.

Right now, I’m enjoying the present and finding myself laughing a little bit more.  Laughing at the way that Charlie has declared that “Oh my, I think I’m losing my brain” several times a day.  (Apparently, I’ve talked about this too much).

Laughing as Chanelle uses her most serious face while she creates the perfect outfits for her girls to go on their car ride to dance class.

And laughing at the silliness that is us.

Most of all, though ,I’m laughing at myself.  Not just because I do crazy things like forget which hand my wedding rings go on, but because I fear something that I know, deep down, is going to be a beautiful and wonderful change.  Yes, what we have now is a most precious thing. . .

But what we are about to have, I have no doubt, will be even better.

Oh, and my wedding rings?  I found them. . . they were on my finger.