Eleven Years

Eleven years ago yesterday, my husband and I were married. Yes, I’m a day late posting about my anniversary. Our 11th anniversary and the surrounding days were just as crazy as the year we got married.

In 2000, we had one car. We were both working 50-60 hour work weeks. A lot of our quality time spent together was in the car driving each other to and from work. That’s if you don’t count sleeping together. No, really, just sleeping. We were exhausted. I mostly worked days. I was working at the retail mall, so a lot of 9am-9pm shifts that summer. My husband worked 2nd shift, so 3:30pm-midnight. Sometimes 2am when they started working overtime. I hope those of you who buy Lenox appreciate the Christmas stuff because the people in the warehouse where my husband was working were really working hard to get product out.

Sidenote: This is why you’re seeing Christmas product in stores earlier and earlier. If they have room for it, they can put it out because it’s been sitting in their warehouses since summer-ish.

We decided to get married one day. We got wedding bands, and a marriage license, and planned a honeymoon in about three weeks. We planned it for Labor Day weekend because that’s when my husband (to be at the time) could get off work. His job paid more, and frankly, my job could suck it. I got a lot of crap, so I told my boss, “Don’t bother putting me on the schedule after that weekend.” I guess Labor Day is some major holiday shopping. It’s not like I was asking for Black Friday or the day after Christmas.

And here we are eleven years later. We have one car. My husband spent our anniversary at work. I spent it making sure our 10yo got on the school bus, then I took my husband to work 30min in one direction, came back this way, and then drove another 30min in the other direction to take our 4yo to an ENT (ear, nose, throat) appointment, then took him to school, then came home. Once the boys got home from school on their respective transportation, we had to go get my husband, but not without first circumventing an incident on I-81, and then back up here for my 4yo’s OT (occupational therapy) session, then out to dinner.

At the ENT appointment it was determined through x-rays that Aaron’s nose is so swollen in the front from something (I don’t know what, and neither does the allergist or GI) that we are going to shrink his turbinates. They’re these ridges in the front of your nose that swell when you’re sick and make you have a stuffy nose. His are swollen all the time. So swollen they couldn’t use a scope to check his adenoids, but rather we had  to go have the x-rays done. Adenoids are fine. Tonsils are fine. It’s his poor nose. Best part is that they won’t have to pack his nose after the surgery. I’ve had that done, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m avoiding having my deviated septum fixed. So we scheduled surgery.

Then I dropped Aaron off for his first day at his new school. It was harder than with Zach. Aaron did well though. He loves his new school. Next week will be easier for me. I’ll just have to adjust to actually having time to myself a couple days a week.

It’s hard to imagine that in the next eleven years, my kids will be almost grown. Zach will be 21, and Aaron will be 15, almost 16. I can’t wait to see where the next eleven crazy years take us.