Blissfully Optimistic

Yesterday, Photoguy and I celebrated our nine-year-anniversary. Well, we didn't so much celebrate it, yet. We came to the day that marked one year shy of a decade since we were married, but we will have to truly mark the occasion at a later date because yesterday we were too busy.

For one thing, Photoguy started teaching a photo class at a University on Wednesday nights. For another, Wednesdays have turned into my taxi days. Here is an example of what I mean:

Typical Wednesday
5:45 a.m. drive to gym
7:15 a.m. drive home
8 - 8:30 a.m. drive Soph's carpool
9:30 a.m. drive E-Man to pre-school
10 a.m. drive AiAi to mommy-and-me gymnastics
10:45 a.m. drive home
11:30 a.m. drive to pick E-Man up from school

short interlude for lunch

1-1:30 p.m. pick up Soph's carpool
2 p.m. pick up friend's kid from piano lesson

Then, I should theoretically have the afternoon off from driving, but usually don't, before we get to the evening activities.

6 p.m. drive Soph to piano lesson
6:30 p.m. pick Soph up
7 p.m. take kids to gymnastics
8 p.m. pick kids up

For full disclosure sake, I must admit that a friend and I just started carpooling for gymnastics -- I drive the kids there and she picks them up. Which is a really good thing because my 2 1/2 year-old AiAi is determined to give up his much needed afternoon nap. So, by the time I drive the kids to gymnastics, he is passed out for the night (I'm also on my way to passing out for the night). Not having to go out one more time at 8 p.m. is like a Christmas gift every Wednesday night!

I use to stay with the kids during gymnastics, but, one would have to witness it personally to fully understand the excessive amount of strength and energy required to keep up with my rambunctious and overly determined AiAi in a mine field like a huge open space filled with gymnastic equipment, pits of foam and things that bounce. It was fun to see him enjoying himself, but when he would be involved in an activity (say jumping on a trampoline) and we would need to exit so a class could enter, it resulted in a lot of tears (mostly his) and kicks (mostly to my face), and, let's just say, in the end it was better to stop taking AiAi inside at all.

So, this is my regular schedule on Wednesdays. However, it is almost never confined just to the dozen excursions listed.

For example, last Wednesday, Soph had to do a science project. Right after school, she and photoguy lit up a fire in the backyard for said project requiring me to make a last-minute jaunt to the grocery store to buy marshmallows for roasting.

After finishing up the project in the freezing frost-biting unbelievably arctic frigid cold, Photoguy took off early for his evening class and I was left to entertain six kids. I babysit for a friend whose kids are the same ages as mine. Yes, that means I regularly have two two-year-olds. But, it's not nearly as complicated as when those two were newborns and five of the six kids were pre-Kindergarten ages. Hauling all six kids to swimming lessons or a picnic in the park when all were so young is another story about feats of strength for another time.

After my friend retrieved her three kids, I and my three piled into the car to drop off film at a one-hour lab (for the science project display), then headed to Costco for toilet paper, then picked up our photos, then plunged right into our nightly driving routine. Whew!

It was apparent in advance that Wednesday was not the best day for our anniversary to take place this year. This whole week turned out to be pretty bad timing. Photoguy took some extra shifts at the newspaper this week meaning he committed himself to 10-12 hours of work Tues-Sat (afternoons-midnight). Then, after he made that commitment, he was given an emergency remodel job of sorts on a condo that he and a friend are flipping, that must be completed by next Monday. The good news is, if he can just get it done in time, we have a buyer. Hooray for money! Even if it is money earmarked to pay bills -- still, hooray.

I am confident that we will find the time sometime to go to a nice dinner or otherwise celebrate our marriage. In the meantime, the anniversary got me thinking about anniversaries past.

First, there was the day we were married, full of bliss and naive optimism for the future.

We took a fabulous honeymoon to Southern California and I (naively optimistic) believed that we would take the more expensive tropical cruise for our one-year-anniversary. Ha-ha! Right before our one-year-anniversary we bought our first house. So much for thinking we were broke when we got married. As new homeowners mired in years of re-modeling projects we become more intimately acquainted with the term "broke."

Let's see, I was hugely 8-months pregnant with our first baby for our two-year-anniversary.

When we married, I had also believed that I would get a second band of diamonds to compliment my wedding ring for something as big and important as our five-year-anniversary. This too brought me a good laugh when the actual time came.

Two-and-a-half years ago, our third child was born. This made me feel very grown-up and grounded or established or something other than youthful. Six months later, we celebrated our seven-year-anniversary and I had to come to terms with the fact that I was definitely no longer a newly wed. Funny that before I was married, anyone hitched for more than a year was out of that category, but it took me seven years to stop seeing myself that way.

Right after the mind-boggling seven-year-anniversary, I made the difficult transition to thirty. All that year, I was also coming to grips with the fact that my oldest was slated to begin Kindergarten the following year. Where had time gone? I responded to all of this growing up trauma by moving our family to China. Okay, not really, but it may have somehow played into our mid-life crisis, I mean, decision.

So, now, I find myself married for nine years, too busy to even go out to dinner, or lunch, or even save the date for the weekend. Do you think it is unrealistic to believe we'll be going on the cruise for our ten-year?