October 29, 2009

I think this signals the end of "The Courtship" Phase of our relationship....

When I first starting dating Mr. Bee, he brought me flowers for every occasion and sometimes just because. Of course, I dated broke-ass students before Mr. Bee, and he was older, and more mature (but not mature enough to frown upon my rite-of-passage-big-ten-college-binge-drinking, thank goodness) and I totally swooned over a boy who was able to buy me ANYTHING, much less flowers all of the time. My sister's first words to me when I gushed over these flowers was: "enjoy it now, because it will never last". I thought she was totally wrong. Mr. Bee would always bring me flowers.

We moved in together after a little under a year of dating, and being 21, I was still in the binge-drinking through the week heyday of getting cab rides home and puking up vodka and cranberry juice concoctions, which is not a pretty picture. During the time Mr. Bee was commuting for me, so I could go to school and he could work at his new job. Still, he was ever so patient, and while there weren't flowers all of the time, there were the thoughtful gestures. (Holding my hair back until 2am when he had to be at work at 6am? He had the patience of a saint!) I can't even begin to tell you how often he would pick my loaded friends and me, and laugh along with us, even though he must have been annoyed.

Then we got married. We were husband and wife, and Mr. Bee, being an understanding husband, accepted the fact that I could not find a steady full time job because I sucked at interviews. He went and saw chick flicks willingly with me, and we lovingly talked about when we would start a family. In turn, I eventually found a steady, albeit low paying, job.

After about three months of trying, I found out I was pregnant. We were both nervous (heck, I was a wreck, and I stress-ate to compensate), but Mr. Bee put on a brave face, and lied and told me I looked pretty as I went on to gain 55 lbs. After Drew was born, I was grumpy, puffy and tired, but he told me how beautiful I looked and I actually believed him. I'm not sure who was more delusional at that point.

Our second child was a surprise as it happened so quickly. Still, we were very excited, and Mr. Bee was patient, if not as helpful with the other pregnancy. After all, we had another child to take care of and he couldn't hold my hand through the whole pregnancy as he had before. I had found a new, higher paying job, and money wasn't tight. We did a lot of shopping and went to restaurants often, which was a relief, as I discovered I really hated cooking in our outdated kitchen.

After Jacob was born, Mr. Bee started a stressful change in jobs, and the stress was dully noted by me. There was little in the way of magic or babymooning the second time around. (Babymoon: The period after your child is born that you are both so in love and happy that little stresses matter less. This lasted about 1 month with Drew and about 2 days with Jacob.) Restaurant and shopping trips stopped as we had neither the money or the patience to deal with two children out at a mall. Oh, I also outlawed red roses at our house. How cliche! (Not that I was getting a lot of flowers.) So now I get plants, on the appropriate day. No suprizes.

Did I notice any of these changes at the time? No, it was subtle, and I think, a part of our relationship maturing. I am no longer being courted or coddled, those days are (sadly- I did enjoy them) over. I came to this conclusion after another argument about what movies to watch, and I remarked that his taste in movies had gone downhill. "No," he replied, "[my taste in movies] hasn't changed at all." In other words, yes, it took me 10 years to realize that husband never really liked girly movies at all, he just watched them to appease me. Don't poke fun at me, as I am not the only person living in a bubble; when he insisted that I liked the movie Wolverine and I insisted that I thought that it was really stupid, I realized that he still hasn't realized I don't like action movies.

There are still many sweet moments in our life... Mr. Bee still will get up and get me ice water after I decide I want one when he gets one for himself, even though I have two perfectly good legs. I am planning on watching GI Joe on Blu-ray when it comes out for him, and he in turn will watch The Proposal for me. (Well, he will watch that because Mr. Bee has a thing for Sandra Bullock, much like his love for Hugh Grant.) I will still work furiously to get stains out of his clothes, and he will still make the bed for me (he makes it so much nicer than I do). I will still make him Chili, even though I hate cooking and tolerate Chili, and he will still make french toast on Saturdays mornings because I love it so much. We do these things because we love each other and we know it will make the other person happy. We are not trying to impress, just trying to make each other's lives better. That's the difference.

Now, can someone remind of this blog post before I have to watch The Matrix for the 4,000th time?

In the heyday of our courtship phase. Oh mah God, We look like Behbees!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails