Real Romance

"Find Joy in the Little Things," says one of my rubber stamps--a stamp I have found much use for. Its timeless message can be enjoyed by anybody. Rychen and I have enjoyed the small moments here and there when we actualy get to be with each other. This is real life. Or, I should say Real Romance.

This morning we got less than ten minutes but it was sweet. The kids were both watching Charlie Brown in one room, and we found ourselves sitting on the kitchen counters together, eating bananas. How romantic. Quiet. We enjoyed a thought-provoking conversation. (It was a very nice moment in time, and soon enough we heard "Somebody get Elisabeth! She is making too much noise! Come get her!")

A few nights ago I had a wonderful, sneaky idea. I told Rychen, "Let's pretend to have family dinner, and put the kids to bed. Then let's reconvene to eat our own candle-lit dinner." "What would you like?" he asked. "Spaghetti." Mmmm. One of the best dishes on earth. Minutes to prepare.

So as I put Elisabeth down, Rychen prepared it. We got interrupted just before digging in, but I came back to a table waiting, with pot lids covering our plates. And we enjoyed a quiet, romantic dinner of whole-wheat noodles and spaghetti sauce, with 3 votive candle stumps running wax onto the card table. It was the yummiest meal I have had in a long time (mostly because Rychen made it, and it's nice to get a break from my cooking every now and then).

Sometimes we contemplate how our life would be different if we didn't have kids. Or if we had waited longer than 5 months after the wedding to get pregnant. We think of the cruise we could have had, or the savings we could have built up, the grad program I would have attended and career I could have begun. But then I think how unfulfilled we would have felt, how something would surely be missing from our 2-person family, how boring each day would be. I told Rychen, it's a good thing we had kids quickly because we would have realized how we have nothing in common! And there's that principle in social psychology about how 2 opposing teams have a way of finding union when involved in a difficult task together. Raising children is the best thing we've done for our marriage, I am sure of it. We get frustrated together, and then we enjoy the little things together.