1. If you happen to be home on a Sunday afternoon and are expecting a camera crew from a major national magazine to stop by, you may find it beneficial to empty the liquid from a glass like this into your belly. Twice.

2. Then you’ll still be nervous.

3. If the photographer has told you that he will be shooting pictures in your kitchen and in your garage, make sure you spend two days cleaning your kitchen.

4. Then realize that you haven’t touched the rusted paint cans, dried leaves and random pieces of cardboard in your garage until two hours before he arrives.

5. At which time you may beg your husband to clean it for you.

6. There may also be be shrieking involved.

7. If the magazine for which you’re posing has a circulation of roughly 4 million, you may find it is a perfect time to a) wax your own eyebrows, b) experiment with liquid eyeliner and c) forget to test your hairspray nozzle so that it doesn’t so much spray as it does shoot a solid stream of liquid into your fresh curls.

8. As soon as the crew sets up their equipment and has your kitchen completely blocked off with lights, wires and big umbrellas, your kids will tell you that they’re hungry.

9. If you happen to be busty then, by all means, pick a button down shirt for the shoot so that every time the photographer asks you to put your hands on your hips it pops open at just the right spot.

10. Then it will be like you’re posing for an entirely different type of magazine.

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I was washing dishes when I looked over my shoulder to see my son tiptoeing across the kitchen floor, being careful to step into the middle of each tile while completely avoiding the grout.

I asked, “What are you doing, buddy?”

He replied, “I’m being careful not to step on any cracks, because I don’t want to beat my mommy’s butt.”

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It’s not what you think.

His mother isn’t my mother and his father isn’t my father. We aren’t related, by blood, in any way.

However, I am married to a man who is the ultimate competitor. A man who always has to be right. And, of course, there is the teasing and knowing just what will drive me crazy…and doing all of those things on purpose. More than anything, there is his enjoyment of doing anything “kid-like”.

On Saturday, we took the kids sledding. Did I anticipate that my husband would come up behind me, tackle me to the ground and then shove snow in my face? Or, that he would put himself on a toboggan with two kids in order to be the heaviest, and therefore the fastest, sled on the hill?

Did I realize that he would make our SUV do doughnuts on the ice in the empty parking lot until our daughter was car sick?

Did I know that if I asked him whether he was going to smack his gum for the entire car ride that his reply would be, “Only if it irritates you”?

I should have.

My husband is kid in a 38 year old body. Don’t get me wrong, he’s responsible and he works hard, but he would rather spend the day having light saber fights with our son, or taking our daughter to see Avatar in 3-D while I stay home with the grumpy seven year old, a barking puppy and an old dog with a bladder infection. Not that I’m bitter about it.

In all honesty, I love it. My husband is the reason that our kids are kids. He is the one who plans the trips to amusement parks, takes them for bike rides and forces me out of the house on the coldest day of the year to listen to our children giggle on the sledding hill.

He is the person who took our children on a wild ride down the street on a furniture dolly that he pulled with a moving strap. He is the guy who took us fishing and had the patience to load the lines on all the reels, then redo every one of them when we (okay, I) managed to tangle them on our first casts.

He took our 11 year old daughter on a zipline canopy tour through the forest, he has gone skydiving and white water rafting and done all the things that I am too scared to do. My husband is instilling his adventurous spirit and enthusiasm for life in our children.

And if that means I have to put up with some gum smacking, then bring on the bubble gum.

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