When my husband and I got married, we were just starting out career-wise. It had only been two years since he graduated from college (and three years since I dropped out).

We needed…everything. Within one year of our wedding, we bought a washer, dryer, car, dog…oh, and a house that needed to be completely renovated and furnished. And, just shy of our one year anniversary, I got pregnant. Hindsight, people. At the very least, get a home that’s move-in ready.

When I say that our house needed to be renovated, I’m not exaggerating when I say we had to gut it. With the exception of the some wood floors and some of the walls, everything has been replaced. Wiring, plumbing, windows and the roof (twice), just to name a few things. The fence, patio, new kitchen and three new bathrooms seem so minor.

To say the least, we didn’t plan well. Life went and threw a wrench into things when our daughter was born more than 10 weeks early. I quit my well-paying job and became the mom and caregiver of a fragile, 2 lb. 9 oz. baby on a heart monitor. But, hey! At least my cabinets were pretty!

Guess what? Preemie stuff is expensive, yo’. And, three years later, we had another one! With congenital heart disease! For roughly 13 years, I have been able to open my wallet and see dust settling where the dollar bills should be.

This means that nothing gets replaced. Ever. This means that I have been driving the same car for 14 years and sleeping on the same mattress that my sister used when she had my first nephew. He is getting ready to turn 26. I know, gross, right? What’s a girl to do?

Well, a girl can have really awesome friends, that’s what.

See, my friend Casey found out that I have been taking an Ambien and putting myself to bed on our couch for quite some time now. Thirty year old beds don’t have a lot of support and, apparently, my back wants that. My back is so needy.

When Casey heard about my predicament, she sent me a message and said, “I am going to make it my mission to get you a bed.”

Then she did.

She entered a photo contest and won me a new, Serta bed. I love her.

Not just any bed, either. It’s beautiful, and soft, and supportive and it has an adjustable base so that I can sleep sitting up and my husband can lie down, because that’s what old people do! As soon as it gets here, you will all have to suffer through pictures of me showing you this. I apologize in advance.

Recently, we had to break down and get a new washer. My children are also needy. They’re always wanting clean underwear, and stuff.

My husband and a friend lugged the old machine to the curb and within minutes a man had pulled up in a truck and asked for help loading it. Minutes! I had no time to prepare. I had to watch as my washer bounced down the street in the back of a pick-up as I thought of all of the poop, pee, vomit, Thanksgiving turkey drippings, baby food and every other thing that machine had helped me clean.

I have to admit, I shed a tear.

But, when the mattress goes away for good. I’m totally going to throw a slumber party.

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Tomorrow is your birthday.  It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that you’ve been in my life for less than a decade, because it feels like you’ve been around forever.  Most people say that they can’t believe how time flies, but with you things tend to move at a slower pace.

We have been through a lot together, you and I.  I won’t lie; you’re the reason I have an intimate relationship with anti-anxiety meds and sleep aides.  You are the reason I throw my hands in the air on a daily basis, look up and say, “Lord, have mercy on me.”

I had a hard time learning to love you.  I was scared to love you.  I didn’t think you were going to stick around very long and I didn’t want to get hurt.  I’m glad I let my guard down.  It was the best thing I ever did and I learned that, when in doubt, you should follow your heart.

You bring adventure to my life because I never know what you’re going to say or what you’re going to do.  Even when we’re out running errands together, I feel like I’m living on the edge.  At least I never have to worry about life being dull.

But, I don’t just love you because you keep me on my toes.  I love you because you are strong, smart, funny and so stinkin’ cute.  I love that you aren’t perfect, because it reminds me that no one is.

Happy 9th birthday, Boo.  Mommy loves you.

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My husband is turning 40 this week.  I am sharing this with you because I am still 39 and I like to rub it in.  He is 45 days older than me and don’t you forget it.

We have spent the better part of our adult lives together and while we were maturing (and, oh my, given the amount of margaritas I drank on Saturday night, I am still deep in that process) we renovated a house, bought a couple of dogs, started a business and had two premature babies.

This man I married has seen me catheterized, watched my stomach get cut open twice to have tiny children removed and still loves me despite the fact that my thighs are bigger than his.

He has stayed at my bedside more times than I can count, held my hand as our son was taken to surgery over and over again and he has brought me the same flowers every spring for the last 16 years.  He also has coffee waiting for me every, single day.  Bonus!

He has always worked hard so that I could, first, be a stay-at-home-mom and care for our daughter and, second, be a stay-at-home-mom/nurse/therapist/pharmacist/advocate/insurance-wrangler for our son.  And, for the past few years he has plugged away at work so that I could blog (yeah, read that again) and take the time to find full-time work that feeds my passion.  I love my job and I couldn’t have found it without his support.

Though, I do hate sitting next to him on a plane.  Well, except for that one time when I took a Xanax for my fear of flying and he bought me two vodka and cranberries to chase it.  In that particular case, it was the best plane ride EVER.  So, he has that going for him.

He has one, very annoying habit…okay, maybe two or three…and I blame his seven sisters for the fact that he knows exactly how to make a woman angry.  Thanks, ladies, for getting him warmed up for me.

But, despite that harsh, grating noise he makes when he clears his throat, I’m happy that his parents didn’t stop at child #8.

Happy 40th birthday, Dado Fali.  I’m really glad that you were born.

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You know how you don’t get any sleep, and then your cold turns into a sinus infection/bronchitis mixture, and you spend your Saturday afternoon sitting in the cold watching an endless, sixth grade, softball game, which really wasn’t endless, but it WAS three hours, which is the same as endless, and the girls on the opposing team scream and chant the entire time, “We’re going to rally, rally, rally!  We’re going to rally, rally!” and you feel like you should go to confession because you wished they would lose their voices, then you take your obsessive and compulsive son to a monster truck show, and his latest tic is to sniff, sniff, sniff, SNIFF, SNIFF, and you take his noise-reducing earphones off to adjust them and he starts sniffing harder and completely freaking out that you are GOING TO MAKE HIM DEAF, and then he starts gagging, but you can’t go anywhere because you’re smack-dab in the middle of the row of seats and there is a wall behind you, so you do what any mother of an almost-nine-year-old would do, which is to put your hand under his chin and catch his vomit in your bare hand, but that’s okay because you have TISSUES and your friend has hand sanitizer, and then the young child in front of you stands up and yells, “Screw you!” to the announcer, and his parents LAUGH, and then you spend all day Sunday coughing up a lung because after you caught vomit in your hand, you sat in that closed arena and inhaled exhaust fumes all night and that goes really great with your asthma/bronchitis, sinus infection?

Yeah,  me too.

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