Dear Daver,

Remember that old Chinese curse, “May You Live In Interesting Times?” Well, darling, I think that applies quite nicely for the year. Can you believe we’ve been married a whole two years now? I remember last year, how nicely I’d put up a post on our actual anniversary and I mentioned what a hard year it had been. Little did I know what Year Two held in store for us.

I was already pregnant with Alexander, who was just a blob at that point, but he was MY blob and I was fiercely protective of him, so when I started to spot I was completely devestated and paranoid about losing him. Then hyperemesis began, and I kind of lost my will to live (remember when I couldn’t take showers because the sensation made me vomit, and the drain was clogged, so when I did vomit, I had to manually scoop the vomitus out of the drain myself? God that was fun!), which actually survived the duration of the pregnancy. I was like a pregnant, flatulent, chubby, and miserable bag of wind who sat on the couch and cried. And then demanded creme brulee. And then cried some more. Then I would throw up the creme brulee I had just eaten while crying.

Life was good (hey, at least the toliets were ALWAYS cleaned to sparkling perfection, because the old pee and pubes made me gag even more). It’s no wonder that we both burst into gales of hysterical laughter when we talk about having more kids.

This year, you have watched uncomfortably as countless people examined my hoo-haa, and not even in an orgy setting. Remember when I thought that my water had broken, but really I had simply peed my pants? And then it happened again in March. Wow, those were fun times.

Then The Sweet Baby (a.k.a Your Clone) was born, and around three months of age, he pulled himself off the boob and took a breath. No matter how sleepless the nights were, it was far better than being pregnant, and now, every time that you walk into the room, both of the children light up and run to you, well, Ben runs and Alex’s body just shakes and writhes with sheer joy. It’s moments like these that I know that no matter what it took to get us here, it was worth every second of agony and pain that we underwent to get here.

I know that this letter is late in coming, but we were fighting on our anniversary and I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable that day, well, until you gave me my anniversary present. You sure know how to soothe the savage beast within me: jewelry, fatty jewelry (and just so you know, this didn’t make up for the bathroom. You’re NEVER going to hear the end of that. Unless you muzzle me).

We made it, baby, we made it. Maybe not with our sanity fully intact, but hey, kids make you a little crazy, don’t they? Now, I know better than to ask for a more sedate year, but can this one be a LITTLE bit less insane, PLEASE?

Love always,
Becky

P.S. Do you think the neighbors would notice if I stole their Halloween decorations and put them up in our yard? Hypothetically, I mean, because, err, I would never, ever do that for reals. (Um, mostly)