A week

A week since posting. Where does the time go?

Last night I had a dream - one of those where you're semi-half awake and know it's a dream, yet it keeps playing out in your mind. I dreamt my husband and I were in the kitchen, talking. He was about to leave, to go to his new girlfriend's house. He had just bought a chainsaw, and said, 'oh, I'm going to take this home with me.' At the word home, my heart just sank, hearing him call another place home. He saw that on my face, and quickly said oh, I mean Rebecca's. (I think we were separated, but I wasn't supposed to know he was living with Rebecca, who is a good friend and former work colleague who is quite happily married and lives a million miles from here in real life). Then things shifted a bit and I knew he and Rebecca were trying to conceive, and I asked him how it was going. Not great, he replied, but she is already nesting, the house is spotless. And I had that hollow empty feeling in my chest again, looking around at how messy my counters were (in reality I might be cluttered but my counters are clean). But I smiled and nodded and asked more questions and pretended I wasn't hurting. I finally shook awake, still remembering that pit of despair feeling in my body. The cat was tucked under my arm, and my husband was holding me close. But I was annoyed at his closeness, still thinking of how easily and unintentionally a casual remark could sting.
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Tonight we are going to a reception sponsored by one of my alumni groups. I arranged for the nanny to come late today and stay late so we can head out for a no extra babysitting fee night out. When I start part-time work, I've been thinking about once every two weeks or so having the nanny's hour shift like that so we can have one on one time. I said to my husband though - wait, I get extra kid time (a blessing and a bane with a willful 3 year old and on-demand breastfed baby), while you get a night out.
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A couple of nights ago he walked in after work and said, I love you. We don't often say it to each other, so I was surprised - to what do I owe the occasion? He had heard on the radio while driving a piece on how some relationships don't include saying I love you, featuring a man who had been married 12 years and never once heard his wife say it, another woman who hadn't heard it since their wedding day three years before. The takeaway as relationships were healthier when it was said out loud with some regularity. We should try it, he said. And the three year old chimed in, wait - I LOVE YOU, Mommy and Daddy. It comes easily to her.
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I've been making my husband laugh lately. I can feel him smile at me and radiate contentment. These are things you know. I don't think he remotely can tell how I am feeling.
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I went to dinner last week with some friends, and we talked about another friend who has had some troubles with au pair arrangements. There was a time I had thought we were an au pair-type family and would likely go that route. But I had told my friends - and husband - last fall no au pair anytime soon. I wasn't ready to have a 20-something living under my roof, especially if there was any chance she was remotely attractive and liked to party. One of my friends said last week, oh, but you don't think anything would happen now, do you? Hell yeah, I do, I replied. I can see it now - she'd be lonely and bored and want to go out and my husband would suggest, oh, I'll just show her around to a few places and the next thing you know..........stupid and ridiculous, I know. And I do believe unlikely, but not impossible. So no au pair for a while, if ever.

A week in a marriage.