eight years

At three in the morning, we hear the kids' door opening, followed by ours opening. "Mommy, I had a bad dream". I lift the duvet, inviting Violet into the safety of our bed, and Robin sighs loudly. I say crossly to him (in my half-asleep stupor), "Margot gets in with us all the time!!"

Violet misinterprets this; I think she returns to her room to get into her own bed, but as she crosses the hall, Margot starts to cry and Violet says, "It's okay, Margot, you can get into bed with them, too!"

The plan has backfired, as it so often does.

Robin gets up and takes Violet back to her own bed, where he settles in with her to banish bad dreams. Margot climbs in with me, where she proceeds to stampede her way up and down my back until six thirty, keeping me awake for most of the early morning hours.

She leaves the room when she hears Robin get up for work, then the door opens and JUDE climbs in with me. The baby starts to kick me from inside, and I know the day has begun.

Robin comes into kiss me goodbye as he does every morning. I grumble, "Happy Anniversary...what a difference eight years makes! I certainly didn't spend the night before our wedding sleeping with four different people!"

Our eyes lock for a moment and the past eight years, and the next twenty, whisper between us. I remember the blue sky full of puffy clouds, his tears as I joined him under the tree to be married, the bluegrass band we hired, our bare feet dancing in the grass, the faces of so many loved ones celebrating with us.

Cross, tired, six months pregnant with three kids to care for all day...and truly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Our lives are full in a way we never imagined on that wedding day, and I know there are so many adventures to come. Would I trade the laundry and small variations of our own faces looking to us for love and care for a moment of that day full of sunshine and roses? Never.

Some clever soul shared the idea with us to have a supply of envelopes labelled with different occasions and anniversaries available at our wedding. Each year, we open a note that was written to us on our wedding day, and often have another to open on Christmas Day, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, etc. We remember our wedding day again, and the person who sat at a picnic table under a tree to write us a little note. Words of advice, encouragement, or just a reflection of the day they were experiencing await us in those envelopes. We hope to make it to the one labelled "50th anniversary"!