There is something about the way she smells that forces me to smile, even when she's pissing me off. And every time she tosses her hair and squints her eyes at me (before stomping down the stairs and slamming the front door) I remember the reason I fell in love with her.
(She makes me ridiculously happy.)
Some people forget about this, the longer their relationships wear on. Its the reason people split up, families are torn apart, husbands and wives divorce.
Not us.
I'd never let her go.
Because the times when we aren't fighting are beautiful. (And I know that its just the hormones anyways.)
Inside her slowly growing belly is something that, when magnified, must somehow resemble the Geico spokeslizard.
Sitting with her in the dim room, and seeing that faint flicker on the screen during the ultrasound told me that we had created a beating heart. And more would grow of it. Every day, more and more new cells are forming. I sometimes picture our baby forming the way the Hawaiian islands came to be. Layers and layers and layers of slowly oozing magma. Only, you know. Cells instead of magma, obviously, lest a lava-baby spring from the loins of my cranky, bloated, amazing wife.
So on these days, when we can't even watch Ren and Stimpy together without arguing, I smile, and remember the way she was when I first met her. Loud, laughing, and witty, to balance out the hormonal, crying, angry woman that lives here now.
I play the perfect husband; bring her ice cream, rub her feet, hold her hair when she feels sick.
But all the time, waiting for my wife to return, and bring with her our son, or daughter, or spokeslizard.
We pick out names, and I catch little breaths of her perfume, even though she's been at her mother's house for the last 3 days. She used to not mind when I snored.
I paint the nursery to look like a key lime pie (white up top, creamy green, with a chair rail) because I know that's her favorite, but the thought of it makes her sick, lately. (I blame the lizard).
And while I've got a good 6 or so months left before she comes home for good (no more mood swings, no more crying), I steady myself; reminding us both that things are constantly getting better.
(I love you, Cici.)