Happy Birthday JP

Well, it has been QUITE a past few days. One blog post can't cover it, so I'm going to write about yesterday and then fill in the weekend later. But in short: I landed at 11:00 p.m. Friday night after getting an average of 5 hours of sleep a night since Tuesday, drove home, couldn't sleep, woke up, unpacked, re-packed, drove to Houston while reading depo transcripts in the passenger seat, took family pictures and enjoyed my Grandpa's fantastic 80th birthday party, got very little sleep, drove back to Austin, unpacked, attempted to go to bed early, got an email at 10:30 p.m. asking me to turn a draft of our brief adding cites to the depositions I attended, finished at 2 a.m., collapsed in bed, and was woken up by JP at 7:45 a.m. I very nearly killed him, but it was his birthday and he was just worried about me going to work. I decided to work from home (the whole case team is in Dallas so it really doesn't matter where I am), but then I couldn't go back to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about how little sleep I'd been getting. So I got up and my Monday began.

(my favorite pic from my grandpa's party)

It took me most of the morning to push through my exhaustion and to stop glaring at JP. Daycare was closed for a teacher workday and after traveling last week, it was lovely to get an extra day with the kids. My favorite moment with Landon was him walking inside (he plays for hours on his own in the backyard now) carefully holding a tiny white flower. He handed it to me saying, "this is for you mama." I thanked him and he said, "It's very fragile, you have to hold it on the green part just like me, see?" I assured him I'd only hold the stem but he still stood there, supervising my flower-holding until he was satisfied that I wouldn't damage the delicate petals. I love love love that kid.

In between checking my blackberry and doing all the laundry and unpacking, I got out our Halloween decorations and made a shopping list for a special birthday dinner for JP. We also carved our pumpkin from the pumpkin patch expedition a week ago. Landon was a little freaked out by the innards.

Claire wanted to eat them.

For dinner I prepared The Pioneer Woman's Braised Beef Short Ribs, Creamy Mashed Potatoes, and Roasted Carrots. The menu was a lot more than I usually put into a weekday dinner, but that's what you do on a beloved husband's birthday. Plus, it was a physical manifestation of my forgiving him for waking me up this morning (which I know isn't really that big of a deal, but my exhaustion combined with the bolt of rage that went through me as I opened my sand-papery eyes meant that my irritation hit an irrational level that was hard to come down from, even on a birthday).

And the meal was awesome and everything my JP deserved. He opened his cards and my present - customized business cards for his swim lessons to hand out when he gets accosted at the pool and grocery store (he's kind of famous in our neighborhood whereas I remain generally anonymous or some variation of "Coach JP's wife" or "Mrs. Coach JP").

As I wrote in JP's card, this is his tenth birthday that we've celebrated together. We've gone from a fancy restaurant dinner and a night on 6th street to a home cooked meal and a night on the couch watching DVR'd shows. And while I am so glad to have the memories and experiences of going out all the time and being foot loose and fancy free, we now have a Landon and a Biscuit to help blow out the candles and I know neither I nor JP would change a single thing about where we are now:

So Happy Birthday to my husband, my best friend, and the father and true parenting partner of our kids. You don't read this blog, but I love you more than I can say and I'm really sorry for kicking you in the shins when I finally gave up going back to sleep and climbed out of bed. Thanks for getting up with the kids every morning for the past two weeks and for not complaining that I've only indulged in the "fun" part of parenting between stretches of working. You are an enormous part of why I can be a happy working mom and I never forget it. Except when you wake me up too early, but even then, I still appreciated you deep down inside, I promise.