Happy Mother's Day

The husband speaks (types)! Long live the mighty husband! I want to start out by wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Moms out there. Take a day off, you deserve it. I’m actually massaging my wife’s feet as I type this. It is a tough combo to pull off, but any husband of level 5 quality or higher (I’m currently at level 20, which is unattainable to most normal human men) should be able to manage. Look for my book “Husband Rating System for Dummies” this fall. So don’t be shy, ask for what you want, you’ve earned it.

I played Mr. Mom last December and took the whole month off to stay home with the kids before daycare started. It was such a great month. Don’t get me wrong, it was a ton of work, but work with great reward. I was secretly hoping it would be a little unbearable so I would actually look forward to going back to work. No such luck; I was incredibly depressed to go back. I got to see Hailey learn how to crawl. I taught Jake how much fun “peekaboo” is. In general, I just got to stay in my pajamas with the kids and roll them around and have fun while we waited for Mama to bring home the bacon! So now I’m back at work, just one of a billion working people, while our kids are in daycare.

I wanted to also take this space to discuss nicknames. I realized the other day that besides “Jake” and “Hailey”, our kids have at least 20 other names. It must be confusing to them during their formative years. I’m sure they will find a way to use this to blame us for something when they are in their teens. “Well Dad, I got a nose ring because I had 20 names when I was one year old! Do you know how confusing that was?!?” Here now, without further delay, is our list of nicknames for our kids, which is constantly growing:

Jake
--Jakey
--Jakers
--Bubba
--Buddy Boy
--JJ
--J-Bone
--Dude
--Mister Dude
--Number One Dude
--Little Buddy
--Mr. Hairdo
--Doctor Teeth
--Clumsy Jones
--Stinky Jones
--Big Man
--Mister Man
--Butters
--Mister McButters
--Mister Magoop
--Mister Magump
--Moop
--Jake Christopher (when he's in trouble)

Hailey
--Boots
--The Boot
--That Boot
--Dat Boot
--La Boot
--Lady McBoots
--Bootsy McGillicutty
--Bootsy McGee
--Bootsy Malloy
--Little Lady Boots
--BooBoo
--Peanut
--Sweet Pea
--Sweet Feet
--Little Lady
--Hailey Rose (when she's in trouble)
--Little Miss Rose
--Little Missy
--HR (Hailey Rose for short)

As for my wife, I thought I would say a little something about her since she has been such a positive force in my life, and really my exact equal in life and partnership. Erica is known around our house as “Mama”. The kids can kind of say it, but they definitely know who their Mama is. No matter what they are doing, or what mood they are in, as soon as they hear her voice, they turn their heads to the door waiting for her to walk in. Once she appears in the door, they break into huge smiles and even start laughing sometimes just before they are barraged with hugs and kisses. They are lucky, and they know it, because no kids on earth could have gotten a better Mama than our kids have. She sings to them all the time, and it always calms them down or makes them smile. When they are cranky (and yes, they are cranky quite a bit) she always knows just what to do to make them happy again. It has been such a pleasure for me to watch her in her role and how easily she has handled it. I already knew what a great person and what a great wife she was, and I knew she would be a great mother too; it’s just nice to actually see it on a daily basis. I said above that our kids are lucky to have her as their Mama, but I’m even luckier to have her as my wife. I always tell her she’s my favorite, and she is. She always will be.

Happy Mother’s Day, Erica. I Love You.