5:00 on a Saturday

It's still, everlastingly, January. We've been doing what we can to get through the drearyness of winter: mixing up routine with trips to the pool, jaunts out to restaurants, yoga workshops, a few outdoor adventures when the temperature climbs above twenty degrees. But there have been plenty of days, especially on weekends, when it's 5:00 and Jason and I have basically been inside this house with the girls all day long, taking turns entertaining. We look at each other, wonder what to rustle up for dinner, and roll our eyes at whatever drama is taking place inside these four walls.

It's occurred to me, on those days, that now, after nearly ten years of marriage, I would probably still not say that I'm "married to my best friend." That honor goes to someone else. I would say, though, that I feel luckier and luckier to have cast my lot with someone who is really in this with me, who bouys my spirits when I have had enough of the gray skies and toddler tantrums, whose eyes I still want to meet across that dinner table over the chicken nuggets. Because if I had to do this all by myself, it would be a hundred times harder and less satisfying.

Tonight, as we round the girls up for an early dinner and get ourselves ready for our annual neighborhood progressive dinner, I am feeling grateful for my kind, happy husband.