Summer is Almost Over!

I've been having a great summer!

Cherry turned two, and had a blast during both her friends and family parties. She's also been to several other kids' parties this summer and asks to go to dirday parties all the time. She also knows "Happy Birthday" both in English and in Spanish (Thanks Dora) and sings them all the time.

Besides partying all the time, we have also gone camping and made a couple of road trips up island to visit with good friends. There have been trips to Grandma's house in there as well, and a trip to the west coast to drop Armondo off to the boat once. A lot of people from out of town have been around here and there too, and we had fun the other day watching some friends turned tourists bungee jump.

And, speaking of Armondo... I'm pretty sure this has been his best summer as far as work goes, as he has only worked NINE DAYS so far. He's got himself on this other boat, which does shorter trips, and he got a HUGE raise. (Same company, different boss.) He'll be going out again in a few days, for a bit of a long trip. (Because he's been home so much, I haven't been blogging much. He gives me a hard time for being on the computer "all the time". So, lately I've just been doing short stints on Facebook here and there, and checking my email.)

The best part of this summer though:

I fell in love with my husband again.

Somewhere along the line, I had fallen out of love with him. Maybe it was boredom, maybe it was the extended absences, maybe it was my depression, maybe it was the little irritating things he does, maybe it was the lack of sleep.... I don't know what caused me to stop loving him, but I did.

When he was gone for long stretches, I would miss him, but more than that I resented him. When he was home, I was happy he was here for the girls, but I was so overly irritated by the extra mess he made, how much he "screwed up" our schedule, and how he kept on missing the toilet when he peed. IT'S A HUGE FREAKING TARGET!!!! He couldn't do anything right. I wasn't interested in sex, and I was cringing when he touched me. I knew I was feeling a little "off" towards him, and credited it to having a new born, and being busy and tired, but when we got away for 24hours to a spa resort sans kids, and I STILL didn't feel any good feelings towards him, I knew there was something wrong.

But I waited until we were home to talk about it with him.

The talk was horrible. I mean, I just came out and told him I thought that I didn't love him anymore. He was crushed. He was ready to quit his job right then and there. He cried. I cried. I told him that I couldn't guarantee that him quitting the fishing job would fix the problem, and I didn't even know if it was the problem to begin with. He told me he thought of me as a goddess, and told me that I was the most important thing to him.

I told him I wasn't going anywhere. That this was the "for worse" part of our vows, and that I meant every word of my vows. I also told him a saying that I had heard recently that went something like this: the secret to a long marriage is to never have both partners fall out of love at the same time.

He was pretty sweet during the talk, but he was upset. The next day he was a complete asshole.

The next few weeks were spent doing all the fun stuff I mentioned above. During that time, he also built the kids a totally awesome playhouse/swing set.

And it was during that time that I fell back in love with him. It sounds like I'm very fickle, but I don't see it that way.

During those weeks he had off, I watched him have fun. I watched him get really enthusiastic about the playhouse he was building. I watched him draw plan, after plan, and then watched him execute his plan. I watched him at the beach with the kids picking up crabs and showing them to Cherry. I watched him play with Annie and wrestle her to the ground.

I saw the man I fell in love with in the first place. His stresses were mostly left behind on the boat, and besides the new stress I put on him, he was pretty well carefree.

That, and he really, really tried to win me back. He didn't shower me with gifts, or do anything particularly special, but he upped the respect level. And so did I.

We both started to talk to each other with nicer tones. We both listened better. He flirted with me more. I made the conscious effort to be a better wife, and he made the effort to be a better husband.

The day before he left for his nine day fishing trip, I told him I had fallen for him again. And he got angry! It totally wasn't the reaction I was expecting, but I also didn't really know what I actually was expecting. He was pissed off that I decided to tell him the day before he was leaving. I thought it was best for me to tell him, so he would KNOW while he was gone that his wife was at home waiting for him, and loving him.

He made me cry.

Later that night, I explained to him how watching him have so much passion for the swing set was really what got me overall. About how when I first met him, he was making sushi, and even though the particular job wasn't all that great, he just had so much passion for the art form of sushi making. He took so much pride in his work. And when he switched careers, he lost that. He lost his passion. He lost his confidence. But, seeing him find that again was totally amazing.

That, and the fact that we both started being nicer to each other.

Since he got back from that nine day fishing trip, things have been great with us. The s3x has been fabulous, the respect level is way up, his hot and hard fishing muscles turn me on, and it's all good.

So many people seem to give up on marriage so easily. I've known people who would have given up if they were in my situation, but I take our union seriously, and I'm so glad that we were able to work it all out.

Because I love him more now than I did on my wedding day.

Even if he does still miss the toilet sometimes.