7 years and no itch, hooray.

Well, tomorrow is our 7th anniversary, 7 years ago I had been in America for 9 days with my 3 children. We were in a posh condo what we couldn't afford, with pretty bridges and waterfalls and 4 kids that should be anywhere but in this place!
I felt I was in a twilight zone, here I was with a man I had seen in person for 2 weeks and then 9 days, about to marry him and remember thinking " It's Ok, we have return tickets, if I wake up and come to my senses I can go home. " I have no idea what I was thinking apart from the fact that I knew he was right for me. I knew that this was a good thing and at the time, it didn't seem a bit worrying. Now I look back it was quite the most terrifying leap of faith ( or stupidity!) I'm quite proud of the fact that for the most part I absolutely follow my heart, I ignore the sensible thoughts that try to sneak in and I listen to the voice within that tells me is something is right ... or not.
Let me say that both H and I are completely different people to the ones we were 7 years ago. In our online relationship he told me all about himself. What I learned quite quickly, is that he told me what he wanted to be, planned to be, hoped to be. What he actually was, back then, was a whole different story.
We were married on Nov 27th at 11am, in the bishop's back yard, we had our 4 children and the bishop and his wife, grandpa, Mark ( H's brother) Kara and Jose. That's it. We wore our regular sunday clothes and after the marriage ceremony we took the kids to lunch. It was the simplest and most perfect ceremony, everything I wanted.
The following years have been so jam packed with every kind of trial and blessing.
Seth was conceived on our wedding night, Isaac on our first anniversary! We have had 7 homes. 3 babies. One heart attack, one breakdown, many tears, much laughter and are just beginning to know each other.
H is, now, pretty much the man he told me he was. Thank goodness.
I have learned infinite patience, learned that there is a way to get H to do what I like, sometimes. He is so stubborn he makes me look like a walkover.
He is a man of very few words, today I heard him give a talk in church, he spoke for 25 minutes non stop. That is the most I have ever heard him speak in one go, ever. I actually heard his accent and detected almost a lisp, which could have been nerves because I have never heard that before.
He knows so much, is a mind of information, a walking encyclopedia of facts . He is the least 'frilly' man I have ever met ( apart from my dad) If he says something, he usually means it. If he decides something, well, whether I like it or not that is how it will be because the aspergers in him makes him immovable. The good thing about men like these, is you know where you stand with them. If he says he loves you, he does, he will always love you and you'd better be ready for that because he ain't going anywhere.
If you cross him, he will take it and take it and take it...and then if you cross the line once too often, you're done. He turns away and nothing will bring him back on side. Ouch.
He is the most patient father, he listens and he remembers and he promises things he can deliver. He doesn't give in. He seems to really 'get' what matters. Elijah jumped on his laptop today and smashed the already cracked screen. "Oh dear" he said. Quietly. He sees that it doesn't really matter, I see that 'HELL!!! THE SCREEN GOT SMASHED ......ARGH!!!' I never cease to be amazed at the way he can be so calm about things that make me erupt. He loses his cool over things that I could care less about, I think together we might actully get through this parenting lark and have some pretty alright people at the end of it. Chalk and cheese, black and white, horse and carriage and all that.

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean.
And so, between the two of them
They licked the platter clean.

Sometimes, I look at us and think we must look an unlikely pair, I know I look at him and wonder how in the world it all happened . How did I meet this man who lived thousands of miles away, who looks so different to anyone I had ever given a 2nd look to? How did I use a computer when I hadn't got one, how did I get to THAT website, find the courage to post my profile when I had done nothing but say what a terrifying thing it all was? How out of all those thousands of people , did he see me? What made him write to me and me reply?
How, after 5 months did I believe that selling everything and just taking my children to the USA was an alright thing to do?
Who knows. I do know though, that it turned out alright so far.
These days ( I am so giving away my age by using that phrase) it is so easy to get out of a marriage, I don't think anyone can understand just what marriage is until you're in one and then it's like getting smacked upside the head with a sledgehammer.
It is the biggest wake up call when you understand exactly what this means, so much more than awwww, you can wake up next to that lovely person who you fancy and want to look at every day of your life.
So much more.
Like ....imagine, they have opinions, opinions of their own ( I nipped that in the bud with the first one I can tell you, this one though, he has a mind and even uses it, darn it) and sometimes, they don't even like the sofa you want and they want to call the baby you carried so patiently for all those months, something like Johnny-Rueben and absolutely will not entertain Silas. the very cheek of it.
The giddy rush doesn't last long which is where so many marriages go awry, it's easy to live for the rush and when it's stifled by pregnancy, bills, colic, fear of more pregnancy well sometimes...well you know what happens.

I worry that H and I will forget each other. Some days he goes to bed and I can't remember of we even looked at each other in any way than the vacant sort of 'help me' stare, that parents of several young sprogletts develop.
We have this wonderful, yet worrying silence that gets us by, a routine that works but sort of leaves 'us' behind. He gets up at 4am, he comes downstairs and sits in the dark in his chair and 'rests' and waits for the first early boy to get up. When they come down he is here, they snuggle in the dark and one by one the others join him. When I get up at 7.30, all 3 are up and have had breakfast, he has read scriptures with them, or at them, because with the exception of Seth, who loves it because it is history, these kids are heathens, they get that from me probably.
He doesn't read the actual scriptures, you know the King James bible, oh no, he has re written them into kids speak, with pictures and stuff, laminated and storyfied. Mind blowing.
I stay up late, when they go to bed is when the mummy fairy wakes up and cleans and tidies, gets uniforms set out and lunch boxes packed. Toys put away and kitchens cleared, laundry done and eventually, I crawl in beside him and just listen to him, I reach out and touch his arm.
I laugh and say that by the time these little boys are old enough to give us 5 minutes to breathe, we'll be past it. We'll go from raising kids to old folks' home in matter of weeks.
I am reminded too, that these little boys are different they have special needs. I forget sometimes because we have it all so worked out and run a steady ship, the 'Isaac days' are fewer and I kid myself that probably he isn't any different to all the other kids. Then we have a day like today.
In primary (at church) we are doing a presentation in 3 weeks, today we began the rehearsals, this meant that instead of the regular routine everything was different, kids sat on the floor, we didn't do the normal things, we sang and told the children who would do what and when. I sat at one end of the room next to some children who thought this was a hoot and ha ha look, if I push this kid she will fall over because she was sitting cross legged and LOOK I can pull her skirt over her head! That kind of kid, you know the sort, mine usually.
Anyway, Isaac was on the other side of the room and he sat on a chair because HE SITS ON CHAIRS NOT THE FLOOR WHAT IS GOING ON HERE PEOPLE???? and as the hour went by I watched his face go from blank and 'hmmmm what?' to completely bereft, by the time it was over he was inconsolable, shaking and sobbing and actually heaving because " I don't like that happening, because I don't know why they did it and I don't feel very well and I just want to sit with you I hate that happening " It went very quckly from not liking it to being beside himself and I didn't see it coming. He was close to grandma the whole time, which is what made me think he was OK. It hits me when these days happen that he will always feel this way. I can only hope that somehow he can learn skills that help him deal with those fears when things change.
H goes through it but he shuts down, sometimes he gets cranky when he is worried, once he had a heart attack. Scary stuff.
I wandered a bit there, I do that, you should try sitting with me an listening to me talk. No going back and deleting the nonsensicle bits, you get it all! Stick with the written word, it's for the best!
The point is, 7 years. So much has passed and yet it has flown.
This week we are going to the temple to have our marriage sealed for eternity, no more 'til death do us part'.
Wow. Fancy that!