David, my darling husband is a long-standing member of the Husband Hall of Fame but yesterday he went all out for Mother’s Day and deserves a special honorable mention. Honey, you are the real thing!

The morning started with adorable gifts from the boys: a floral collage from Dash and a Jonathan Adler inspired pinch pot from Conrad.

Then David gave me an Internet radio because I’m home alone during the day and I rely on music and talk radio for company. For some reason we don’t get good reception at the house, but now my new Logitech SqueezeBox is like having a bunch of musical and intellectual co-workers with me all day. I love it. I really do. David kept saying an appliance isn’t romantic, but a big black music-making appliance that makes me feel wistful listening to Taylor Swift is swoon-worthy.

Yet I think he might be feeling the need to make up for something or maybe I’m just acting so miserable he’s at a loss as to how to make me happy, because he gave me a series of gifts to make me realize that everything is going to be alright.

He gave me a gift card to go shopping for new spring clothes so I can feel like I’m pretty and pulled together even though I’m just working up in my attic and not an office. And maybe also so I’ll stop asking him to tell me if my butt looks okay in everything I wear. Tickets to the Shins next Sunday so we can feel a little less old. And hold on…a cleaning woman to come every week for a year! We actually had a fairly intense discussion Saturday morning about whether one should really be grossed out if cereal bowls with milk are still on the kitchen table when we practically stumble into the house at 10:30 at night. That Friday, I rushed out for the day to take Conrad to the doctor, got the okay that he could go to school, met with the nurse about how to administer his nebulizer, then caught up with friends to go to the Glenfield House Tour Fundraiser (where you check out some of the larger, extravagantly decorated homes in town, snickering is optional), picked up the kids, went to playdate, then bought beer and drove around trying to find a bakery open at 5pm for a dinner party at a friend’s house. Gave up and then went over to my friend’s with the kids had a lovely night and headed home way past everyone’s bedtime to stare down the cereal bowls, unmade beds and general house mess.

I think the cleaning woman jackpot is way of saying he’s sorry that he after a long day he made me feel like keeping the house tidy is something that’s more in my domain than his. David doesn’t think that. I think he rolled his eyes simply because he was surprised to see that I actually felt comfortable leaving a mess; but he benefits too, by giving me the housekeeper he’s also very generously putting the kibosh on my feeling entitled to complain about housework. I appreciate his strategic mind.

I met my parents and our amazing cousin, Ronny for brunch. Ronny is so inspiring, she wrote her doctorate in resilience in older women and is so great to be around. Then when I came home, we flew kites in Edgemont park that David made with leftover cellophane from Easter egg baskets and went out to Egans with friends. It was really just perfect. Then in the middle of dinner Dashiell started acting really bratty. He came and sat on my lap to calm down. It worked for a while until he projectile vomited all over the dinner table. I hustled him out of the restaurant back door and just as I was leaving and well-dressed child-free couple were walking in, they kindly held the door for me and right then Dash vomited all over my face, neck, hair and chest. Vomit was dripping from eyebrows. But it was fine, really. He got home without getting sick again and we both felt better after we bathed and I thought maybe I will take David up on the cleaning woman.

Maybe we are all the same in the suburbs? Today, David hitched a ride to the station and before I dropped him at the train he brought Conrad into his classroom. I pulled up to the drop off lane (where you just pull up to the school and your kid hops out, you wave goodbye and drive away). Since it was rare to have dad around, David hopped out with Conrad and and walked him in. If you’re in the drop off lane you need to keep moving to let other kids get dropped off. I pulled forward. David rushed out of school, and unfamiliar with the rules of drop off, hopped in a silver Saab. Trouble was it wasn’t our car. It was our great friend Suzanne’s silver Saab! He looked at her said, “You’re not my wife!?” and Suzanne, who can roll with pretty much anything said, “You need a ride?”

The other night I was talking to a friend who is going through a terrible divorce. She sat across from me at my kitchen table and confessed that early on she knew there would be trouble but convinced herself she could fix things it somehow (hey, we’ve all been there). Then one Saturday morning, she heard an episode of This American Life about breakups that featured Howard Markmam, the psychologist at University of Denver who figured out that by studying couple’s facial expressions while arguing, he could predict the likelihood of them staying together. Markham and his colleagues looked at a variety of facial clues such as eye-rolling, sighing, and tone of voice to determine if a person’s true motive was driven by malice or by love. My friend said her soon-to-be ex husband exhibited facial cues that were more malicious than loving, (confirming her suspicions) and because of them and a variety ways he’s chosen to be unkind, now they are splitting up.

All this got me thinking about how husbandblogger and I fight. I’ll admit, I’m definitely an eye-roller. But husbandblogger does something I don’t think Dr. Markham has studied: just when I’m about to make a really important point, or I’m coming around to kissing and making up he has no qualms about farting. Sometimes it’s a small fart and other times it’s as loud as a Whoopi-cushion fart. And I know it should make me laugh but it actually makes me even angier. I think, “How can you fart on my big important point.” Or, “How can you fart if you want me to come up and kiss you?” So I want to ask Dr. Markham, can our marriage survive the use of gas?

I’m still reeling from having missed the Jonathan Adler sample sale. Apparently, they had the green Chinese chairs I’ve been coveting for only $50! (without cushions). Normally, I think sample sales are the magazine editors fashion-forward version of Costco, you overspend on a lot of stuff you wouldn’t normally think you need. But this was the real thing. And I was lamenting and daydreaming at the same time outloud to fatherblogger about what I would have bought. While chatting we noticed that a cute spindly sidetable we have was broken. Babyblogger has made a habit of knocking it over. Fatherblogger looked at the table and said, honey, I’ll buy you nice furniture when babyblogger is old enough to be yelled at.

The other day I made a terrible mistake. After pre-K-blogger pooped on the potty I accidentally flushed it. And as soon as the water rushed in to whisk his poop away, he freaked out, “I wanted to flush my poop. I wanted to flush.” It was made all the more worse because I copped to my mistake and he carried on with his rant for about 7 minutes. Tired of the pre-K-blogger antics, fatherblogger cut off a piece of chocolate cake I had recently baked and plopped it in the toilet. ” pre-K-blogger, come quick, I think some poop floated back.” And sure enough we all went to see and there was a perfectly triangular piece of cake (with vanilla frosting) in the toilet. pre-K-blogger flushed happily and the whining stopped.

Last night we went to a friends house to celebrate the imminent arrival of therir first baby. Two other couples were there also with kids and the mothers were pretty well pulled together. One was beautiful English woman wearing a floral dress and a ballet wrap sweater. The other was pregnant with her second in a cute body hugging jersey top. And then there was me in black shirt dress and a peach hoodie. Before we headed over pre-K-blogger and I had a pretty intense soccer ball volley. And pre-K-blogger suggested I stay in my sneakers so that I’d be more comfortable. I almost took his advice, until I thought sequinned slides would offset the sportiness of the hoodie.

As we were leaving the party around ten pm with two very tired kids I caught my refelction in the mirror and thought I can’t believe I came to a party like this. And told fatherblogger so as soon as we got in the cab. He said, honey, you look like a beautiful woman who has a lot going on.

This morning, after three weeks of being up with babyblogger at odd hours of the night he slept the whole night through. I turned to fatherblogger and said, I can’t believe he slept through the whole night. Fatherblogger said, “Even the devil must rest.”

This afternoon as I was rattling off a list of all the things we needed to do and how I couldn’t figure out how to do them. Fatherblogger turned to me and said, Motherblogger, we may be broke but you can afford to pay attention.