cat named pig

For our first anniversary, Matt and I spent the weekend at a bed-and-breakfast outside Madison. The year after that, we flew to Montreal and stayed in a charming hotel with a fabulous restaurant. We don’t do gifts, but every year since Siena was born we’ve gotten a babysitter and gone out to dinner.

Yesterday Matt and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary, but I use the term “celebrated” loosely here. “Briefly acknowledged it” might be more accurate, or even “survived it.” Not that the anniversary of our marriage required surviving, but the day itself sort of did.

We spent the weekend in Portland, OR, for my cousin’s wedding. The whole weekend was all kinds of fantastic, from the gorgeous hotel (stay here if you’re visiting Portland and like Mad Men), to the beautiful vineyard wedding, to the free public transportation in downtown Portland. Seriously, riding the street car and light rail made the trip for Elliot. We visited with family and checked out Powell’s Books, which you should also do if you’re in Portland (and have a spare suitcase to fill). We had a blast.

But then we had to get home.

Due to a staggering lapse in judgment and common sense, we had originally booked our flights without bothering to check Siena’s school calendar. You know, the calendar for the elementary school she is attending for the very first time ever, kind of a big deal, major life milestone, etc. Brilliant. So we had tickets to fly out on her first day of kindergarten. This obviously had to be fixed, which turned out to cost approximately the GDP of a small country. We ended up just changing Siena’s and my tickets. This meant Matt and Elliot left a day earlier and got home a day later than Siena and I did, and hooo-boy was that ever a mistake. If I had known what the emotional fallout of that decision would be like, I would have sold my house and all my belongings to avoid the hours of drama from Siena about the unfairness of it all.

She and I got home Monday night and I put her to bed around 8:00. At 11:00 p.m. she was still coming out of her room, alternately sobbing about missing the boys or raging about how they got a longer vacation and it WASN’T FAIR. Which it wasn’t. At that point, I certainly would have preferred still being on vacation to three hours of histrionics at home.

She finally went to sleep and slept later than she ever has in her life. I took her to the bus stop in the morning and then sent Matt a romantic and loving three-word text message to mark our eight years of wedded bliss. Then I went home and cleaned the litter box.

We picked Matt and Elliot up around bedtime, which meant Siena was even more tired and grumpy by the time we got home from the airport. She was thrilled to see Elliot though, and hug-wrestled him for about fifteen minutes before I pulled them apart. She had missed Matt, too, but chose to express it by being angry at him for being gone. They got into a battle of wills over pajamas that you could probably hear at your house. Or in space.

In the midst of all this, the toilet overflowed. (Never buy the extra-thick toilet paper if you have a child — they will not believe that you can use less of it because it’s thicker. No matter how many times you explain it to them.) After mopping up toilet water, I went downstairs to start a load of laundry and saw a centipede the size of a cat skitter across the floor in front of me. I screamed, then cursed when it disappeared into a corner.

“This is the worst anniversary EVER!”

I went upstairs and grumbled to Matt until we decided to watch Mad Men online. Watching shows on the computer is what we do most nights after the kids go to bed. This welcome return to normalcy (and the soothing sound of ice clinking in Don Draper’s cocktail glass) helped dispel my bad mood. Matt, as is usual for him, had never even gotten crabby.

I won’t ever book a trip where we fly separately again. Not just because of Siena’s reaction, but because Matt is my favorite travel companion. I missed squeezing his arm as the plane took off, and I missed his ability to stay completely relaxed while checking in and going through security. (I tend to navigate the airport in a state of HIGH INTENSITY until we get to the gate — then and only then do I chill out.) Mostly, I just missed him. After eight years of marriage, I still like having him around. And not just because he usually cleans the litter box.