The holidays are soooo crazy - I just realized that I haven't posted anything since the middle of November! And because it has been so long since I've updated anything, you just know this is going to be a l-o-n-g post...plus, I know there are a bunch of people who check in every once in awhile, and want to know how things are going. So this is the catch-up post. Not like ketchup - catch up. As in getting caught up. So here goes:
First, I have to share the coolest message KirKo sent me for Thanksgiving (I was sick, and it was pretty uneventful, other than his text). I woke up, and the light on my phone was blinking to tell me I had a message. I turned it on, and like always, got that little smile in my heart when I saw it was from my guy. Then I read it. It about brought tears to my eyes. This is what it said:
"I am thankful for timing and ditto and me dos. I am thankful for hand holding and kissing and countdowns. I am thankful for the feeling in my stomach when I first see you. I am thankful that I have found someone that I used to only dream about. I am thankful that we are the people in the story that we love to tell so much. I AM THANKFUL FOR YOU! I LOVE YOU SWEETHEART! Happy Thanksgiving. KirKo."
How awesome is he? Answer: Way.
We were supposed to wait until Christmas for him to come back out, but 37 days was just too long to wait, so he ended up coming out the weekend of December 7. It was, like always, wonderful. We went to Christmas Village, among other things, and that's where this picture was taken:
I love this photo because we both look so dang happy - probably because we were! Well, Kirk looks a little cold - probably because it was - but he was such a trooper! He hung out with the kids and the family and on Sunday, before he left, we spent the Best. Hour. Ever. together, just talking and stuff. I just can't say enough good things about him.
Anyway, that brings me to Christmas. It was great - best ever, in fact - just very busy. Kirko got in around 4:30 PM on Christmas Eve, and from there we went straight to a family party in North Ogden. Well, we swung by home first and picked up my girls, and THEN headed for North Ogden! Kirk just hung out and made himself at home there - he seemed really comfortable, which was cool, because don'tcha just hate it when you have to worry about somebody and whether or not they're OK and stuff? I mean, you do it, anyway, when it's someone you care about, but it's nice to know that you don't have to do it, if something else should come up....
We came home around 8:00-ish, and played a couple of board games (even Bretten, who was only *mildly* sullen, played!) while we waited for my mom and dad to swing by - they always give us Christmas jammies the night before, so even Kirk got a pair this year. I think he was a little surprised to be included with that! After that, we sent the girls to bed, and Kirk helped me play Santa Claus - a first for him. He was so cute! We set out all the kids' gifts and stuffed stockings, etc., and then we went to bed, too.
Morning came all too quickly...I won't go into any of the gifts except to say that Santa was very good to all of us and that Kirk has exceptional taste. :)
After doing gifts at my house, we went to my Grandpa Bob's (Kirk keeps pretending to forget he's my grandpa, and calls him Uncle Bob, Field Marshall Bob, and even Sideshow Bob...) and had breakfast and more gifts. Then the girls went with the Ex's parents, and Kirk and I went back to my place.
Well, I said I wasn't going to go into detail about the gifts, but I have to tell this story so I have to give you at least this much background: Kirk did give me an absolutely gorgeous bracelet, presented very creatively around the neck of a stuffed bear, wrapped in a Crown whiskey bag (he is still a guy, after all!!).
I'd had a hard time getting the bracelet's clasp undone to get it off the bear, and then I couldn't get it done up right when I put it on when I was getting ready to go that morning...and we traditionally have champagne with breakfast on Christmas morning, anyway (I am saying that in my defense NOW...). So when we got home from Grandpa's around noon, I was tired from going to bed late, getting up early, helping in the kitchen, chasing kids, etc., so I took a nap. Of course I took off all my jewelry first, to get comfy, and stretched out....
Later that afternoon, Kirk said, "It's OK if you don't like your bracelet enough to wear it..." and I was like "OMG - what the @#$%! did I do with it?!?!" because I honestly couldn't remember what I had done with it!
So my first thought was, "Well, it's got to be with my watch and ring and stuff!" I went up to my room to look, but it wasn't there. I seriously thought I was going to puke as the panic set in! (Vomit is too polite of a word for the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach!!) I called my mom to see if anybody had seen it at Grandpa's house, and I looked everywhere in the house and car, and in all the gifts that we'd brought home from Grandpa's, etc. - and couldn't find it. I was about in tears - just absolutely *sick.*
And then Kirk said, "Did you look in your purse?" And I had already, but I figured I'd look one more time....so I pretty much dumped my purse out on the floor, and there was the bracelet, in the bottom of my purse, thankfully. I about bawled in relief. Actually, a tear or two actually did escape....not so much for the dollar value or anything, but just because of the sentimental value, you know?
That evening, after my girls got home, we went down to my brother's house in Clinton and did more gifts and ate *again.* My mom and dad and little brothers found some gifts that Kirk really liked and I think it surprised him that they kind of spoiled him the way they did. My youngest brother gave him one of those vinyl stickers of the Peeing Calvin, with Calvin peeing on a Broncos logo (Kirk is a major Broncos fan), and my mom gave him a little Broncos snowman Christmas ornament and a Broncos nutcracker, along with some other things. My other brother gave him a Christmas beer glass filled with pistachios, I think - to tell you the truth, it was so chaotic with all the kids simultaneously ripping into their gifts, I'm really not positive!
The next day (Saturday) we took the twins to see "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" - *excellent* movie with surprisingly adult humor, even though it is a kids' show - and then went to see some old friends who were in town for the holidays that night. We went to another friend's party for a bit, and then just hung out at a dive bar in Layton for a couple of hours, just BS'ing and playing everything from Patsy Cline to Megadeth on the jukebox, so that was fun, too. Then the next day, he watched football and I pretty much napped all day, until it was time to take him to the airport.When it came time to leave, Kirk left the nutcracker at my place, because he said he didn't want it to break in his bag on the way home, and it would just "be coming back to stay soon enough, anyway." I have quite a collection of nutcrackers that I call my Nutcracker Army, so I told him it couldn't join the army at my place until he joined the family, and he said, "That's fine. It'll happen soon enough!" BIG smiles from me at that one!!
So that's all the factual stuff. Here's the sappy stuff:
It is absolutely *great* when he is here. He fits in my house and my life so smoothly...I can't even describe just how...meant, I guess, it feels. Just so absolutely comfortable and right and...I don't know. I don't know how to describe it; it seems I lack sufficient or appropriate vocabulary to do it justice. And every time I have to send him back, it hurts worse. Seriously, like my heart has been ripped from my body and is no longer my own to do with as I will - it goes, instead, where he goes.
I have honestly never felt like this with anyone ever before. I have heard a few people describe it with their significant other, but I kind of think a lot - maybe even most? - people "settle" for something less. Something pretty good, maybe, but certainly less than this. I know I did before. I never felt about the Ex the way, over time, I came to realize I wanted to feel about somebody, and the Ex never felt the way I wanted someone to feel about me - at least that he was capable of demonstrating. Which isn't to say we had a bad marriage or whatever - in many ways, it was better than a lot of them. It was just never this, is all.
And he is such an absolutely good man - I just feel like I couldn't have chosen a better person to give my heart - or my love - to. He is respectful to me and my parents, down-to-earth with my extended family, and most importantly, good with my girls: patient and understanding with each of them in the ways they need. He listens to Cyd and lets her talk Pokemon with him, comments on her drawings, asks her questions, etc. He tries to draw Bretten out of her shell, tries to find things to compliment her on, and puts up with her cold shoulder. It's so funny - Bretten actually has to TRY to be ornery to him. It's like she catches herself warming up and being semi-nice and likable, and then is like, "Wait a minute!! What's this?!? Must....Remain....Crabby...."
And Mychael seems to quite like him and feel really comfortable with him. She layed in bed with us Sunday morning/afternoon and looked at a book with me, while Kirk lay next to me watching football on TV. Mychael and I laughed and took turns showing Kirk pictures we thought were funny, and it didn't feel awkward or weird at all. In fact, it felt so natural to me that I didn't even think twice about it until Kirk said something about it later!
In fact, she is so comfortable with him, that on the way into the movie Saturday afternoon, when Kirk just remarked casually, to no one in particular, "Geez, it's so much warmer here during the day than at night...." Mychael said to him, kind of sarcastically, "Uh, yeah. That might have a little something to do with the sun being out."
Kirk was such a good sport about it, Mychael and I just laughed! So on the way out of the theater, Kirk says the same thing back to her, sarcastically, "Gee, it's so much warmer during the day!" Mychael just went along with it and teased him back, saying, "I thought we cleared this up earlier - you know, the sun and all?" It was really cute.
Even the dog likes him. The morning after he left, Sarah came running into the bedroom, jumped up on the bed, sniffed his spot, then jumped down and ran around both sides of the bed, looking back at the bed all the while. Then she jumped back up and sniffed the bed again, then hopped off the bed, ran downstairs, and then came back up, again. Then, she sat in the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom and just stared at me like, "What'd you do with him?!"
What did I do with him? Sent him back to Phoenix, for now. What am I gonna do with him, though? Keep him.
