8 Years (and one week)

I'm pink, he's blue. (I hate pink, but we'll go with it to avoid confusion.)

It's about 11:00 at night.  It's a school night, and I swear we're seldom this sarcastic to each other. Usually.
"Hey, so I need you to think about your first impression of me, and maybe something like when you realized you wanted to marry me.  "
"Ok...why?"
"Blog. Haven't written in forever. And it's anniversary time."
"Why does YOU blogging mean I have work to do?"
*smile* "Oh, so thinking about the beginning of our relationship is WORK now?"
"Well when you put it the way you put it..."
"HOW did I put it?"
"You said, 'I need you to', like 'I need you to put out the garbage.'"
"Well now that you mention it..."
*sigh* "Really? Right now?"
"Pft! No."


So, 8 years.  And one week.  And 4 days. Ok, so I'm a little late on the anniversary post! Hey, I'm very easily distracted, and somebody's been teething. Guess which one of us? 

Media, social circles, and other blogs have confirmed for me lately that a solid marriage is not something to be taken for granted. Plus, I read a blog post that confirmed for me that it's apparently passé to gush about your spouse.  But since when have I been even remotely cool? 
At the risk of nauseating people...
8 years! We're very lucky to have lives that blend easily, being in the same profession.  We so seldom argue that a spat we had in front of his siblings (about forgetting to buy sour cream for fajitas) is still discussed a year later, as if it were a epic, vase-throwing, deal-breaking event.
We do bicker.  Definitely. Mostly because I backseat drive, and he nit-picks.

 But 8 years, last week!  Whoo-hoo! Nobody has thrown anything that I recall, including vases of sour cream.

So June 21st, 2011, we went out for a diner breakfast, E had her physical therapy eval, and we played Just Dance Wii in the basement with the kids. How romantic! Pop the champagne! 
We did have an awesome weekend away for a friend's wedding out of state, sans children, last month.   We were Bob-n-Meg, surrounded by some lovely college friends who knew us back when we started becoming Bob-n-Meg. Hubby was still the cute guy in the trumpet line there, too.  Ok, trumpet quintet. We were very wrapped up in each other, loved the wedding festivities, and it was bliss. And you should have seen the tiny black purse I carried. A diaper literally could not have fit inside! So that was how we celebrated our 8 years together.

The thing is... it's actually an 11-and-half year thing, 12 years in September.
I was 18 when I met Bobby.  He was a friend of a friend of a friend (the degrees of separation went: Me, to next-door hallmate Jaime, to her Euro band tour friend Rachel, to her county band friend Scott, to his next-door hallmate, Bobby). Our burgeoning circle of friends would walk to and from the band field together. He was big, tall, and darn cute up there in the trumpet line. So naturally, I asked him out.
Actually, I asked him if he wanted me to pick up his band gloves for him. He was scheduled to be at work in the dining hall during the time that the band manager was available to hand gloves out. I believe I then  sheepishly pumped Scott for info about the boy. And yes, Scott, I may have said my roommate was the interested party. All's fair in love, yadda yadda...  After finding out his dorm and phone number for drop-off purposes (am I a smart cookie or what?), I brought them over, and asked him out.

And got promptly shot down in favor of a computer game tournament.

Some guys at another college were going to hook computers up to big screen TVs, or somesuch crap, and try some of that new, online gaming! And he'd already told his roommate he'd go along!! And yes, I walked out of that dorm with a clear "NEVERMIND, dork!", (in my head) for that boy.

Ok, clearly things worked out anyway.
But how wonderful to be able to say that I offered to pick up his band gloves, and in return, I got this life.  We literally grew up and became adults together, and I've always thought that is part of why we work.  We ended up experiencing it all; college, jobs, apartment, flat tires, broken-down moving trucks, houses, babies, first words, first steps, hospitals, more jobs, lay-offs, dishes, laundry, bills, tears, and so many laughs, always as a team.  I wanted to get T-shirts, but noooo... 

Fortunately for our future kids, Bobby talked me up a few days after I wrote him off, back in September of '99. I had dropped my roommate's book bag off to her while she was working in the dining hall...where it turned out Bob was also working that evening.  I was two lessons into Music Theory and I was already  completely sucking at it beginning to struggle.  He offered to let me come over (he had a keyboard) and help me sort out the submediant from the subdominant chords on some assignment. Or something.

We were still talking at 2:30 in the morning.  I've always thought it's a darn good sign in any type of relationship if you never run out of things to talk about. He and I have yet to shut up.

 While we did not get much Theory done that evening, the fact that I passed that class at all is a testament to hubby's teaching skills, even then. 

So Happy Anniversary to my hubby, who is still my cute guy in the trumpet line, but with so much more going for him today.  I'm so grateful for you, babe; for your help with Theory homework, for the way you rock babies to sleep and talk with me way later than we should stay up and talk, and for your new but unwavering ability to make sure we always have sour cream for fajitas.