Marriage Counseling

Last night we had the BIG interview with our social worker...Kelly and me together. You would think I would be more at ease on this one because at least I could use my God-given sharp elbow to do what it was intended to do, if necessary, to control the answers, unlike our individual interviews where K-man was completely unleashed. But no, I was extremely nervous...anticipating questions such as, "if your marriage was a bird, what kind would it be." HUH? Or, worse yet, "What's the thing that annoys you the most about Kelly." Well, I wish I could say that, like our interview for Lucy, the questions were not like that but instead....they very much like that!!! AAAHHH!!!

Well, no bird to marriage comparison questions, she did ask each of us to tell the other's strengths and weaknesses. K-man went first. Gulp. We've been married 21 years, surely I can telepathically tell him what to say....but no, instead he told that one of my weaknesses was not handling stressful situations well. WHAT??? Why is he saying this to our social worker of all people!! She said, "Ummm. That doesn't sound so good, maybe you should explain what you mean." YES, PLEASE EXPLAIN!! And had she been paying attention to me at this point, she would have seen exactly the stressfulness that K was referring to. My bony elbow suddenly seemed inadequate for the situation we were in and my strangling hands I was sitting on were about to appropriately make an appearance around his thick neck. But, he found a way to make it sound not-so-bad and she seemed to accept that. Whew. I guess...???

Then came time for my strengths...ok, (sigh of relief) I sat back, way more relaxed. This is where he will make me shine! This wonderful, sweet, hard-working mother and wife was about to make her appearance. No. He actually sat there stammering. STAMMERING! Who is this man I'm sitting next to here?? Is 21 years as far as we go after this night?? He finally came up with a few nice things...but I was sensing that this interview was turning into an apparently much-needed marriage counseling session.

Well, lest I sit here and begin to relive the bitterness all over again, I will happily tell you that the interview, as a whole, went well. We laughed a lot and, short of showing public displays of affection right there in her office, we seemed to convince her that we were still very much in love. And we are. Really.

And last but certainly not least, I owe a huge thank you to our great friends Mike & Angela who took care of Lucy and the boys & hauled them all to church. You know you are starting to get a lot of kids when you have to leave your van with your "babysitter". But....I'm a little worried because Mike has threatened to send our already-a-bit-uncertain Social Worker a picture of the inside of my van, which will most definitely be the final deal-breaker.

Thanks Angela, for buying Lucy 1,000 (literally) more stickers!! Our house & Kelly will soon be completely covered.

Keep at it Lucy until you've covered all the stains on that old t-shirt!