Hanging by a thread

The longer Sean and I are together, the truer the stereotypes get. Rather than going into all the ugly details (nagging, belching, shoes, the history channel) I'll focus on one specific thing: home improvement projects.

Clearly we are gluttons for home owner headaches


masochists


and worse.


When we are at our busiest or


most physically limited


we chew off huge projects.


This past weekend we decided to address our closets. Seemed easy enough.

Isn't that always the way...You can do it, Home Depot can help...Lowe's, let's build something together. Yes, let's.

We assembled the tools and supplies we would need for hanging dowel, drawers and hooks. Of course before we did this we had to wade through three and a half years of hamper-stored clothing, which for me, with three pregnancies and different jobs meant an obscene amount of clothing that I am not wearing but must save for: later in the pregnancy, after the pregnancy, transition, nursing, nursing at work, out-of-maternity-but-not-in-regular-sizes work clothes, normal size clothes, bloated day clothes, skinny day clothes, workout wear for all the previously stated stages and so on. Sean had the clothes he likes, the clothes we like, the clothes I like, and the clothes we share. Intermixed in everything were clothes from the girls and their various sizes.

Oh, yes, the girls.


Did I mention we had no sitter?


Were not yet fully back on east coast time?


Exhausted, yet dying to get out in the fresh powder and build a snowman? Well, we didn't and we were, but this was the as-perfect-as-we-are-ever-going-to-get time to address where we dress.

It was a fascinating dance of working together and apart, Sean knee deep in dress shirts and mismatched socks, while I made sandwiches and cruised Noggin. I think we made it through with very few tantrums (the girls, I'm not slamming Sean) and a truly trivial amount of cursing (Sean, people, the girls are not yet trucker mouths).

We were just about to wrap up when I asked Sean if he could hang just one more thing for me.

"Sure thing, babe," he said with a smile.

I handed him a shelf with four hooks beneath it and he ducked his way into the severely sloped crawl space closet. After much banging and sighing and slipping and a few well-earned four letter words, he emerged, red-faced and sweaty.

"There you go, babe." He started for the other side of the room, raising his arm to set the hammer on the red armoire. I looked at the shelf and just beneath it saw the little Willow Tree piece we were given after Briar was born and which has never truly had a home.



I turned to Sean and saw him shucking the sweaty shirt he'd been wearing, he was moving toward a towel and the shower.

"Honey?" I cooed.

"Mmm-hmm," he replied.

"Babe, could you hang this for me real quick?" I held the base out in my hand, it had the kind of hole on the back that you hold over the head of the screw and then slide down. You know, it looks incredibly effective but is impossible to hang for the inability to see or feel the hole?

Sean looked at me, an entire novel's worth of internal monologue passing across his weary face, but those blue eyes and beautiful mouth smiled without hesitation. Setting the towel down he took the base from my hand and said, "Sure thing, babe."

I let him walk two steps before I said, "I'm just fuckin' with ya."

I think he considered swatting me, but instead grabbed me in a gentle I-know-you're-pregnant-but-you're-going-down-tackle.