It was twenty years ago today that I was walking through the lounge in Baker Hall at SOU and started a conversation that would span these decades with someone who would prove to be my best friend and soul mate and as good love stories often do, it all began with poetry. You see there was a poetry reading that night in the SU and I had been searching for a friend to go with me, but everyone I knew had other plans. So I took a deep breath, gathered my wits and asked Jason if he would come along with me. He said yes.

To be fair, he and I had been watching each other for weeks. I saw this guy who wore "John Lennon" style sunglasses and was kind to Jorge my "shhh don't tell anyone because he is illegal" stray cat buddy who hung around the dorms. He thought I was stuck up but was intrigued by my door (which I must say was a work of art and was full of oddly interesting pictures, photos, words and even a great clipping of Ronald Reagan getting on a plane waving happily at the crowd, post brain surgery while Nancy stood behind him looking horrified, and on the bottom of that my friend Pammy had written "Win one for the gipper", so I kind of owe her a bit of gratitude for the small part she played in all of this too). There was, I guess some bit of cosmic electricity between us even from the very beginning.

Twenty years? How is that possible?

Neither of us remember all that much about the poetry reading itself other than Sharon Doubiago was headlining. He remembers talking a lot. I remember listening. I suppose we still balance one another like that. He learned that the arrogance he thought he saw was actually shyness. I learned that he cared a lot about his grandparents (who are really my own now after all these years) and was passionate about photography. I'm certain that we laughed quite a bit.

Fast forward through four, count 'em four kids, births, death, the most incredible lives that we share. More laughter, tears, the day to day minutia that make up a life and all of the moments that really matter with me feeling so incredibly lucky that I get to have this man by my side. That he is my friend, my husband, sometimes the only one in the room who gets my jokes and at the end of the day even through all of the messy stuff, there is this love between us. Love that goes on and on through twenty plus years. Love that I know will span this lifetime and beyond. Lucky. Me. Him. This family.

This is what I know about time. When you aren't having fun it can drag on like it probably did when you were in seventh grade. Good times pass quickly. Summer vacations seem to be over in minutes. Each of our childrens first years were over in the blink of an eye as we tried to hang on to the miraculous wonder of it all. Despite how much we wish we could slow time down, we know that the best tools in our bag of tricks are our minds, our ability to pay attention and to appreciate the "everyday" days. I'm pretty certain that the next twenty years will pass just as fast, Jason as long as I am spending them with you.

We are always a work in progress and the rest of the story is still being written. I'm grateful.

Eat it or Wear it!

It was not my finest moment as a parent, but all in all my actions and reactions on one evening about ten years ago can still shake one of my younger children (who were not even born at that time) into better listeners. In my minds eye I see us all back then. Two weary parents and one strong willed five year old who refused to eat a single bite of chicken noodle soup, never mind that it was something she had eaten dozens of times before, liked and she should have been hungry enough to want. In my own defense I had to have been tired, dealing with wacked out pregnancy hormones and after begging, cajoling, arranging deals that most other children would have jumped on, ("Just eat five bites of soup and we will call this over."), but it was all met with crossed arms and a defiant stare. We were losing her and I guess I must have imagined the soup as the proverbial line in the sand. I must have worried that if I allowed her to leave the table, I would be setting myself up for years of disobedience.

So after about an hour and a half of all of us sitting around what was now cold soup, I uttered five words that has become the stuff that family legends are made of.

"Eat it or wear it!"

I am certain that she thought my threat was hollow, but there is one thing she has since learned about me. It takes an awful lot to make me mad but once I have invested all of the energy it takes to get me there, I follow through!

The soup was dumped over her head.

Within minutes she was cleaned up and I apologized. Life went on. She and I both learned a few things about discipline and listening and most of all communication. I suspect that we are better off for it, but if I could reach back in time and change my actions, I would. I didn't need to dump the soup to make my point. When I think back about all of this I can see that my bullish behavior only taught her that bigger and stronger people always get what they want. All because I insisted that she eat something that she did not want. How absurd!

As I got older, I learned to pick my battles. She (and her sisters) might appear to get away with things on occasion, but only because I know that I am far more of an effective teacher when I am not nitpicking every little thing they do. And when I start to forget that I think about the soup.

Isn't disciplining our kids right up at the top of the list as one of the hardest jobs we face on a daily basis? The parenting books all cover it, but what they all fail to tell you is that it is always evolving as our families grow and change. Consistency is key, but so is balance and it is okay to make mistakes along the way, especially if we own up to them.

We teach our kids, but they are all here to teach us something back too. Sometimes those lessons include forgiving and accepting our own shortcomings.