Today I celebrate my seventeen year wedding anniversary with Spouse Weasel. I think we’ve officially passed the threshold where we’ve been together longer than we’ve been without each other. We first met in 2001 at age 18 during freshman orientation at college. It took us another year to start dating. We married in 2006, both survived graduate school (he’s a psychologist, I’m a nonprofit development professional) and fully 19 years after getting together, we had a child. That child is now three. The kid is the absolute best and my husband is a stellar parent. It makes such a difference when both parents are 100% committed.
Throughout the years we’ve definitely had our share of challenges, the latest becoming parents to an autistic child with substantial support needs, but one of our strengths has been supporting one another when we had nobody else. It has created a kind of “us against the world” mentality, but whatever it takes to survive. Now because of our son we have one more person in our close and loving little family. Now it’s the three of us against the world.
The plan today is to go to Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit. We were going to wander around a bit and maybe see a jazz jam session, but it’s raining today, so I see the new Spiderverse movie in our future, followed by a low-key dinner. We are simple people who enjoy simple pleasures. I’m sure we will play Diablo IV together tonight after the sprog is in bed. The sprog is also very lucky because the babysitter is one of his favorite people.
No specific plans. I got the certification because I work in the defense industry and the DoD has been saying that soon they’re going to require contractors who work on certain programs to have that certification (no word on exactly when “soon” is). So having it will make me qualified to work on more programs in the future, whenever that requirement goes into effect.
And my employer provided all the training, and paid for the exam, so I figured why not take advantage of it.
A friend of mine called a few months ago - her parents suffered a flood in their home (hot water heater) and InsureCo was lowballing them, something like $7k or so. I talked to her sister (this was in CA and sis was closer to the situation), gave advice. They went ahead and had repairs done, fighting with InsureCo the entire time.
Found asbestos. Had to have that taken care of, with InsureCo saying “no, uh-uh, not in this contract”.
HOWEVER, I read the policy and noted language which said asbestos removal would be covered if necessitated by repair activities. Told them to fight this (and to consult with an actual attorney, not just some smart guy who reads contracts). Anyway, I just found out today that they’re getting reimbursed for it all (less deductible). Over $25k! And the asbestos removal was covered!
Maybe this isn’t the biggest news, but it feels like it to me. I took my 3yo son to great-grandma’s house to swim in the pool last weekend. It was only his second or third time in the water and the previous time, he had been very nervous and stayed on the raft the whole time. But this weekend, I managed to coax him into the water… and he loved it! He saw us put our faces in the water to blow bubbles and he immediately started trying on his own, and then was trying to hold his breath and go under water. He put his head under even though he came up sputtering sometimes. He really got the hang of it fast. And you know not once during that 90 minute swim session did he mention numbers, his usual unceasing obsession. He didn’t want to get out of the pool.
Things do not come easily to my son. He is resistant to trying new things and tends to give up quickly, so to see him enthusiastically persevere at something challenging makes my heart sing. I had a feeling swimming would be good for him, just this gut feeling, so I had signed him up for swim lessons the week before. Now I can see he really is ready. His first lesson is Saturday. I think swimming will help him with his motor coordination issues, his confidence, and just give him a way to have fun.
He’s also made a lot of other progress, including with his speech delay. The other day he climbed in the car after daycare and announced, “eating cookies!” I said, “Is that what you did today?” “Yes.” “What color were the cookies?” “White.” Sure enough there were photos from the daycare center of them eating cookies with white frosting. He actually told us about his day! These little things can mean the whole world.
Indeed they can, and the cockles of my heart warmed a couple degrees on your behalf.
During my younger daughter’s initial hospital stay with what turned out to be Crohn’s she was restricted to getting all her nutrition via a PICC line. One morning she called and said “Dad! I ate a piece of toast!” Just as well I was working remotely — it wouldn’t have been seemly for my co-workers to see me on the floor blubbering.
(Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack your undisputed Good News. Just triggered a memory.)
It’s a little sad that this thread has so few entries compared to the ones that share bad or scary news. I’ll fully acknowledge my own tendency to look at the more terrible headlines first.
