Sunday, November 23, 2008
I'm thankful for my tub...and my husband
The first time we walked through our home we walked into the master bathroom and looked together at the bathtub. It was what was optimistically called a "garden tub." Russ said, looking at it, "that will never work for you." He knew me well enough by then to know that I love taking baths, and that the "garden tub" was not going to be big enough to support my bath habit.
I know that there are many people in this world who have not taken a bath since they were children--I am not one of them. Last year when we were in such a huge drought I worried that there really wasn't enough water to have baths, and so I didn't have one very often. (Don't worry--I did shower instead!) But oh how I missed a nice hot bath with a good book on a cold winter day.
Anyway, back to the story of the bath tub. A couple of years after moving into this house I got a new tub for my birthday and Christmas (which are in the same month). The old one was about 3 1/2 feet long--this one is a full 72 inches long. It has molded arm rests and lumbar support. It holds a lot of hot water. It makes me happy, happy, happy. Every time I use it I think how much I love it.
But even better than thinking about how much I love the tub is that every time I take a bath I am reminded of how wonderful my husband is. Russ had never uninstalled/installed a bathtub before. I read about it on the internet and assured him that it wouldn't be too hard, and he was game to try it. Of course it turned out to be 3x more difficult than I expected, but he never complained. He hammered and sawed and moved things and hauled things and worked like crazy--and now I have that beautiful tub.
Russ is like that. Whatever crazy idea I get, he is there to help and support me. When I wanted to have "just one more baby" he agreed.
When we got a couple more than we'd expected he took such good care of me. He waited on my hand and foot--literally, since I was on bedrest for 10 weeks. After the first couple of weeks that all three babies were home from the hospital we hired night-nannies for two months. And after that he got up with them when they woke up at night. He knew that I was having a tough time with post-partum depression and that I needed as much sleep as possible, and he made it happen.
I could give a million examples. When I was the primary president Russ spent time in the nursery with our two year old. Now that I am the ward music chairperson Russ supervises a choir nursery. Every spring I go spend a week in Utah without any kids and he picks up the slack while I'm gone.
The funny thing is that he is always telling me that I'm wonderful. Well, if I am, it's only because I'm trying so hard to keep up with him...
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We do call him "St. Russ"... :) you are a lucky girl!
ReplyDeleteCan I just tell you that one of the qualities on my 'future husband list' which I wrote back in YW days was "Russ-ness"... I have always admired how calm he was w/ CindyLynn when she was having a tantrum at church one Sunday. I think you're both pretty amazing!!
ReplyDeleteThe effect of the "one more baby" line and then the picture of Russ's arms overflowing with babies has made my day! It might just fortify enough to go deal with the wretched social services people who are being so mean to me right now. If not, can I come take a bath in your tub when I get home?:)
ReplyDeleteWhat an awesome husband. I love the "one more baby" picture too.
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