The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Random Musings on the Matters of Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry.



The Lucky One.
So Prairie Guy celebrated his 41st (uh, yeah, he's *quite* a few years my senior :D )birthday last week. I thought it would be creative and romantic to offer him a special kind of gift this year, something very personal and unique. I asked him in advance what he thought, since the idea was rather unconventional...

The basic premise was that I wanted to give him something of myself. Either commit myself to change something (primarily about myself or the way I do or fail to do things) that would make life nicer for him. Or do something regularily that would make him feel special and loved. Not a one time gift, but a gift that would keep giving every day, all year.

His initial reaction was; "Nice!" and if you are a visual person you can possibly just picture that anticipatory raise of the eyebrows... but after further consideration he renegged. "I don't like this," he said. The onus on deciding a gift is supposed to be on you and you've passed the buck to me." Hmmmm, point taken. I hadn't thought of it that way. I told him that I would come up with something myself and received the anticipatory eyebrow cocking yet again which qualified him for a playful punch in the arm from yours truly.

But after further consideration I was renegging.... "I wanted you to pick because only you know what would be really special and meaningful for you". I didn't think it should be that hard, but at the same time I understood the difficulty he was facing. I think it was kind of like the difference I feel in appreciation when faced with a husband who voluntarily and in a joyful spirit comes of his own accord to wash dishes beside me, or a husband who sighs and comes rather reluctantly because I ask for help. Somehow the first is so much more romantic than the second. He somehow felt that his asking for this gift somehow robbed it of it's "coming from me".

I asked if he would be willing to come up with three things that would be meaningful and special for him and then let me choose and wouldn't you know, oh joy, we reached a happy compromise.

All that to say that men are really, so easy to please! My gift to my husband turns out to be as great a gift to me as I would think it is to him and I am just tickled pink (as is he). So here it is. On free evenings (when we don't have engagements) and on weekends I am pledged to devote half hour of my time to being in bodily contact with him. Now, don't let your imaginations go running off with you, this has nothing to do with fancy shenanigans. It merely means that I am with him, where he is, close enough to be making bodily contact in some way, shape or form.

So... I just got up from spending half an hour lazing on the couch with P-G while he watched some movie that totally didn't interest me, but I got a nice leg rub out of it (seriously, whose gift is this anyway?). When the half hour was up (I wasn't clocking it but it was probably closer to 45 min), the dialogue went like this;
"Do you mind if I go blog for a bit?"
"You're not into this (movie) are you?"
"No."
"Sure, babe. Go ahead"
Then as I got up to go he pulled me over for a kiss and said, "You're the best wife in the world".

Cha-Ching. Now, who's the lucky one?

photo credit: Leslie Vega