Eight Years – The Good Working Year

I got a call yesterday in between a conference call and a speaking engagement at the Offshore Technology Conference.  I had this little window of time, about 10 minutes to run down to the building cafeteria and grab a sandwich before heading out, and I didn’t recognize the phone number.  I answered on the third ring.

“Mrs. Vincent, we have your son here.  He’s fine.  He fell at school today.  He bumped his head and busted his knee, but his arm, well he’s guarding his arm and can’t seem to raise his hand up to put an ice pack on his head.”

It didn’t take me but a nanosecond to want to have him x-rayed since an incident of brotherly pushing on Sunday also resulted in his arm hurting.  I called my nanny who was a few minutes from the school, and she ran my little man to the Texas Children’s ER for x-rays (since the pediatrician’s office doesn’t have them).  Then I called my incredibly hubby to see if he could do an emergency carpool pick up and run the other little one to an allergy appointment since our nanny would be hung up at the ER waiting on a doctor to read the x-rays.  I proceeded to rush out the door with all the papers I would need for the next two days of work meetings and simultaneously beat myself up for my first miss of an ER visit (not our first ER visit mind you, not with three four year olds, but I’d always been there to take them).

I loved the six year anniversary summary of each of our marriage years in a convenient tag line.

If I had to capture Year Eight, then it would be the Year of Opportunity and Exhaustion.  (I think our seven year anniversary was harder than others.  And oh five years, five years we were on a second honeymoon when I wrote that post. What fun seeing those pictures from New Orleans.)

I have loved this past year.  Both Bray and I have been good to one another.  We may have been a little less good to ourselves.  We’ve worked harder than ever in our careers and harder than ever with our family.  (We’re staring down this Friday night trying to figure out how he’ll see little bit’s ballet recital when he’s supposed to be coaching the boys tee ball practice.)

Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

Well said, Mr. Ford.  That counts our year eight as a success.

This was the coming together:

This was the keeping together:

This is the working together:

(And yes, his wrist is broken…sigh.  And no, we’re not smiling because of it, that’s from the fall…)

I think it takes some time to figure out the working together.  I’m actually sure it takes a lifetime but by year eight at least you’re starting to get the hang of it.

It’s not perfect, but it is a partnership.

It’s not glamorous, but it is a gift.

It’s not exotic, but it is extraordinary.

And I’m grateful for this man who captured my heart, and for another year which I’ll mark down as a success.