The Art of Creating Special Memories

This week I am not going to dilly-dally around. I’m going to get straight into it. So… Who doesn’t believe in love? And romance? And beautiful gifts from your special someone?

This past weekend was Hubby’s and my wedding anniversary. Our 12th to be exact. Which, whether you like it or not, we are just going to pat ourselves proudly on the back. Anyone who has ever been married knows that despite loving someone with all your heart, there are times when there can be other, not-so-poetic ways, to describe your feelings for this person. Marriage can be great. But it can also be hard work.

So when another years passes by and you can honour the fact that yes, you are still together, you are still in love with each other and you still want to stick by each other, it’s worth celebrating. Am I right?!?

So when we celebrated those 12 years together, it was the most magical, romantic, memorable day of the year. Or was it?….

**cue suspenseful music**

Let’s see now… How was our anniversary, honey? Oh yeah, NOW I remember…

Our Wedding Anniversary

The day started pretty well. We exchanged our carefully-thought-out gifts for each other. For him, a funky new sports bag, a hoodie of his favourite football (that would be soccer, for you non-Europeans) team and a shirt sewn by yours truly. And for me: a brilliant bullet journal for my sewing projects and a massage gift voucher. Smiles and congratulatory air kisses all round.

Why air kisses? Aha! Because I was sick as a dog, complete with barking cough. And there was no way Hubby wanted any of those germs! Understandable, of course. I wouldn’t want them either.

But I was stuck with those suckers nonetheless. You see, the past few days I have been fighting off a nasty cold. Sounds so ho-hum and drab, I know. But I have seriously had all manner of aches and leaking nasal fluids and a hacking cough that felt like it would never end. In fact the coughing sessions only seemed to end with me standing at the toilet holding back the compulsion to puke my brains out.

OK, so, beautiful present *check!*, hacking cough *check!*, you get the idea. Onwards and upwards, right? Er…

The next memorable moment of our most memorable day started with a crash coming from the kitchen, followed by horrified screaming and crying. When we reached the kitchen, we were met by blood spray all over the floor, near a wooden tray that used to be on top of one of the cupboards and one child (who understandably, wishes to remain anonymous 😉), holding their hand to their forehead and blood gushing all over the place. Oh crap!. We quickly grabbed a nearby tea towel to stem the flow and apply pressure to the gash across their forehead. Which then in turn very quickly soaked through so that we had to reach for a second. Oh crappity-crap-crap!

Off to the hospital we all piled in the car to bring our poor, terribly upset child to the Accident & Emergency department. All the while trying to calm said child and simultaneously wondering whether the treatment will be some combi of stitches, staples, glue or bandaids.

Safely back home, with a tear-stained face and a cluster of impossible-to-overlook special plasters applied to the forehead, our poor injured child swore to never enter the kitchen again and spent the next few hours chilling out.

Righto. Back to our making of beautiful memories on our wonderful wedding anniversary…

Later in the afternoon, Hubby suggested making the best of the last sunshine we will see for the next 6 months til it’s spring again  lovely weather by going for a 10km bike ride. Me, who could hardly breathe without starting off the next coughing fit decided it would be wiser to stay home.

So Hubby rides off into the distance with 3 kids in tow to celebrate our wonderful, memorable wedding anniversary.

Apparently things were going just great, until one child (who also, understandably, wishes to remain anonymous) decided that biking with family is a bit drab and slow and would ride home on their own. And then took a wrong turn.

So in an odd twist, Hubby, who left home with 3 kids in tow, returned with just 2. Huh.

Aaaand off dear Hubby pedalled again, trying to figure out where in our suburb Missing Child might be waiting / panicking / cycling in circles.

As the saying goes, “All’s well that ends well” and shortly afterwards a triumphant Hubby returned with one slightly sheepish Formerly-Missing Child.

I did say that wedding anniversaries were supposed to be magical, romantic and memorable, didn’t I?!?

What to do When Things Don’t Go to Plan

Again, I’ll make it short and sweet: Let go of any pretensions. You gotta roll with the punches, baby!

Life with kids can throw up all manner of surprises (sometimes, literally 😉). You can plot. You can plan. You can prepare. As loooong as you want. And then sometimes it still all turns out like a crazy hot mess.

Personally, I find that being able to laugh about it (and I don’t mean in that demented, crazy-eyed way) is the best coping mechanism. Because sometimes, if you don’t laugh, life can frustrate the hell out of you and turn you into a babbling, ranting shell of yourself. (Which by the way, still does happen to me from time to time too. Nobody’s perfect 😉.)

So how did Hubby and I end our wedding anniversary? We sat outside in the cool night air, enjoyed a glass of wine together, uninterrupted. Then we high-fived (remember, no kisses, wife with nasty cold germs?!?), laughed, said that the day was a pretty typical representation of our life, and agreed that it had indeed been a memorable anniversary 😊.

So how was your weekend?!? I dare you to say it was more, um, colourful than ours! Share with us what a typical wedding anniversary looks like for you! We’d love to hear!

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