Wedded Weirdness

We chose to have our wedding ceremony at 7pm so it would be a candlelight service. This meant the reception did not start until after 9pm. Therefore, the party was still in swing at 10:50 pm at which point the Head Elk at the Elk's Club where we held the reception informed us that in ten minutes there would be a "brief moment" during which the lights were turned out as part of some Elk ritual. He made it sound like the darkness would last mere seconds. Instead, the lights went out and a voice came over the PA system and an extended tribute was paid to "dead Elk brethren everywhere." In.the.middle.of.our.reception. It was bizarre.

On our first anniversary, Mr. Lime and I booked dinner and overnight reservations at a lovely little inn near where we lived. We were such gluttons during dinner that upon retiring to our cozy and romantic accommodations we regarded each other in our respective states of bloat and opted to roll around on the bed moaning and groaning in discomfort rather than in fits of wild passion. We watched Rudolph and Frosty on TV while waiting for digestion to progress enough to facilitate conjugation without pain.

Diana was born just five days before our second anniversary. Since I had been on bed rest for five weeks prior to her birth, had 2 days of labor before giving birth via c-section, and had only been discharged to home the day before my anniversary I had made no real plans for our anniversary. My mother came up to help me the first week home. On the day of our anniversary I was nursing the baby while laying down on the couch (c-sec bellies aren't overly fond of bearing that weight on mother's lap). When I sat up to burp the baby she not only brought up a gas bubble but the ejected every drop of what she had just ingested, thus soaking my entire left side from ear to hip. My right breast was leaking enough to soak the other side of me. Since that was only my 5th day as a nursing mother and only about the second day since my milk had come in I was not terribly adept at stanching the flow. The postpartum hormone crash was also hitting me hard, as was lack of sleep (since I thought I had to make up for 5 weeks of inactivity in 24 hours). I stood, drenched in vomit and milk, in the living room with a crying, spewing newborn and I began to sob. At that moment flowers were delivered. My mother received them as a dazed delivery man gaped at the horror before him. I assumed the flowers were congratulations for having a baby. When my mother read the card declaring they were in celebration of our anniversary my sobs turned to wailing because only then did I realize I had forgotten our anniversary. I was clearly a failure as both a wife and mother.

It was then that Mr. Lime entered, asked if I had gotten the flowers he sent and told me, "Happy Anniversary, honey!" I bawled in utter despair and sputtered in between sobs about what a terrible failure I was. Mr. Lime stood there stunned beyond words when my mother took charge and announced, " Postpartum hormone crash and lack of sleep. Don't take it personally. I will be enforcing nap time for the new mother tomorrow."

Today is our 20th anniversary. I am reasonably sure there won't be any Elks, massive bloat, or baths of milk vomit....at least I hope so.