Appreciating my husband

You never really know how much someone does until they don't/can't do it. Of course, I have always been aware that my husband does a lot of things - he remodeled our kitchen in his spare time for heaven's sake - but still, it's the little things that you don't think about. Like right now, because of Brian's shoulder, he can't pick Katy up or even rush over to save her from something dangerous that she might get into, like pulling a hot cup of coffee off a table or opening the trash can to retrieve some previously discarded food. So I can't leave her with him even for a minute. So everytime I have to run upstairs to use the restroom or run to the store to get some milk - Katy comes with me. Which is completely fine, of course, but just slows me down a bit. And I didn't fully appreciate before how nice it is to have a chance for a bathroom break.

This evening I got to appreciate not only how Brian helps me with my responsibilities, but also the responsibilities that he carries without my assistance. I came home from running an errand and Brian informed me, "Honey, we have a problem under the kitchen sink." You should've seen my face: I knew exactly what that meant. Ever since Brian remodeled the kitchen, we've been having some problems with leakage in the plumbing under the sink. Tonight I walked in to the kitchen and found exactly what I expected: a soaked floor mat in front of the sink, a bucket overflowing with dirty water under the pipes, and lots of soggy cleaning products. I asked Brian, "What should we do?" to which he replied, "I'll just have to walk you through how to fix it." Ugh, gross.

So Brian may have chuckled a little as I put on my rubber dish gloves (he usually does it bare handed - nasty!), but I fixed the leaky pipe! And on the first try, which is apparently impressive. I won't say that I was completely pleasant and excited about this endeavor - I grumbled a little bit, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. That's what I discovered about plumbing: it isn't that complicated, just really really messy.

Needless to say, I'm appreciating more and more everyday what my husband does for our family. Props to single moms, too, because gosh, I don't know how you do it.