"Us" Thinking
When Andy and I were first married, we lived in a 2nd story apartment. I just realized this sentence makes me sound like I'm 75. The optimal transitional word here would be, anyway, there was one night when we were having some really bad weather blowing through. There were heavy thunderstorms with the potential for tornadoes and our eyes were glued to the Weather Channel. At about midnight, the sirens in our area started going off and as previously planned in an emergency, I phoned our downstairs neighbor to tell her we were coming down to seek shelter. I hung up the phone and I bolted for the door.
I left everything...including my new groom. My neighbor opened the door to my panic-stricken face (I am firmly anti-tornado) and stared at me for a few seconds. "Are you going to let me in?" I demanded. She just stared. I was annoyed...and panicked. "Where's Andy?" she asked looking behind me. I paused. Oh right, him. "There wasn't time," I yelled over the thunder in the background. Just then, my husband appeared behind me with his wallet, my purse, our wedding rings, the cell phones, the chargers and our passports. "Thanks for waiting," he managed as we made our way into safety.
Clearly my husband was good at "us" thinking. I, on the other hand, needed a little more time to adjust to thinking about the welfare of someone other than myself...like in a tornado...during an evacuation to a neighbor's house.
When Sam was first born, I would get ready to go somewhere and allot myself the 10 short minutes it basically takes to get myself ready. I would grab my purse, check the charge on my cell phone and then look down at the baby looking at me from the bouncy seat. "Oh, right. You're going too," letting it sink in that I would need an additional fifteen minutes to gear up to bring a newborn and that thought hadn't even occurred to me. It wasn't that I had forgotten about him, I just wasn't, as I previously stated, doing a whole lot of "us" thinking.
In the beginning year of being a mom, I would foolishly make plans during nap time and think that a 'late' dinner worked great for me. That was "me" thinking.
I look at my life today. I see how intertwined the three of our lives, minds and hearts are and I can't imagine, at this point, NOT "us" thinking. The love and devotion to my family has (thankfully) grown over the few years we've had together and I'm so thankful that they are a part of my life.
I'm also thankful that Andy didn't hold the tornado incident against me and that Sam was too young to remember the maternal hiccups I had in the beginning.
And just for the record, I would shove them both in a tornado shelter before me...now THAT is coming a long way, baby!
I left everything...including my new groom. My neighbor opened the door to my panic-stricken face (I am firmly anti-tornado) and stared at me for a few seconds. "Are you going to let me in?" I demanded. She just stared. I was annoyed...and panicked. "Where's Andy?" she asked looking behind me. I paused. Oh right, him. "There wasn't time," I yelled over the thunder in the background. Just then, my husband appeared behind me with his wallet, my purse, our wedding rings, the cell phones, the chargers and our passports. "Thanks for waiting," he managed as we made our way into safety.
Clearly my husband was good at "us" thinking. I, on the other hand, needed a little more time to adjust to thinking about the welfare of someone other than myself...like in a tornado...during an evacuation to a neighbor's house.
When Sam was first born, I would get ready to go somewhere and allot myself the 10 short minutes it basically takes to get myself ready. I would grab my purse, check the charge on my cell phone and then look down at the baby looking at me from the bouncy seat. "Oh, right. You're going too," letting it sink in that I would need an additional fifteen minutes to gear up to bring a newborn and that thought hadn't even occurred to me. It wasn't that I had forgotten about him, I just wasn't, as I previously stated, doing a whole lot of "us" thinking.
In the beginning year of being a mom, I would foolishly make plans during nap time and think that a 'late' dinner worked great for me. That was "me" thinking.
I look at my life today. I see how intertwined the three of our lives, minds and hearts are and I can't imagine, at this point, NOT "us" thinking. The love and devotion to my family has (thankfully) grown over the few years we've had together and I'm so thankful that they are a part of my life.
I'm also thankful that Andy didn't hold the tornado incident against me and that Sam was too young to remember the maternal hiccups I had in the beginning.
And just for the record, I would shove them both in a tornado shelter before me...now THAT is coming a long way, baby!
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