Differences

I got to thinking about my brother-in-law that got married three weeks ago. If you've been around people who are about to get married or just got married, you may notice a sickening amount of affection displayed between the two. "Oh honey bumpkin, I can't stand to be away from you for ten whole minutes. Do you really need to use the bathroom?" and "My shmoopie is thre prettiest shmoopie in the world." Sickening. I'll admit, Sam and I were like that seven years ago. Who isn't? Time sure changes things. It's been almost seven years since we got married, and here are some of the differences between then and now. The differences are mainly because of the children.

Flying
Then: Sam and I flew on our honeymoon (to glorious Reno, Nevada by the way) on Southwest Airlines. We made sickening comments to each other about how cute it was that their logo has a heart in it. We calmly sat in the terminal, waiting for boarding to start. There we sat without a care in the world, just happy to be with each other. On the plane Sam read a book about being newlyweds and I, well, was probably checking her out the whole time. ;) I think I may have looked through the Sky Mall magazine at all the cool stuff. When we got to Reno, we strolled to luggage claim and picked up our one suitcase a piece and went about our merry way.

Now: Flying with children at best can go semi smoothly, and at worst can be one of the crappiest days ever. If you get to check in with all of your stuff and all of your children, consider yourself lucky because you not only have to pack your children around, you have to haul their stuff too. Those two or more extra suitcases, maybe a travel play pen, and the car seats. Then you have to go through security. Nowadays you have the added bonus of having to take of your shoes to get through, in addition to emptying your pockets and throwing away any liquids. So what if you get through the metal detector and one of your kids decides to take off running before you get your stuff from the x-ray machine? Well, you get the exciting thrill of running after a two year old while barefoot and beltless, which may become worse if your pants start to fall down. So lets say you get to your gate, all is well, right? No, you still have to keep an eye on the little farts because they could take off at any second. Then you get on the plane, which is fantastic because it's a confined space and you feel obligated to keep your children from screaming. The children can sense your nervousness, so they hold you hostage. "If you don't get me a juice box soon pal, I may grab that Sky Mall magazine and start ripping pages out and throw them at that nice lady in front of us. Don't make me do that." If you have young children and they need a diaper change, well, good luck in that lavatory. When your plane finally lands, you get to do all the airport stuff in reverse order. At the destination, you can luckily skip the airport security check, saving you the embarassment of losing your pants in two different cities.


Grocery Shopping
Then: We were one of those annoying couples who would walk around the store holding hands the whole time. We would take our time walking through each isle, just in case there was something down that isle that we may have wanted. I probably said stiff like "Do we need any honey, honey?" and "You are sweeter than this brown sugar, sugar." Making our way through the store stress free and not a care in the world.


Now: Grocery shopping with kids is not fun, even if they're being good. Sam and I usually Rock Paper Scissors to see who gets to take the annoying child to the car. I don't know what it is, but grocery shopping with the kids leave you feeling mentally and physically exhausted. Maybe it's the constant bickering between the kids, or having to play Dr. Phil to find out why they're crying and fix it, or having to pack one of them around the whole time. I can't wait for the day when we can leave the kids home.

Bedtime
Then: Whenever we felt like it. Just another part of the day.

Now: Bedtime! Glorious bedtime! Welcome back, my dear friend.

I could really go on all day about this all day. You get the point though. In seven years, we'll probably be looking back at this time and thinking "Remember how nice it was back when the kids were little."