Seventeen: Our Eleven Year Anniversary...

Dave and I officially became a couple on April 30th, 2000. I was 17. He was 19. 6 months, to the day later, he left me for basic training. 7 months after that, on May 26th, 2001 we got married. I was 18 and he was 20. 18 months after that, G was born- this perfect little non alien-headed baby. 2 years, almost to the day- and a deployment later, L was born. (My first question when he finally shot out was "What color is his hair?" "Oh it's beautiful, it's red" "GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!!!" I screamed.). And then 5 years and 8 months later, S was born. Little, sweet, chicken legged S.

This isn't going to be a long post- Just one long enough to say this in my own way.

I haven't always been in love with him. There have been quite a few times where I've downright hated him. There have been times where I've done the life insurance calculation in my head. (If you're reading this and you don't know what the Life Insurance Calculation is, you're in the wrong place.) There have been times where I've intentionally ignored his calls. There have been times where I've wanted to leave him. There have been two times where I've actually left... And then realized that there wasn't enough money in the bank account for me to stay gone for long. We've thrown things, we've screamed, we've locked each other out of the house, I've pushed him out of a moving vehicle (It was only going 5 miles an hour. Shut it.), he left me in the post-partum unit after G was born to go home and get some sleep because he was tired...

Right?

But I love my husband. And like the ebb and flow of a marriage and any relationship that's lasted as long as ours has as young as ours started, I am in love with him. No matter what stupid shit he's done on whatever day that's got me looking at him like he's a new level of dumbass I've never seen, (Seriously, today, he put the basket for the ice maker back in the freezer after it's been sitting in the cabinet for two years, without washing it, and then put a bag of ice in it.) he usually does something to redeem himself.

How could I not love him. The man went to war for us because it was the only job he could find. He went to Korea when his children were 2 and a half and 6 months for 18 months because it was the better of the two options- Go for 18 and get out for good or Go for a year, come home for 6 months and go back to Iraq. He worked his ass off in a job he hated for 6 years for a Government he didn't support just to make sure that G, L and I had what we needed- To prove my family wrong about him. After he got out, he worked 4 years in a backbreaking job he tolerated striving for something better for all of us that he finally got- And you know what he said when I congratulated him? "It's no big deal- I do it for you guys.".

And right now, after jumping down his shit for annoying me most of the day, I got hungry, at midnight. You know what he's doing? Out getting the hamburger I couldn't live without.

He's put up with my bat shit crazy ass for 11 years. He gets me. He still laughs at me when I tell him something looks like a penis, even if it doesn't even remotely resemble a dick. He tells me that I'm dumb when I tell him a horrible joke. He acts interested when I tell him that some dumb cunt wore an IUD on her head to the Royal Wedding. He takes the spiders outside.

He's far from perfect. He looks like a cross between the lost member of ZZTop and the missing cast member of a Pirates of the Caribbean Movie... He's caused me to have TWO redheaded children and THREE boys...

But I love him. I do. I love the fucking moron.