While we were out to lunch on our anniversary I asked you what was the best day from the last year. Without a lot of hesitation you said it was the day after our wedding, the day we left for our honeymoon. I wore my fabulous hat from our wedding day to the airport and the white dress I had left our reception in on the plane. At least a dozen people asked us if we’d been to the royal wedding. It was high hat season.
I asked you why that was the best day and you said it was because I looked so happy. I don’t think there is a better way to explain what a sweet man you really are.
My best day was also on our honeymoon. The day before we came home was my birthday. You had a red velvet cake sent to our room. I wore my hat and my white dress again. We went out for sushi. We laughed a tremendous amount that evening. And we were headed home to our sweet girl that very next day.
Months before our wedding, before we were even engaged I tearfully told you that I wanted to have a baby before I turned 36. I confessed that I was terribly afraid of not being able to get pregnant. Always the problem solver you said “So we get married next Spring.” The rest was just implied. We would get married and have a baby. Simple.
And so we did.
And now I am 36. Today, in fact. And damn if I don’t have that baby.
What follows is my review of Durham, North Carolina’s Dame’s Almost Famous Chicken & Waffle’s. I should preface this with mention of the fact that I have never before had Chicken & Waffles. I’ve not ever even had Soul Food, I don’t think. Unless you count the Kill Devil Grill’s Bubble & Squeak, poached eggs served over fried chicken and topped with sausage gravy. It’s not classically southern food I don’t think but it is fried chicken at breakfast time and the only time I have ever consumed in excess of 3500 calories in a single meal so it seems to deserve mention.
We walked towards the door past the dozen or so people waiting outside. We overheard the hostess say “there will be a 45 minute wait” to a table of two and we just smiled smugly, like you do when you’re waiting to say “party of 4, we have a reservation.”
The smug look left our faces quickly when the hostess replied stalwartly “we don’t take reservations on Sundays. I’ll be right back” and turned and left us standing at the door.
Every single review I read of Durham’s famed Dame’s Chicken & Waffles mentioned their wait. Without exception they claimed it was worth it. It was the middle of the afternoon. We had a happy baby and a reasonably docile six year old in tow so I suggested we try to appeal to her sense of kindness rather than give her any attitude. Maybe they could seat us in 25 minutes instead of 45? A restaurant known for being busy will not likely care if we were to cop an attitude. My mental scenarios were all unnecessary. She returned to let us know that our reservation was taken by a new employee. She saw where our name had been written down and she would be glad to give us the next available table. So far, so good.
Emily and I stepped outside for a few minutes. The people waiting for a table were clearly divided into two camps – those trying to figure out what they would be having and those that had been to Dame’s before.
Everyone that was there for the first time had the same excited expression I can remember seeing on a freshman girl at her first fraternity party spring semester. All at once excited and pain-stakingly casual. Unsure of how things we going to unfold. Not entirely certain why they had waited so long to come.
We were greeted warmly immediately after being seated and provided crayons with which to draw on the butcher paper. We clearly fell in to the “Never been here before” camp as our waiter gave us the full low down on the menu. I love a place that tells you instead of their specials which items they do not have today. It suggests everything is special, some items so special that they’ve run out. Instead of feeling like you are being gypped you mentally start planning your next visit before you have even ordered.
One of us is growing our our bangs. It is painful.
We debated. MQD used a random number generator on his phone to decide. And then changed his mind again. Ultimately opting for the “I’ll decide when the waiter asks me” approach. I opted for sweet potato waffles with fried chicken cutlets and a shmear of maple-pecan butter. MQD went with chicken legs, a classic waffle with caramel and cashews with a chocolate hazelnut shmear. Em got a classic waffle with a blueberry shmear. On the side we had grits and macaroni and cheese to share.
“This is too good to be true.” Emily summed it up best. Each item was outstanding all by itself. Every one of us took a bite and instantly said “Try this!” to everyone else at the table.
Our waiter asked how things were and we told him we’d be back, at least a dozen more times so we could work our way around the menu.
As we started slowing down I declared “There will be no dinner served at our house tonight.”
Delicious. All the fuss about chicken and waffles have you baffled? Go to Dame’s. Order anything at all. It will all make sense to you. And order the macaroni and cheese. Just so you can tell me what the added herbs in it are… rosemary and thyme, I think. But there’s something else, too. It must be Soul.
“If you go home with somebody, and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em!”
― John Waters
We both have a lot of books. Perhaps that explains the attraction. I was so excited when we found the stacks of books centerpiece idea. I couldn’t imagine getting married with stuff all over the place that was just stuff. Or flowers. Books was a perfect solution. I could finally picture a wedding that looked like our wedding.
I love this picture, taken moments after we were married.
I don’t know if a perfect union exists. But I know that MQD and I are pretty damn close to perfect. We balance one another out in a million ways. Perhaps the most poignant of these ways is in the way we express our love for one another and in turn, the way we each need to be loved.
Underneath everything I think people are who they were as a little kid. I am a little girl that wonders if people respect me as a person and see through pretty, little Kelly. Mike is a boy that perhaps wonders if he is more than whip-smart. We are so different, the two of us. And yet, we are the same. Each of us a person that is confident in how we are perceived in one arena, maybe not so confident in another.
In this picture I see those two little kids. I think that quiet boy is the dreamiest boy in the class, absolutely the cutest boy I’ve ever seen. That boy is unimpressed with my showy confidence, instead admiring a strength and smarts I did not even know I posses.
I adore him. And he respects me. And you can see it all over our faces in this moment.
When I was young I had my boys. In middle school they were a motley bunch of goofy guys that I fancied myself to be in love with intermittently. In high school I had the boys in the drama department. We worked together, we built things and painted things and sat around in the booth in the dark. In college I preferred beer and bong hits to shopping and sorority rushing, so again, I found my boys.
My boys were my buddies, my confidantes, my playmates. I’ve always had only a couple of close girl friends and a gaggle of boys.
When I left the beach to move to Chapel Hill I left behind my last bunch of boys, some of whom had made the shift from Williamsburg college boys to beach boys.
When I met these fools I had no idea I’d grow to love them so dearly.
When I met MQD I was immediately impressed with the strength of the bond between his friends. He and his boys were no joke. He took me home to Charlestown and again I was amazed. The man loves his boys. And he loves me. Some girls fall for a boy with a great rent controlled apartment in the city and they inherit that. Some girls just want to wear his leather jacket.
I married MQD and I got boys. They’re his boys. But they love him and he loves me and any one of them would help me out if I needed it, of this I am certain.
As we all get older these boys… they are collecting these incredible women. If I am lucky our children will grow up with their children. Thank you for sharing your friends with me, Mike. You are an incredibly lucky man to have them on your side. And so am I.
I pick. I probe. I ask questions. In my first marriage I used to ask “Are we gonna be okay?” and later learned I should have been more specific. Early on with MQD I started asking specific questions.
“If I can’t get pregnant will you resent me?”
“Do you believe it’s possible to marry, raise a family and still be in love? Do you want that with me?”
“I won’t likely make the same kind of money you will and I want to raise my children, be at home as much as I can. I struggle with feeling like that makes me your equal. Do you think it does?”
But every so often there’s a question. One I don’t let pass my lips because I already know the answer.
The other night I was listening to MQD tucking Em in to bed. They were laughing. “Good night, sweetheart. I love you,” he said.
He was walking down the stairs and a question popped in to my head. He walked behind me as I sat in the rocking chair and he paused and looked down at Lucy. I could feel him smiling.
“Do you love Emily the same way you love Lucy?” Contrary to the way it might appear to some, I do occasionally bite my tongue. I didn’t ask him.
But once I’d formulated the question I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It’s ridiculous. It was a trap. I don’t love Lucy and Emily the same. Equally, sure. But not the same. And I’d never ask him if he loved them equally. The scientist in him would immediately answer that Love is not something that can be quantified. There was no right answer.
And really his answer doesn’t matter. It’s a silly question. And one I know the answer to in the grand scheme of things.
I tell Emily all of the time that no matter what, even if I had a hundred more kids that always and forever it would be Emily that made me a mother. It secures her a special place in my heart.
Emily made MQD a father, too. It’s easy to see a father’s love with an infant in his arms. For that matter it is easy to love an infant. But MQD grew to love a three year old. Anyone who has ever spent time with a three year old knows that they are fickle beasts.
Emily made MQD a father. One day at a time. Slowly.
She started calling him Dad the day we were married. But he became a dad long before then.
Mike, I love the way you love your girls. All three of us.
I’ve mentioned before that I love Reader’s Digest. I learned an awful lot from Reader’s Digest and there are things I read there that I believe now to be gospel. It really is “all in a day’s work,” I suppose. And in my heart of hearts I believe that laughter is the best medicine. It’ll cure what ails you.
I love the picture above. MQD makes me laugh each and every day and roughly 95% of the time he doesn’t even mean to.
An ordinary exchange. Married couple is sitting on the couch watching a television show. Wife waits until a commercial and then while the husband is fast forwarding she strikes up a conversation.
“How do you feel about wallpaper?” I asked him the other night.
“I don’t have a problem with wallpaper. I mean no one in my family was killed by wallpaper.”
Several nights ago MQD mentioned that while Emily might not actually be keeping score that he definitely was. Evidently I have not showered him with the love and appreciation he is due here on Excitement on the Side. I laughed and suggested that I write 31 posts about him in the month of May, the Baskin Robbins of Husbands, 31 flavors of Mike. Our wedding anniversary is today, April 30th, so perhaps it is an appropriate month to focus on my main squeeze, in spite of the fact that it is my month. Mother’s Day. My 36th birthday.
I enjoyed counting down the days to Christmas with our decorations. So, May…. I offer up 31 days devoted to my better half. To marital bliss. Brought to you with accompanying wedding pictures.
I’m kicking off Mike month a day early!!
MQD
More than a pretty face, he’s a snappy dresser, too
A lot has changed in the last year. Big stuff. A baby. A house. But by far the biggest change in the day to day has been Mike’s commitment to looking fine.
Note the time. We used to stay up late.
I fell in love with this boy. Perhaps you remember him. He wore camo pants and profane band tshirts. And he needed a hair cut. But he was mine. And I was crazy about him.
Was this some kind of Ridiculous Hair contest?
I really liked this guy with crazy hair and a goatee. But holy shit, did I LOVE this guy with a fresh new haircut.
And then sometime last spring he started wearing a shirt and tie to work everyday. His shopping for casual suits provided this super Easter gear. And Honeymoon Cruise attire galore.
Now shopping for Mike has become a hobby. He is always on the lookout for something. Bow ties. The perfect dress shirt. Saddle shoes. A belt. It is not uncommon while watching television with Mike to find him googling “casual men’s shoes” on his phone.
I was not the only girl falling for that long haired boy.
I watch more television now than I have in years. A nursing infant allows for that. Instead of getting myself sucked in to the daytime tv sinkhole I have been recording a few shows to fill the 30 minutes here and there I find myself in the rocking chair underneath a sleeping baby.
The talk show. There are more than enough to choose from. But I keep coming back to the same one.
Last week I kept seeing one sharp outfit after the next. Nothing revolutionary. Just a plaid shirt and a great sweater with corduroy elbow pads. Loosely tied tie and a really crisp white shirt, untucked with penny loafers. A cardigan sweater and khakis. The other night we were talking about the break of a man’s pant and I was saying that it is impossible to wear pants with no break without looking like you are waiting for a flood, but recently I saw it in an outfit and it was cute. Navy pant, polo shirt and saddle shoes, no socks. It worked. A glen plaid vest with a monochromatic shirt, tie and pant. Things I don’t think I’d think of wearing that come together beautifully. All classic pieces.
So, how do I bring it up? Honey, I love the look you’ve been developing. And I think I found a style icon for you. I swear, any outfit this person wore last week would have looked great on you. Give them a google, baby. It’s Ellen Degeneres.
Happy anniversary, sweetheart. I love you more every day. I couldn’t love you more if you were a lesbian talk show host.
I woke this morning and felt like a B movie actress in an old-school Skinemax flick. My bed has been more Slip and Slide than Soft Core in the last three months. Now would be a good time for my male readers (in particular those to whom I am related) to just move along.
My post partum bleeding was average. But my hyper focus on doing and being everything to everyone meant it came back for round two. “You’re doing too much,” said the midwife. But I have a six year old and an infant and a husband and I am trying to justify in my own mind why I do not have much of an income anymore!! So that means I need to spread mulch and clean my ceiling fans, right?
And then I decided that jogging at 6 weeks post partum was important to my sanity. And the post partum bleeding came back again.
If that weren’t enough fun… my period returned at 9 weeks in spite of my frequent night nursing and the voracious day time appetite of my nursling. Lucky girl, right? Exclusive breastfeeding is supposed to postpone the return of your fertility.
I have a three month old baby this week and will be celebrating my one year wedding anniversary on April 30th. Do the math. I am plenty fertile. We may actually have gotten pregnant at the altar. So back to the midwive’s office I went for a new IUD.
In spite of my issues with my last one there is no better non-hormonal way to prevent pregnancy. Unless you count infant-induced abstinence. The new IUD brought with it the week long “spotting.” Have all the sex you want, just ignore the bleeding, right?
So that about sums up the leaking in the southern regions. Upstairs? My side of the bed has smelled like sweetened condensed milk for the last three months. If you’ve not ever been or loved a lactating woman perhaps you are unaware of this fun fact – milk does not let down only from the boob to which the baby is attached. Boobs are on or off. There is no fade. No balance, like the car stereo. Nursing pads have been my constant companion. And one must hold them in place with something. So add to the equation a sports bra, a nursing tank, something. All. the. time.
Add it all up. The exercise, the hair cut, the positive outlook, the husband and the newlywed status (for three more days!) and I still didn’t really feel like a Woman. Contrary to any kind of logic, all of this very female leaking does not magnify my Womanliness in my own mind.
But this morning I woke up feeling like a capital letter W Woman. I still had a wiggly baby to my right. And a bed rail. And a towel I had stuffed down my shirt next to the opposite boob and dark circles under my eyes because a certain someone woke up four times last night to eat (thank you very much three month growth spurt.) So why did I wake feeling more Miss Universe and less Mother of the Year?
I went to bed last night in black underwear and no nursing bra and a black tank top with easy access (for the kiddo! don’t get excited.) And I woke up dry.
Unencumbered by leak-catchers of any sort.
And damn if I didn’t feel smokin’. Who knew the absence of my own bodily fluids is all it would take? Sitting right now with my laptop perched on the arm of the rocking chair,drool running down my arm, in the clothes I was wearing yesterday I threw on so I could peel myself out of bed to pack lunch for school… I still feel unstoppable.
I snapped a picture this morning to remind me who I am under all of this Mom-ness. My stomach may only be flat when I lie down. And my stretch marks are still visible, even in the early morning light. But there is a hip bone under there. And a bare shoulder. And they need some attention.
* Shout out to Keller Williams for the title. All morning I have been singing Freeker by the Speaker to myself. Subbing out “Leaker” for Freeker and tweaker. Try it. It’s catchy. “Leaker! Right by the speaker, never seem to get enough. Priceless expression when space is possession. Like yeah, that’s the stuff…”
I just might bust out a windmill or a backspin at the grocery store today.
“If you go home with somebody, and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em!”
Excitement on the side 