Extraordinary Things

There has been sad stuff going on for some of my online friends (I'm *extremely* periphery to it all, so I don't have all the details, and to be honest, I don't need to.) But it's led to...not exactly a discussion of, but an awareness off the need for Extraordinary Things. Which I think, for many of us, means, not so much acts of heroism as acts of accomplishment, whether it's finally knocking those unpleasant tasks off your to-do list or simply being available to a friend who needs an ear. (btw, I hope you know you have mine if you need it. Even if we're far apart, if you really know me, you know how to get in touch. Get in touch. Really.)

Also, today is my 11th wedding anniversary. Which is always a bit of a reflective thing for me, and I find it hard to get up enthusiasm for celebration -- although I'm very happy about it! It marks not just the day that my DH and I got married, but also some fairly traumatic and stressful events that were ocurring about that time. The biggest one, of course, was that our daughter, at the time not quite 4 months old, was in the hospital after undergoing two neurosurgeries to correct a subdural hematoma. (If you don't know, this is an incidence of bleeding in the brain cavity.) Luckily, this was a small bleed, and it corrected itself, but there WERE two surgeries involved, both of them to install temporary shunts to drain fluid off her brain. We were insanely lucky; she never needed to go into intensive care, and the neurosurgeon proclaimed her perfectly healthy (no more bleeding; no apparent damage) by Thanksgiving -- and she was released from the hospital the day after we were married. But because of the nature of her injury (subdural hematoma is most commonly ascribed to Shaken Baby Syndrome, a part of the pantheon of tell-tales) we were, of course, scrutinized carefully by law officers and Dpt of Families & Children.

Obviously, there's a lot more to the story than this little bit, but sadly, to me, this day is more of a reminder of the fact that we were surrounded by family and spending most of our free time (which meant all the time for me) at the hospital where our tiny girl had tubes in her head rather than a moment of sheer joy.

So for me, doing some Extraordinary today is reminding myself that today is a good thing. I still feel butterflies whenever I see my husband, and even when I'm mad at him (unless it's something I absolutely NEED to be mad about) I have a hard time staying that way. He can calm me when I'm upset, supports me when I need it, is always a ready shoulder when I need to cry or lean. He can bandage skinned knees, is amazing with kids and a football or a lightsaber or a fishing rod, and seems to know when everything is getting to be too much & I just need time and space away from the house. I'm going to try to honor that, strange as it may sound, by spending today pampering myself so that I can be relaxed and happy and well-rested for him tonight, so that I can maybe pamper HIM a little, too.