The Epiphany, Part 5.

Good Morning World.

If you are new here, you are going to want to start at The Epiphany, Part 1.

If you are all caught up, welcome back.

Quick recap: husband called me lazy; he has slept on the couch downstairs 4 nights in a row; we broke our unspoken marriage rules; he didn’t want to apologize; I told him I was hurt but reminded him he was an adult and could do what he felt what was right; Thursday didn’t exist.

And now we have finally arrived to Valentine’s Day. I dropped a very obvious hint 904 days prior to that Friday, also known as the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, that he would need to plan and arrange the entire date – from childcare to alone time.

So….now is the moment of truth. Did he surprise me and pull something together? Or are we sitting on the couch, watching TV and playing on our phones like usual?

Any guesses?

Drum Roll please…….

Wait. Before I tell you what he did, I need to let you know that on this particular Friday, I woke up with a migraine.

I had a choose-your-own-adventure type of morning.

Opt. A) Go to work and risk worsening my migraine, which would mean no date night IF he did plan something

Opt. B) Sleep in to see if it subsides enough to be able to stand without piercing pain, BUT go to work late (on a week where I desperately cannot)

Opt C) Call it a day and just take my muscle relaxer, and sleep

I thankfully was able to choose Opt. B. I slept a little longer, and when I stood up, it didn’t feel like a nail was being hammered in to my skull behind my right eyeball.

So off to work I went. But it isn’t that easy. It never is, is it?

The day keeps getting better. While I DESPERATELY needed to go for a hike so that my inner voice could hash out this week with Dr. Inner Voice, E decided she needed me more.

I was at work almost 4hours when I got a call from school. She wasn’t melting down, but she was not having a good day. So I dropped everything at work and headed out the door.

“I should have just stayed home today” said my inner voice, echoing that of a grumpy old man.

So I pick up E. And we go home. She was just having an off day.

Some times we all do love bug. Some times we all do I gently confess to her.

We get home, and we start our after school routine a couple hours early. No biggie. Gives me extra time to do chores nap play on my phone and be a couch potato.

It was one of those weeks. But I did decide to take a shower.

Just in case.

4PM rolled around. 412pm. 430pm. 4th day in a row where the Husband did not call me on his way home from work.

He calls every day. Even if for a hot second. He always lets me know when he is on his way home. That is pretty much the only time we talk on the phone (that is not text messaging) these days.

It was time to take the puppies out and watch them get their zoomies out. My mom was outside with her puppers, about to go on a walk with her.

And that is when he drove down the driveway.

As per usual, the puppies run straight towards his moving beast of a truck. He comes to a stop, looks around, and slowly creeps forward until he is parked at his usual angle.

I was no longer hurt or upset. That feeling had finally passed. And I was set to not bring it up again. At least, I was not going to be the first one. If he wanted to talk, then I would be ready to listen.

He opened his car door, he jumps out of his truck, says Hi to all the puppies and tells them to not jump in his truck.

Something catches their eye. They turn and run.

My husband reaches back in to his truck. I glance back at the yard, counting dogs. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Ok. All present and accounted for.

And then I look back at my husband. In one hand he has a bouquet of roses. And in the other, 2 red valentine’s balloons.

Remember – we don’t do things for each other on special days like this. Not even on our anniversary. Sometimes we get each other presents and say “this is your gift for <insert special day here>”.

So bringing home flowers – COMPLETELY out of the ordinary for him. I can count on 1 hand how many times he has bought me flowers in the past almost 15 years.

I chuckled. I knew he knew he was sorry.

And then, I was curious what he planned for tonight. I did finally take a shower after all earlier that afternoon.

He handed me the flowers and the balloons, which E latched on to the second we went inside.

I tell him thank you.

He said that he wasn’t able to talk to his brother yet so he hasn’t been able to plan anything.

I silently mutter to myself “surprise surprise. And now you know why I have plans set in place at least a week prior” as I find some sort of vase for these flowers.

The atmosphere was different. He wasn’t mad. I wasn’t mad. We were making progress.

So we decided, that because his brother no longer had service on his phone, and because he was in charge of our kiddos in the morning and sometimes the afternoons – he absolutely needed a cell phone with service.

We can just go to the Verizon store alone. Yeah. Sure. That’s what we will do.

But, my Husband did not know if his brother’s phone would work on our plan or if he needed to get a new one. So we agree that he will call Verizon to check.

2 hours later, we have a brand new cell phone plan and added 1 more line.

And that is how our Valentine’s Day ended.

We decided that we would do something Saturday night instead.

Come back tomorrow to see what shenanigans we got ourselves into!