Marriage vs Kids

About six-and-a-half years ago, I was laying on a chair-come-bed with a bladder full of vimto, holding Stig's hand while we stared at the grainy image of our unborn child on a screen. We were expecting our third baby and I was already huge, even at sixteen weeks.

This was the first time were going to find out the sex of the baby before the birth so we were quite excited, but I knew in my heart it was going to be a boy. Sure enough Sam was happily flashing his tackle for his parents, the sonographer, and the three students in the room so we were left with little doubt of his sex. The bump was promtly renamed "Baby Sam". They gave us a due date of 1st June. Great, I thought, babies never come on their due dates so maybe our wedding anniversary (also 1st June) was safe...

Nope. I spent our second wedding anniversary in labour, trying to part with a 10lbs baby. 10lbs, 1oz to be exact, and believe me, that extra ounce is relevant. Every ounce counts when you have a baby that big. Around the time I should have been having a romantic meal with my long suffering husband, I was giving birth to a toddler.

The first of June is Sam's day and always will be. Yesterday he turned six. He got his first bike without stabilisers (that will be interesting) and he had a party with half of his classmates and other friends. This was the third wedding anniversary we have spent in Johnny's Fun Factory surrounded by shrieking children; not the most romantic of locations but ultimately, how can we top the look on his face when he saw his shiny, new big boys bike, and squealed with excitement each time another one of friends arrived?

Stig and I held hands as we watched him running about with his new toys, just like we have on all our kids' birthdays and at all of the scans when we saw them for the first time. That should be what anniversaries are about, celebrating the life and the family you have nurtured and treasured all those years (casually disregarding the many times of being on the verge of a nervous breakdown).

Finally when they were all settled in bed, we had the last few hours of the day to ourselves; flopped on the sofa, knackered but smiling, the same way we've spent our last few anniversaries. Plus, like a friend of mine once pointed out; Sam's eighteenth birthday will be our 20th wedding anniversary, and we'll have one hell of a party!

Stig of the Dump

How do I even begin to explain to you the calamity that is my husband? He is the best person I have ever met. He's so damn likable, probably because he's so laid back although he's been completely stressed out recently. No wonder really, living in our house.

I met Stig ten years ago when I was pregnant with Jamie and my first marriage was failing. He was going through a similar thing and from this grew a friendship unlike any I'd ever had. We learned the lessons of divorce together and how not to conduct a relationship, so it seemed only natural that we would end up together. If I'm truthful I knew within weeks of meeting him that there was something there, for me at least.

Stig is like a big, daft child most of the time. He can be heard moving from room-to-room in our house, shrieking oddities and laughing at the children; whistling or reciting weird old folk verses for what he thinks is comedy value, and coming from him it is. His sense of humour is bizarre and his story telling ability is legendary, in that he has none. Stig's stories never fail to draw you in. That's because he always starts with the best bit of the story and everything after that is a series of disappointing, insignificant details. His most infamous ever ending to a story is

"...and then it went dark".

That in itself has become classic Stig humour.

He loves nothing more than conspiring with my best friend on a Sunday afternoon when she and her son come for dinner.Usually the target of their mischief is me. Sometimes I take it in good humour, other times I could quite happily throw the pair of them out of the house. I love that he is so close to Kel, I often tell them that if I die first, they have to get married. Both of them seem horrified by this prospect though, and I guess her man wouldn't be too happy about that either.

Stig has broken most of the bones in his body. It'd be quicker to list the injuries he hasn't had. But in true Stig fashion he's done these things in the most creative ways. He once dislocated his hip by crashing into an unsuspecting cow whilst parachuting. He has also dislocated his jaw - whilst yawning. The image of him driving to hospital with his mouth firmly wedged open, dribbling profusely throughout the twenty mile drive, will never cease to amuse me.

Stig does posses a surprising level of brain power for a neanderthal. Five years in college to qualify as an aircraft engineer was hard going at first but he got there with flying colours in the end. Boys with toys!

He can fix almost anything and find his way to, or from, almost anywhere whereas I am lost by the time we get to the end of our street. He is the inventor of Slug Wanging (don't ask!) and a regular participant in sliding down the stairs on a duvet. Sometimes I think the kids are more mature than we are. There could be books written on the adventures of Stig, but half of them would be unpublishable.