Tic Toc

Dash is lately a cornucopia of tics. There's the tracing shapes with his nose. There's the ceaseless throat clearing. There's this indescribable thing he does that's like a cross between burping and throat singing. And there's the newest: Deeeeeep breath, hold it hold it! OK let it out. Start again.

Well. We know that four-year-olds are just weird, tic-y things and we know that none of this is health-related (we ruled out allergies because the allergy medicine had the effect of zilch, and we ruled out asthma because he's never had any difficulty breathing). But still. We worried. So today Josh took him to the doctor, just to make sure. And the doctor confirmed that the kid is just mostly made of crazy and not to worry too much, but he did ask about anxiety in the home. Specifically he asked if any anxiety in the home was due to marital problems and, can I just say how amazing it is to be able to say no?

I won't lie. There was a moment about a year ago when things were less than ideal. When I honestly wasn't sure we'd make it. When I had lost faith in myself as a wife. It was, of course, during the blackest time of my life and not true reality, but I haven't forgotten that feeling. It's still close enough to me that I don't take for granted the fact that one of my favorite things these days is to hold Josh's scruffy face in my palms and plant kiss after kiss on him. That sometimes, when we're making dinner or doing the dishes, we'll occasionally stop what we're doing & just wrap our arms around one another and squeeze like hell. That I look at my son's beautiful face and am overcome with joy to see Josh in there.

Josh accepted a job offer yesterday. It is his dream job. It is better than anything we'd hoped for and it is going to change our lives significantly. It came at just the craziest time, when we'd sort of given up hope and started planning our lives around his staying home with Dash. But it came, and our plans changed again and we're thrilled.

But, can I also say? The second best part for me (after watching my husband & best friend's dreams come true) is knowing that we didn't need this for our marriage. That we were doing pretty great without it. That the stress of his being out of work for nine long months didn't break us. That we got to "for poorer" and we muscled through.

Now all we really have to worry about is how the fuck we're ever going to be able to sit through a movie with Dash the human beatbox next to us.