I had dinner yesterday…

I had dinner yesterday with two local friends, both of whom are going through rough times. One recently broke up with a serious boyfriend, the other is dealing with some tough romantic issues in her ongoing relationship (of about two years). And some of what she's dealing with sounds familiar -- in the 'oh, yes -- I remember that being a huge issue for me and Kev in years 2-3 or so'. Some of it is new, since they're raising a kid together and we're not quite doing that yet. A lot of the time, I was just wishing I could be more help, and hoping that a listening ear was enough. But overall, more than anything, the whole evening's conversation made me appreciate Kevin even more.

In the last seven months of this pregnancy, when I have been up and down and exhausted and sick and hospitalized and moody and cranky and often just plain collapsing and dumping it all on him, he has been -- well, perfect, really. Always calm, always supportive, always helpful, always sweet. I don't know how he does it.

I think in my mind, I've aimed towards an equal partnership as an ideal, each of us taking on a balanced load of the work of day-to-day life. But pregnancy has meant that I've had to drop a lot of the load I used to carry. The scales have gotten seriously skewed.

It's just so nice, that if I can't be a coping, strong, capable woman anymore, if these weird things happening in my body have transformed me into a fragile, fainting princess, that he's willing and able to be my knight in shining armor. And he claims he can keep it up too -- at least for two more months! :-)