Together

Joe and I hungrily ate our Wendy's dinner. I had a nice low-fat baked potato (loaded with sour cream, butter, and cheese), and he had about three different dollar menu sandwiches of various foil-wrapped processed meats. Daniel bounced around on the opposite bench yelling "HEEEYYYY!" at the father and his two kids a couple tables away. Other than the workers behind the counter, an older gentleman, and a young woman who was done having kids (self-proclamation inspired by my own child?), the place was relatively slow.

Daniel nibbled bites of french fries and took slurps of watered-down sweet tea between bounces, and we marveled at how undoubtedly he'd be hungry as soon as we got home. Joe finally scooped him up into his lap and together we managed to convince him to eat one of his four chicken nuggets before he discovered that mommy's drink was in-fact chocolate shake, "CHOCOLATE SHAKE! PLEASE, MOMMY!"

After that, we drove down the road to Super Walmart for some late night grocery shopping for the upcoming visit of my mom and sister.

"Didn't we just come this a couple days ago for groceries?" I ask.

Joe says, "Yeah, but we just got milk, yogurt and cat litter."

"Oh, right."

And a Red Box movie, which I got about forty-five minutes into before retiring to the tub and bed admits noises of the entire earth and New York City crumbling (because that's the way end of the world movies do it). At least this evening I didn't feel like I was about to drop a baby on the floor.

As we left the store and headed to the car, Joe decided we should walk between a parked police officer and a sketchy large van where there were about seven people standing around as the officer searched under the seats.

"You never cut between the officer and his suspects."

"Yes, but it was the shortest path to the car."

"No the shortest path between us and the car would have been a diagonal in front of the van."

"You never cross on the diagonal."

"..."

And this is date night. Together. All three (technically four) of us. If this is date night, we go on a lot of dates. When Joe isn't at work, most of what we do is together. Daniel's personal favorite is when we pile into the bench seat of Joe's 1984 Ford Truck and take a ride either to Lowes or Cookout. We get bonus points for any trip that involves Bojangles. My personal favorite is Lowes, until the check-out counter when undoubtedly the extra herbs I have picked up and the extra bottles of chemicals and metal objects that Joe has picked up ring up way higher than the $20 we had planned on spending on soil supplements and a hose attachment.

Last night as we snuggled into the bed sheets, we reflected on all our married friends whose husbands' work sends them on the road so often and we voiced that we feel blessed to be able to be together each evening. Joe feels bad about even taking a night once a week for a poker game with his coworkers, and I'd personally feel lost in the evenings if he didn't come in the front door. I remember being really angry at a friend who had all her bridesmaids sleep in bunkhouses so soon after Joe and I got married. I didn't want to have to spend the night away from him - even if he was just in the next bunk house over.

When I know Joe is running late, Daniel usually stays up late with me. On weekends when I could take an hour to myself here and there, most of the time I will wait around for Daniel's naps to end so we can all go out together. I don't think we fear being alone, we just really like being together. Sometimes it does make me a little batty and I have to get out, but by the time I get to where I'm going, I'm wishing they were with me.