And suddenly, I just had to know.

So I contacted my sweet mother-in-law and asked her if I could borrow some pictures of her son.

She sent me a whole stack.

I opened the package and gasped in delight.  I should have known, but it was nice to see my suspicions confirmed – my husband was (and is) adorable!  (Side note:  Look at those long legs – and here I wonder why my belly is poking out the way it is?  All I have to do is look at these pictures to find the answer!)

Let’s start with the CPA at four months old – what a happy baby!

At 10 months old, you can start to see what he’s going to look like as he grows older.

(How cool is it to see those old cars in the background?  Got to love 1955!)

This next picture was taken when he was one year old.  I wish he still had that hat!  Go Davy Crockett!

Next we get to see him with his brothers.  He’s the third youngest out of four boys (his sister came last).

Seriously – don’t you just want to squish his little cheeks?

Now he’s starting to get a little older, as we see in this Christmas photo from 1956.  And he’s got a little brother too, so he’s no longer the youngest.

(He’s in the white pajamas in front.)

Here we see him as he’s maturing and being the big brother to his youngest sibling.

What’s really neat about this next photo is to see how much he looks like his dad.  This picture shows all the boys together with the CPA sitting beside his dad’s left knee.

I can hardly handle the cuteness!

We can’t leave out his mom because that just wouldn’t be fair.  Besides, she’s the one who gave birth to all these little guys so she definitely needs some credit too!

(The CPA is the one wearing the gun belt – a popular accessory for little boys at that time.)

Before moving to the school pictures, I have to include one of all the boys in their suits.  How adorable are they?

Next we have the first of the school pictures – here is the CPA long before he became a CPA, all the way back in 1961.  He was seven at the time.

Then again a year later in 1962…

and lastly, in 1964 at 10 years old.

Be still my heart.  That is one sweet little boy.

It’s funny to look back and see what my husband looked like as a little one.  It’s even more amazing to try and imagine which of his characteristics our little guy will have.  Will he have those pouty lips that I love?  Will he get those cute little ears that stick out ever so slightly?  Or will he have his long eyelashes and pretty hazel eyes?

These are some of the things that I can hardly wait to find out.  But with these pictures, at least now I have an idea.

Who do your children look like – do they favor one parent more than the other in their looks?

But last night was a different story.  I had last heard from the CPA around 3:30 pm my time (1:30 his time) when he was on his way to an afternoon meeting.  It was a couple of hours later, around 5:30, that I called to let him know I was going to the store.  He didn’t answer.  It was 7:00 when I realized that I still hadn’t heard from him.  This was strange because he always calls to make sure I’ve made it home from work.

By 7:30, I was looking at the clock every five minutes and sending him messages just as often.  By 8:00 I had emailed his work account so that he’d see it on his Blackberry in the event his regular phone had gone out.  By 8:15 I had called his Salt Lake office where no one answered, and by 8:30, I was on the phone with the Salt Lake City Police Department.

I asked the operator if there had been any accidents involving a Chevy Impala.  As soon as she started asking me questions such as “where was I calling from and where was my husband going” I started crying.  After telling me there were no accidents in the immediate area, she transferred me to the highway patrol.  Another nice lady answered.  This time, she said that yes there had been a lot of accidents but no, none matching the description of the CPA’s rental car.  She then transferred me to the county police department.  I was speaking to an officer with a deep, but kind, voice when my second line beeped in.  It was my husband.

I could barely say his name when I answered because I was crying so hard.  Not exactly the greeting he was looking for, I’m sure.  I told him how I had just hung up with the SLC police and he explained how he had been in a long meeting that he couldn’t get out of.  Apparently he had even tried calling earlier but the call never came through on my end (that blasted At&t).

I spent the next five minutes crying while he spent them apologizing.

The whole experience was very unlike me.  While I do tend to worry a lot in general, I don’t usually involve others in my worry, at least not those wearing uniforms and gun holsters.  And I certainly don’t blubber on the phone to perfectly nice strangers.  Therefore I was a little disconcerted about my reaction to something that normally wouldn’t put me in such a state of panic.  In thinking about it this morning, when I feel “back to normal” (and a little silly about the whole incident), I figure that it must be due to one of two things: either the pregnancy hormones have kicked in big time, or I suddenly realized just how much I miss my husband and want him to come home.

I think it’s probably a little of both.

Did you ever have any pregnancy meltdowns?  Or just meltdowns in general?  Please tell me I’m not the only one!

So it got me thinking about all of the things that my spouse, aka the CPA, does for me.  And at the top of the list is one I know I’ve mentioned before, but I have to say it again: he rubs my feet.  Every night.  Without fail.  I personally don’t know how he does it.  I mean my feet aren’t gross, at least I don’t think they are, I just don’t understand how he does it.  He even seems to like it.

He brings me water.  It sounds like a little thing, but I can assure you that it’s not.  We keep our jugs of water in a storage cabinet in the basement, way at the back where I rarely go.  It’s not far to walk, I just don’t like going back there because it’s dark and there are spiders.  And those jugs are heavy too!  So he brings up a new jug every other day.

He also replaces the toilet paper in the upstairs bathroom.  Again, I could do this myself, but he does such a great job and who am I to take that away from him?  I don’t even have to remind him, he checks it regularly and I’ve never run out – it’s almost like magic.

He washes the dishes in the  morning.  It’s kind of an unspoken deal – I fix dinner at night and he washes the dishes in the morning.  It’s fair, don’t you think?

The more I think about it the more I realize that my husband really does a lot of little things for me.  And I think it’s important to mention these things because after a long week you realize it’s the little things that get you through.

What does your significant other do for you?  What would you like for him/her to do?

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It is nearing the end of a long week and I couldn’t be more thankful.  My mind is frazzled and I can barely form a coherent thought.  Which is why I am especially grateful for my sweet CPA who has offered to write today’s post.  I think you’ll agree that it is beautifully written and definitely shows his sensitive side.  So without further ado… the CPA!

(ps – I will be back in full form on Monday!)

It was a very quick two-day business trip that took me back to my hometown in Utah last week. The main purpose of the journey was not to see my parents, both of whom are 86. Rather, it was to give a couple of short speeches to some business groups. Since I have two sons that live in the area, I also needed to spend a little time with them. The folks, I’m afraid, were going to get the short end of this stick, and would only get to see me in the little bit of the 48 hours I had left over from these other commitments.

After arriving at the airport at almost midnight, by the time I arranged for the rental car and made the 45-minute drive to the town where I was born, it was way past my parents’ bedtime. I knew better than to awaken them – too much chance they wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.  I would see them soon enough, I thought, first thing in the morning.

It had been only six weeks since I had been home, for another short visit, but when parents are elderly and ailing, you are never sure when the last visit will be.

Actually, though, I wanted to hear my folks as much as I wanted to see them. You see, one of my earliest memories is the sound of my mom and dad talking out in the kitchen first thing in the morning, before all the kids got up. They would sit at the table and drink their coffee and discuss their day.  I could seldom hear more than a scattered word, but it was the sound of their conversation, my dad’s deep voice, punctuated with my mom’s higher and softer one, that I was yearning to hear.

There is something very comforting about this sound, something that has been there my entire 54 years. No matter where I lived or how long I had been away from home, I only had to go there and go to bed in that house, and there it would be the next morning – the sound of my parents talking.  And even though they have turned gray and have become a bit wrinkled here and there, their voices are the same as I have always remembered.

As I awoke in the vaguely familiar yet strange bed of their spare bedroom last Thursday morning, I at first wondered where I was. Then I heard it, the muffled voices from the kitchen a few feet beyond the closed door. My folks were still there, still talking, and everything was OK, at least for today.

I know that one of these days, maybe not this month or even this year, I will yearn for that sound and it won’t be there any longer. It makes me sad to think about that, but for now, I thank the Lord that I can still hear the sound of my parents talking in the kitchen in the morning.  It is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world.

What special memory of your home or childhood do you have?