What are your middle names?
My middle name was given as Lynne, which is a family tradition for women on my mom’s side.  And, I changed it to my maiden name when we got married, also a tradition.  The boy’s is Edward, which is also his father’s middle name.  Needless to say, we already have our middle names for our would-be-someday children.

How long have you been together?
We have been married for almost nine years, but we have been together for almost 11.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
Not very long, just a few months really.  But, I knew the weekend I met him that he was the one for me.  And, I told people when I got home, so I have proof!

Who asked whom out?
It was more of a long conversation, not really an initial date.

How old are each of you?
I am 31, and he is 32.  We were born eleven months apart.

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Depends which side of the country we are living on at the time.  Right now, we see his family (brother and dad) a little more, but when we lived on the east coast, we saw my brothers (and mom) more often.  Mediating time between all the family is not one of our favorite activities because someone is always unhappy with our decisions on how to spend our time.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Deployments are hard on everyone who loves a soldier.  We were not exempt from that; however, I really love the fact that we are able to fall back into each other so easily whenever he comes home.

Did you go to the same school?
Nope, I went to George Mason in Virginia, and he went to West Point in New York.

Are you from the same home town?
Nope again.  The boy grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, and I grew up in Northern Virginia.  Couldn’t be more different in that respect.

Who is smarter?
Honestly, he is.  But, I don’t like to tell him that very often.  He is able to do more book smart stuff than I am.  But, the best part of our relationship is that we are equals in humor, and we each have our own strengths in different areas.  We both admire what the other excels in, I think.

Who is the most sensitive?
I come off as the most sensitive to start, but I think he takes more personally than I realize.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
When he is humoring me, we eat Mexican, and when I am humoring him, we eat steak.  We also have places that we both enjoy.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Ireland.  We loved it.  We want to do more traveling.  I realize that my crazy food allergies limit us a little though.  There are still lots of places in the US I would like to see.

Who has the craziest exes?
Neither of us have really, really crazy exes, but I think that he wins the prize for the exes that held onto the hope of getting back together the longest.  He is a great guy, so I don’t really blame them.

Who has the worst temper?
I am definitely the meaner of the two of us, and I get angry faster and more often.  But, I strongly believe in small skirmishes instead of big battles, so I tend to want to talk about things more to try to avoid the really bad explosions.  But, he definitely does have a temper. And, it doesn’t help that I don’t always understand/agree with what makes him mad, which I guess isn’t entirely fair.

Who does the cooking?
I cook most between the two of us, except breakfast, and that is all him.  But, lately, he has shown more interest in cooking and has been helping me out more.  I need to remember to keep encouraging that.  The task of making dinner is sometimes daunting and having help with that relieves that a little.

Who is the neat-freak?
Thank god, neither of us is a true neat-freak.  But, we do have different ideas of clean.  It is one of those areas that we are well matched for because we do really take turns on who takes the lead on cleaning.  I know that he has more responsibilities around the house though.

Who is more stubborn?
He is stubborn about particular things, but I am probably the worst of the two, particularly in terms of asking for help.  I think it is part of my oldest child syndrome.

Who hogs the bed?
He would say I do, but actually, we are both pretty good about sharing the bed.  We both steal covers more than space.

Who wakes up earlier?
We both really wake up together and go to bed together, for that matter.  But, he takes longer to wake up than I do.  I am an up-when-I-am-up kinda girl.

Where was your first date?
Technically, it would have been a Barenaked Ladies concert in Washington DC in December of 1998.  He drove 19 hours in one day to go with me, and we hadn’t seen each other since the first weekend we had met two months earlier.

Who is more jealous?
Definitely me!  He never acts jealous.  Sometimes, I wish he would a little.

How long did it take to get serious?
I was more serious to start, but he came around pretty quickly.  I told him within five emails writing back and forth that I wouldn’t stop harassing him until he agreed to marry me, and that didn’t scare him off, so I assume that he knew something too.

Who eats more?
He definitely eats more than I do, but I like to snack more than he does. He takes rules about cleaning your plate very seriously.

Who does the laundry?
I am lucky, lucky woman that he does most of the laundry.  Really, I just have more underwear than he does.

Who’s better with the computer?
I am better with the computers we have.  Really, I am just the more interested of the two of us with regards to technology.  And, I have a fair amount of patience with it.  He just wants things to work.  It is kinda the opposite of the way that traditional gender roles go.

Who drives when you are together?
He does.  But, I am not sure why.  Driving issues are actually one of the areas that we fight the most about.  The fact that is what we fight about most seems pretty dumb writing it down here.

All-in-all, the boy is my lobster (sorry, Friends reference).  We have one of those once in a lifetime meeting stories, and I feel extrodinarily lucky to have found him.  He completely changed the plan for what I thought my life would be, but he has also given it more depth and richness than I ever thought was possible.  Sorry, I sucked on Valentine’s Day, honey!

As a child, I would often try to wake her up, thinking that she would be more comfortable in her bed than on the couch.  But, the moment you turned the TV off or tried to rouse her in anyway, she would tell you that she was watching that and to just leave her alone.  This is the way it is, and it is her thing, so as an adult, I have realized that she is happiest if you just leave her where she is.

One problem with this affliction is occasionally when you wake up to go to bed, you find that you then can’t sleep!  That would be the boat I am in tonight! (Please excuse all misspellings and typos!)

Another problem with this tendency is that apparently it is genetic.  From my observations, all my mother’s children regularly fall asleep on the couch and are quite happy staying there.  I am one of the afflicted.  And, I think that would end up on the couch at three in the morning often if it weren’t for the boy insisting on going to bed.

He will let me sleep for a while every night.  Then, he quietly closes up the house, turns all the lights off, and turns down my side of the bed.  After he does all this, he comes in a wakes me up.  How nicely often depends on how tired he is, but he really is a wonderful man.

A few nights ago, this was the scene on our couch.

As I have mentioned already, the new baby, when he isn’t tearing ass through the house, is quite cuddly.  He is particularly keen on showing you how much he loves you between three and six in the morning when he tries to bite your nose and lick you lips. But, if there is anything that is kryptonite to couch sleepers, it is warm, fuzzy animals.

When I found these on the camera, my first inclination, of course, was to delete them.  I am notorious for deleting pictures of myself that others have taken.  This is another of my idiosyncrasies that the boy will put up with.  However, when I found theses pictures, the first thing he said was don’t delete them, very seriously.  Since, this is not a request he makes very often, I obliged.

But, it did make me think a little about why he wanted to keep them.  It may be because it is a cute picture of the new baby, but it also might that his nightly chore of putting his wife to bed has become part of his routine too.  And, he may want to capture that in some way.  So, despite the fact it isn’t the greatest picture, I thought that I would share it here and say thanks to my husband for being so wonderful!  He may stop a whole new generation of couch sleepers some day!