Today we celebrate our nine years of marriage. Nine years! Each rich but none of them easy. The most challenging moments of our marriage – the times we needed more communication, more love, more understanding, more recognition – have always been held together for me by watching him with our kids. He’s never shy of participating when their sports teams call for coach volunteers. He’s always there to have fun with them.
I know marriage cannot survive only on fathers playing with kids, but watching him get up at dawn to coach a hockey game Ethan plays can definitely help strengthen the dying part of it. And I’m thankful for the way he sweats and screams RUN! MAYA! RUN TO THE THIRD BASE! at a baseball game in a burning hot afternoon. When we get caught up in the marriage game of pointing out who does more, I will always remind myself about how he plays with our kids.