Wife: Why are you having a second chocolate sundae?

Me: Because I want you to be happy.

I guess what happens in relationships is that men look at their pretty wives and think to themselves, “Hey, I must still have it together, my wife is hot!” And then women look at their husbands and think, “What a slob!” And for some reason, this leads to marital bliss. But if the man looks at his wife and says, “Hey, honey, you need to lose a lot of weight!” this does not lead to bliss, it leads to homicide.

Or maybe the woman looks at the husband and thinks, “I may have put on a few pounds, but I’m nowhere near the porker he is.” And the man thinks: “I’m having another chocolate sundae, and she’s not complaining about what it will do to my health! I’m blissful in my maritals!”

Several other studies conclude that being married leads to greater longevity in men, which in view of the first study means that you can gain weight and live longer at the same time! Also, there’s a study that says drinking beer adds years to your life span (I ignore the studies that say this isn’t true.) Add it altogether, and you’ve got a fat guy sitting in front of the TV yelling: “Stella! Bring me a beer!” and he and his wife will live longer and be happier. Aren’t scientific studies wonderful? Of course, the fat guy will be a lot less happy if it turns out his wife’s name is not “Stella.”

There are most likely some problems with the research I’ve cited here, except the beer one, which I’m sticking to no matter what. For one, how do we determine if a couple is truly happy?

Researcher: Are you guys happily married?

Husband (looking nervously at wife): Sure, I mean, yes! Of course! Really happy!

Wife: I wouldn’t mind if he lost a few pounds, but other than that, sure.

Also, how do we know someone lived longer than he would have if he hadn’t gotten married? Do we ask the wife?

Wife: If it hadn’t been for me, he would have been dead a long, long time ago.

Husband: She’s right! I don’t even feel like dying now! When someone is murdered, the cops always figure the spouse did it — so in some cases, being married does not cause you to live longer.

Before this whole skinnier-wife study, I always gauged how happy married people were by whether one of them was throwing plates at the other. Now, though, I can go up to my friend Tom and say: “Whoa, Tom, you’ve put on some weight there, buddy. Your wife Emily must be really happy!” And then Tom will thoughtfully offer me a beer. That’s why I consider him my friend. Otherwise, he’d just be “some slob married to Emily.” Either way he’d live longer, though, because his wife is thin and also because of the beer study.

Now, the problem with these studies is that Emily being so pretty doesn’t make Tom happy, it makes him nervous. He’s worried that Emily will realize she has better options. This causes Tom to get up early in the morning, put on his running shoes and try to make Emily eat some doughnuts. When she says she doesn’t want them, Tom winds up eating them himself, which come to think of it might be why heavy husbands are so happy with thin wives — those guys get to have all the doughnuts!

Tom confides to me that Emily is “worried about” his weight. I explained to him that she is probably thinking that either he’s so heavy it will affect his health and reduce his life expectancy, or that he’ll lose so much weight it will cause his marriage to be unhappy and reduce his life expectancy. In other words, all we can do is eat doughnuts, which he thoughtfully shares with me.

That’s why he’s my friend Tom.

-By W. Bruce Cameron. Photo: Saida Online

Now, let me be upfront here: If it isn’t Costco or Target and ends in ________ mall, I generally have to be dragged in kicking and screaming. For this reason, I left my kids’ school supply shopping until just a few days prior to the advent of school last year. Here’s a little tip to the procrastinators out there: you will not win. The supplies will be depleted and you will have to go to several different stores instead of just one, augmenting an already stressful situation.

Note: if you somehow find school supply shopping cathartic, I will be happy expound upon the aberration of college-lined vs. wide-lined notebooks and my goose chase to find Elmer’s Glue-all and NOT their School Glue (which is 99 percent of what the store carried) while battling a battalion of frenzied moms.

This year, I recruited a reinforcement and brought my husband Jamie. I handed him the much shorter list for my kindergartener (about 12 items) while I tackled my 7-year-old daughter’s list (my sheet included the other grades’ items as well). Things shockingly went smoothy until they didn’t.

Isn’t that how it always has to happen?….

We both finished in under 30 minutes and were on the way to the check-out when I looked down at my sheet, stopped and morosely declared “OHHH NOOOOO.”

As it turns out, I had collected everything a first grader needs for academic success but here’s the catch: my daughter was in first grade last year and is going into second grade. Who knew?

Evidently not her own mother.

The lists are, of course, completely different and so I trudged back to the school supply section, dumped my previous findings and started from scratch. I was glad my husband had at least figured it out.

Or so I thought.

When we reunited, he started questioning the veracity of the list.

“A clipboard? Why on earth would a kindergartener need a clipboard with his name on it?”

I tried to explain a few scenarios but he then threatened to boycott some other items as well.

“Jamie, if it’s on the list, we have to buy it. It’s like the commandments–you can’t pick-and-choose which ones to follow.”

He seemed to get it and grumpily purchased the good-for-nothing clipboard. When we arrived home, I started labeling the items with my children’s names and double-checked to ensure we bought everything.

He didn’t.

“Jamie, where are the 10 glue sticks?”
“We have a ton of glue sticks.”
“No, we don’t.”

In his defense, I could have appeared on an episode of Hoarders for my glue-stick fetish but that was a few years ago and rehab taught me only three glue sticks per household was necessary.

“What about snack-sized Ziploc bags, Jamie?”
“We have those as well.”
“We only have quart- and gallon-sized.”
“Same thing.”

And then came the colored pencils, which he also neglected to purchase. His defense?

“That was not on the list.”

“It was item No. 1.”

{Silence. Chirping crickets.}

Tomorrow, I’ll be returning to the store.

And next year, the back-to-school supply shopping battle will be waged alone.

Photo: Getty Images

Sadly, we didn’t win. I honestly did not go into it thinking we would but of course, I always hoped because that’s why we did the show. Bills were piling up and my knee surgery keeps getting pushed back. It’s not very often you get a 1 in 3 chance of winning $25,000.

But as the show progressed and the audience and celebrities were very pro-pumpkin, I thought, “We have a real stab at this!”

Oh, how great was our fall.

Some observations:

(Backstage with my fellow losers)

We drowned our sorrows by hitting Times Square that night. Though we had a good time walking around, we returned to our hotel starving because we didn’t want to pay $15 for a bowl of soup at T. G. I. Fridays. Especially since we’d just lost $25,000.

Even though we didn’t win, are we glad we did it?

You betcha. I can’t tell you how many friends have contacted me, excited to see us on NBC’s promotional blitz. I’ve worked on news sets for years (I was a broadcast journalism major in college) but this was a completely different experience. The entire process was frenzied, hilarious and fascinating. Getting that kind of access was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Well, at least until my favorite show The Amazing Race comes calling…..

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In case you missed it:

Battling it Out at Marriage Ref’s Auditions
Who Was the Rightest of the Right–A behind-the-scenes glimpse at The Marriage Ref
The Marriage Ref: In Pictures
The Ambulance, The Woman and The Wardrobe
The Good Ol’ Boys of Pumpkin Growing

Also, check-out Jamie’s pumpkin blog at DenverPumpkins.com. He has named his two pumpkins Jerry and Ricky in honor of The Marriage Ref.

If you’re not familiar with this Jerry Seinfeld-produced comedy, real couples with funny disputes appear in-studio in front of a panel of celebrity judges where they chose a winner. At the end of each episode, the studio audience votes to make one of the winners “The Rightest of The Right.” That person will receive $25,000 and their very own billboard, in their hometown, declaring they are right.

Of course, I cannot disclose the outcome (something to do with NBC’s 800-page legal contract) but I am thrilled to give you a behind-the-scenes look at appearing on this hilarious network show to debate (what else?): My husband’s obsession with growing The Great Pumpkin (background information is here if you’re just tuning in).

The Auditions
I first heard that the Marriage Ref was holding auditions in Denver for funny couples with quirky disputes on the radio. I wrote about our experience at Battling It Out at Denver’s Marriage Ref Auditions but suffice it to say, we nailed the audition. A 1,000-pound gourd is nothing, if not quirky.

The Whirlwind
Denver was the final city in the Marriage Ref’s nationwide audition tour so things happened quickly after that. The main snafu was we needed The Great Pumpkin as a backdrop for when an NBC film crew came to Denver to film us. Pumpkin season was over and our rotting gourd was oozing its guts on our driveway. A casting director told us it would be fine to film some video with our Flip camera and so we did just that before destroying the pumpkin.

Then, a producer told us otherwise. “If there is no giant pumpkin, there is no show,” he told us. So my panicked husband solicited his buddies in The Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers Group (nope, not kidding about the name) and he was able to unearth a giant pumpkin that had not yet been destroyed. The only problem is it was significantly smaller than his own.

While I was dreading that the camera adds 20 pounds, Jamie was praying the camera added an extra 200 pounds to his pumpkin.

The Denver Filming
After piles of paperwork, interviews with NBC’s legal department, background checks and even a live session with NBC’s psychiatrist (who somehow deemed us mentally competent), we were given the green light. Producers Zoran, Casey and cameraman J.D. flew to Denver and spent an entire day filming us. We went through every imaginable scenario: We started lovey-dovey talking about our courtship. As the day went on, the discussion grew more humorous and passionate about the big, orange wedge between us.

At day’s end, even The Pumpkin Man tired of talking pumpkins and we braced ourselves for the two-minute package that would be pulled together from 12 hours of filming.

Appearing on The Marriage Ref
In early-December, we learned we would be flying to New York City to appear on the final episode with (in my opinion) the very best celebrities of the season: Jerry Seinfeld, Ricky Gervais and Julianne Moore. On filming day, a wardrobe crew met us at the hotel to review our clothing choices. At noon, we met the two other couples appearing on the Marriage Ref with us and took a shuttle to NBC’s studios. We were encouraged to talk freely with them but not to disclose “our issues.”

Kinda tough when you’re drowning in them.

We were greeted with fanfare. Because ours was the final taping, the entire crew had assembled for a wrap party that evening. I knew I was in trouble when staffers singled out The Pumpkin Man, saying they expected great things from him. One even treated him like a celebrity, asking him for seeds.

That afternoon, we hung out in the Green Room, ate a lot of food, did a walk-through in the studio, posed for pictures, got outfitted in Wardrobe and had an extreme makeover in the make-up/hair room. We felt like royalty as a producer followed us around, tending to our every need.

And then came showtime. We were the second couple to appear (though the Marriage Ref may switch around the actual order). Anxieties were high with Jamie but I was surprisingly calm, likely due to the fact I had already stressed out when I appeared on Fox Network’s morning show, Fox and Friends a few months earlier.

As we waited backstage for our queue, we could hear the host Tom Papa riling up the crowd, “Alright everyone. WHO WANTS TO MEET THE PUMPKIN MAN?!”

The crowd went wild as we stepped onto the stage with blinding lights and electric air. We somehow made it to our seats without tripping and after we got settled, we looked up and there they were: Legends Jerry Seinfeld, Ricky Gervais and Julianne Moore sitting across from us as if we were having a casual chat in our living room.

Only this was no casual chat. We were surrounded by a studio audience and on Sunday, June 26, millions of North Americans will be tuning in to learn our fate. As aforementioned, I cannot disclose who won the $25,000 but each couple was given a Second Honeymoon to the Dominican Republic for participating.

After what unfolds on Sunday night, we’re gonna need it.

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Stay tuned for my write-up next Monday about meeting Jerry Seinfeld and the inside scoop of our appearance on the show. Be sure to ask any questions you want answered in the comment section below and tune in to my personal blog CrazyBlogginCanuck.com tomorrow for my photo tour of the set.

I got pregnant in the infancy of the business. My husband Bryan had just come to work for us, but we made the decision that he would stay home once the baby was born. He did so for two years, and during that time, worked very little outside the home. We developed a new pattern. The schedule bended to me. Bended to my company. My meetings took precedence over his plans; if I had to work late, he dealt with it.

He came back to work with us as Declan entered preschool, but the pattern continued. His work was important and valuable – but we knew that my responsibilities had to come first. We knew that he was helping build the company by supporting my needs.

This is not to say that I wore the pants in the family. It just meant that in the ebb and flow of schedule, Bryan did the heavy lifting with Declan, and with the house.

In March, I sold my half of the company and am going out on my own. Instead of 35 employees, I have one. Me. And while my new venture is important to all of us, Bryan has a new venture too. He left my company last year to become a Creative Director for a software development firm. HE has become the backbone of the family. HE is the one we need to make time for now.

The first month was strange. I continued to make meetings and plan my day as I always have. The rude awaking was that I totally needed to change my mindset. Which is hard after 10 years.

But I have been trying. We now make sure *I* am the one to take Declan to school. Bryan tries hard to get out in time to pick him up, but if not, *I* am definitely his backup. I defer to him when planning our evenings, because he is working at night a lot these days. It’s been an adjustment for sure. Something I hadn’t really thought through when we decided to make this change.

I knew it would be a big transition. I just didn’t realize how big.

Have you had any transitions lately?
How have you coped or adjusted your lifestyle for them?

Marital love is particularly powerful and mysterious. It’s a unique love with various dimensions, a largely inexplicable phenomenon that can not be duplicated by science – too bad, because I’m thinking it would be amazingly helpful to receive marital assistance in pill form when needed, wink.

So, without a love potion #9, we have to battle, straight uphill at times, with no medical help available (unless a glass of wine counts!)…But I have to say it’s worth the battle for such a powerful gift of marital love.

What is this love anyway? 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 explains it well:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.    

Not exactly the love I project most of the time – inconveniently human. The question is, how can we improve our love skills…for ourselves, our mate, our marriage?

Building a Recipe for Love Potion

Understanding the other partner seems to be a key element in love ~ seek first to understand and then be understood. And a dash of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

Everyone is different though, so understanding your mate’s unique emotional needs can be complex but surprisingly helpful. Oh, and people aren’t robots, so the man (or woman) you married ten years ago may not have the same emotional needs as the person you know today, and your needs may be changing without your conscious knowledge of it, crazy huh? So, you’ll need to be flexible with your recipe and make adjustments as necessary.

The following questions are a fun way get to know each other (even yourself) again. Take the list on a road trip or schedule a special datenight to focus specifically on making love potion.

List Your Love

1. Name your favorite datenight before marriage.
2. What most attracted you to your mate?
3. Where were you for your first kiss and how did if feel?
4. How did you describe your mate to friends and family before they met him/her?
5. How did you know this was the person you wanted to marry?
6. What is your favorite memory with your spouse?
7. What is the craziest thing you’ve done together?
8. What is the hardest thing you’ve been through together?
9. How has your mate helped you through difficult times?
10. What do you wish for your spouse and for your marriage?

 Identify Emotional Needs

1. Name five things you can do to please your mate?
2. What five things could your mate do to help you feel great?
3. Name a few examples of things your spouse has done for you in the past that you enjoyed. 

These lists will help you identify ways in which you can please your mate and reminders of ways you’ve succeeded in the past – you may be surprised in how your perception of what they need differs from the list. Read more on emotional needs and solutions to difficulties with the helpful resources listed below.

It’s not in the perfection of marriage that I have this information, but in the very real, imperfect work in progress. We’re still formulating our ideal love potion recipe!

Helpful Resources
www.familylife.com
www.marriagebuilders.com
www.realrelationships.com

photo: Kwik Med

What goes into your love potion?

On the morning of July 29, 1981, I witnessed spectacular pomp and solemn ceremony on a small TV in an Omaha motel room. Our vacationing family was traveling from Colorado to Minnesota. I was 10 years old.

My dad must have found an extra reserve of patience that morning. I wanted to see it all—Diana’s gown, the horse-drawn carriages, the fairy tale. Minnesota had to wait. I was swept up into the excitement and hype. For months, the engagement had been trumpeted in the news and on every magazine cover. Lady Diana’s blue sapphire ring, her beauty, her youth, her destiny as future Queen captured my imagination.

The Holiday Western Best Days Johnson Inn faded away. I was an honored guest. I was a part of history. I loved the newly-married royal couple. Happily Ever After was a promise.

Back home, I had Charles and Diana paper dolls. Their paper clothes were copies of ensembles they wore in press conferences or at high-profile functions. If I dressed Diana in the black strapless gown, Charles wore his tuxedo.

They had a paper baby, the heir to the throne. It wasn’t labelled as a boy or a girl because there was no William, yet.

Now there is a William and a Kate. They will marry on April 29, 2011.

I found the dolls, a bit mangled from improper storage, several years ago. My oldest daughter had a lot of questions about my flat little childhood friends, especially Diana. Was she really a princess? Did she live in a palace?

At the time, I struggled with what to tell my daughter. Diana was a princess who lived in palace. She had two sons and she worked hard to help others, but she was often lonely and sad. Diana and Charles were divorced.

And then the woman once known as Shy Di died.

The coverage of William and Kate’s wedding is much more subdued than it was when Charles and Diana were the happy couple in love. There are no books of paper dolls to buy at our local grocery store. They aren’t on every magazine cover. One news outlet called the impending nuptials boring.

I don’t think the lack of coverage is because William and Kate are boring people.

My thought is that the coverage is more limited this time because people have learned a lesson. Also, Jersey Shore. It’s actually a high compliment these days to be considered boring.

In my mind, I play back the lovely images of Diana smiling, waving, seated next to her Prince. Those memories stand in stark contrast to late-night news reports of a car crash in a Parisian tunnel.

The fairy tale which seemed real and possible and even attainable in 1981 is marred by a bit of cynicism.

It’s also put into perspective by wisdom. I hope with everything that William and Kate have a long, happy marriage. It isn’t easy for anyone, even those who have never been paper dolls.

Jamie had originally set a doctor’s appointment to undergo some routine testing for the chest pain he had experienced during aerobic activity. Almost immediately he was admitted into the Clinical Decision Unit as the doctors forged forward for a diagnosis and treatment.
No abnormalities showed up on his EKG nor on the other tests the doctors performed so they decided he should spend the night for monitoring and then put him on the treadmill at 7 a.m. the next morning.

If you’re not familiar with sluggish Jamie in the morning, that alone might have killed him.

Sure enough as his heart rate rose, the chest pain began. The problem is, though he was hooked up to every contraption in the hospital, no abnormalities showed up on the EKG and the cardiologist was stumped.

“Oftentimes the EKG doesn’t show what’s really going on,” the doc explained. “We performed the treadmill test on a patient and everything looked fine. We sent him home and he had a heart attack the next day.”

I’m not sure if that was supposed to be comforting?

For the next step, Jamie was given an angiogram (where a thin tube is placed into a blood vessel in the groin and X-rays are taken of the blood flow in an artery). The diagnosis was finally reached: there was significant damage to Jamie’s left and central arteries that was caused by his cancer radiation treatments 12 years ago. This resulted in 70% blockage and the resulting pain.

The cardiologist sat me down to discuss the options. The first he presented was bypass surgery, which I don’t know about you, but the mere mention almost made me have a heart attack. Fortunately, he was reluctant to pursue this because of Jamie’s young age (there is a big chance of having to redo it in 10-15 years) and risks associated with the damage the radiation has caused.

The temporary solution is he underwent another less invasive surgery to install stints to open up the blockage. They were not able to access all the problem areas without doing bypass surgery but they hope this process, along with blood thinning medication he will need to be on the rest of his life, will help alleviate the problem.

The surgery went smoothly but I had a wake-up call. I went through a range of emotions during those three days: uncertainty over what his conditions meant, dread the doctors wouldn’t find a diagnosis and then bald-face fear as I faced the very possible possibility that I could be left to raise our two young children without the love of my life. (On Wednesday, Mile High Mamas will feature guest blogger Catherine who lost her husband in an accident a few years ago).

To sustain me through it all were loving friends and family who offered words of support, watched my kids and brought us meals. I truly felt sustained and comforted during some of the most difficult moments. On the day of Jamie’s surgery, I rushed to retrieve my son from preschool and drop him off at a neighbor’s.

As I put the keys in the ignition, the horn started incessantly honking as the gauges and lights went haywire. We have have occasionally had this electrical issue but it had been over a year since the last incident. Incredulously, I marveled that it chose this moment of all moments to act up…and I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically.

Knowing there was a very great liklihood this electrical firestorm would drain the battery rendering me unable to get to the hospital in time, I turned to the Man Upstairs. I said a little prayer with as much certitude and humility as I could muster: “Dear Lord, if you can help Moses part the Red Sea, I KNOW you can make this car start working.”

And you know what? That is exactly what happened almost immediately.

It was a small test of faith amongst so many big trials.

But the biggest blessing of all is having my husband home.

I just spent my 15th Valentine’s Day with my husband. I have no doubt that he loves me and I love him. We don’t need Cupid’s inspiration for our hearts to zing. I am impervious to the arrows because Cupid is pretty much just a big baby. Don’t let the lustrous locks of hair or mad archery skills fool you. Like most tots, he is motivated by an appetite for mischief. Plus, his brain is still developing.

When Cupid counts, he says, “One, two, free, eleventy, nineteen, six, ess, four.”

Cupid is nutso about Elmo.

My oldest kids are in middle school. To them, Valentine’s Day is full of mysterious possibilities. Suddenly, it’s not all about folded Valentines in paper sacks, sugar cookies, red punch. While they’d never admit it, they were counting on the big dumb baby to bring a little romance into their lives.

I did, at that age.

If Cupid doesn’t come through in the coming years, I will be there to share stories of lonely February 14ths when it seemed everyone else in the world said yes to Be Mine. My plan is to remind them that Valentine’s Day is never meant to be a gauge of their worth, their beauty, their loveliness. Look who’s in charge!

He wears Pampers, Size 5.

Taking Valentine’s Day seriously is about as smart as letting their two-year-old brother drive to the store or vote. If we did that, we’d be dining on bananas 3 meals a day and singing Hail to the Chief to DJ Lance Rock.

Unfortunately, culture and tradition have taken humble February and smeared lipstick right in the middle of the year’s greyest month. At least it gives us something to do.

Kids are vulnerable to the message that love is expressed in pounds of chocolate and roses given in batches of twelve. They don’t fully grasp how true love and devotion are defined by what happens on February 15th and beyond. Being sensible about St. Valentine doesn’t mean I’m going to kick my husband in the shins for bringing chocolates and roses to me. In fact, I’m happy with romantic gestures any time of the year. But I won’t let them define the solidity of our marriage.

It’s our job to demonstrate how rich and beautiful true partnership can be. It’s worth waiting for.

As for Cupid? He’s a little smelly and he’s rubbing his eyes. Say nighty-night.

The grown-ups get to stay up.

Sure, in many ways we think alike, have the same interests and similar methodology with raising our children.

But we go about life very differently. He is low-key. Methodical. Wise.

I am not.

One of the areas in which we are most different is how we need to connect. I am physical. I crave affection. My 4-year-old son Bode is the same and we maul each other all day long with kisses and snuggles whereas my 6-year-old Hadley barely likes to be touched. Jamie is somewhere in the middle.

We both work from home and in such a setting, you would think we see each other all day. This is not the case and he often spends most of the day (and sometimes the evening) holed up in his basement den.

At the conclusion of one such day, I desperately wanted to snuggle up and just talk to him.

He just wanted to unwind by watching TV.

Like an annoying younger sibling I kept pressing him for conversation while his eyes remained glued on the television. Finally, exasperated he said, “You know you talk too much.”

“But I just want to talk to you tonight,” I sulked.
“I AM talking to you,” he professed.
“Oh really? About what?”
“About not talking to me.”

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Your Love Language

Everyone has a different way of showing love to one another. A couple of years ago, a friend introduced me to Dr. Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages. According to him, there are five key categories, or five love languages, proved to be universal and comprehensive, which are:

*Words of Affirmation
*Quality Time
*Receiving Gifts
*Acts of Service
*Physical Touch

The key is identifying which of the love languages you most embrace in your life and recognizing which ones most resonate in others.

The Quiz

Dr. Chapman has a short online quiz for adults, childrens, teens and singles that helps with the identification process. The 5 Love Languages is not just about solidifying romantic relationships.

In fact, in going through the quiz for my children, I recognized how differently they respond to and need affection. My son was easy to figure out because we both love to snuggle. My daughter’s love language, however, is not physical touch and after taking the quiz, I realized she responds best to positive words of affirmation. This knowledge has helped me become a better mother because I understand how to fulfill each child’s individual needs.

So, be sure to head over to http://www.5lovelanguages.com/assessments/love/ and take the 30-question quiz and report back. The results may just surprise you…and help with your relationships!