10 years

Ten years ago today, I drug Ed to a "Miss America" watching party, and the rest is history. We're celebrating with a night out at a cool new restaurant. I can almost tell you what will happen before the date even occurs.

Back in our "going-out" days, Ed and I seemed to have a knack for sitting next to people on first dates. We would always overhear snippets of conversation like "So, you said you were a lawyer, what kind of law do you practice?" with the questioner appearing to be very interested in the answer, perhaps wondering how many hours a day the person being asked the question was likely to work. Or, "How many sisters and brothers did you say you had?" - perhaps the questioner was wondering how many children this potential new mate would be interested in having should they hook up for good. And of course, the conversation is loaded with awkward pauses. I always laugh when this happens because (1) I think it happens way too much for us and (2) it reminds me of September 13, 1997.

On this particular night that started our string of eavesdropping on first dates, we sat outside on a rooftop deck and the folks next to us were on a first date. The guy was nervous, the girl thought a little more highly of herself than was perhaps warranted. At one point, the guy dumped a glass of water onto the woman's lap. From her reaction, you would've thought he had just given her a black eye. He felt horrible, she rubbed it in by pretending to be incredibly uncomfortable, and I can't say as Ed and I were all that helpful. There we sat, making snarky comments, thinking we were really funny (and we were!) because clearly the woman was overreacting. This was a hot day in Washington, DC. The water would likely dry before they were finished with appetizers. It was no...big...deal.

At that point, I'm sure the thought we'd be parenting the same child one day never crossed our minds. And parentng any child at all probably didn't occur to Ed. Heck, it wasn't even supposed to be a date because everyone knows that office romances are a BAD IDEA. But sometimes, everyone is wrong, and two people find themselves hanging out watching a baseball game on TV 10 years later and one of them will say to the other "I don't feel like going to work tomorrow. Would you mind having the baby tonight?". Followed by, "Try and do it in the middle of the night because I want to sleep through the whole thing this time, rather than just early labor. I've done it before, you know." (Ed's youngest brother was an unplanned home birth and despite the sirens, lights, and EMTs tromping up the stairs in the middle of the night, Ed apparently seemed not to notice anything as he slept soundly in another bedroom. Now why couldn't he have passed this good sleeping gene onto his son?)