the night i met chris he sat down at a table with me and my roommate outside fresh choice, a smoothie place in chicago. sure, he was cute, but the fact he just sat down with us and made himself at home seemed audacious. he was talking about being hungry and tired because he had come from a bachelor party weekend at the lake and had gone straight to a basketball game or something. then, the words escaped from his lips that made me stop mid-smoothie: "blah, blah, blah .... and i haven't showered in 3 days."
what? what was that? you haven't showered in 3 days? i immediately couldn't get enough of this guy. "you are cute but dirty and you don't care about it?" i was in. love.
and if any of you know chris, one thing is clear about that night. i was duped.
i love my husband. he is bold, caring, loyal and generous. he is kind, funny and thoughtful. but he is also particular. and clean. and quite particular about being clean. i have no idea who this unkempt man at the smoothie shop i met was, but he does not sleep in my bed every night.
now what's that you say? why was i into a guy who hadn't showered in the first place? well, let's just say... i'm weird like that. while keeping up on my blonde highlights may present the facade of an equally clean and particular woman, it's just that. a facade. i actually don't wash my hair more than once (maybe twice) a week. i can burp the ABC's faster than my toddler can recite them. i eat things off the floor (unless we're talking a bathroom floor), and i don't wear deodorant. unless it is a day when i happen to be wearing a strapless dress to a wedding. going to a wedding in a cap sleeve dress? no deodorant. going out to a nice dinner in a strapless dress? no deodorant. going to a wedding in a strapless dress? why, deodorant, of course.
plus, i am not saying i am into gross guys. lest visions of animal house flood your mind, let me remind you there is a kind of guy who wouldn't shower and still be cute. you know exactly what i'm talking about... mr. big? he showers. jack berger? he probably showers. aleksandr petrovsky? he definitely showers. but aidan, oh, aidan... i doubt you shower more than once a week and you probably carry the deliciously faint aroma of pine. with just a hint of old spice.
anyway. back to my husband who may or may not ask me if i've washed my hands whenever i borrow his laptop... he is particular about his hygiene. this is not to say he is limp wristed or wussy. he is not afraid of noises downstairs in the middle of the night. and he will try to catch the mouse in our house in order to beat it dead with a golf club. he is just particular.
and what do you know? our firstborn is the same way.
austin will cry if i put his shoes on when the seams of his socks are not perfectly straight. he will whine if his sleeves get caught in his coat arms, and then wail if the amount of shirt sleeve sticking out on both sides of his coat is not equal. and heaven forbid i hold his sunglasses wrong and get them all "fingerprinty and dirty." hell hath no fury. and fingerprinty is not even a word.
and then there is graham... clearly, genetic lines have been drawn in the family.
so when i saw the pictures of my boys fishing, the whole experience made me crack. up. first, it is noteworthy that chris invited his grandfather down to fish with them at the pier, and i'm fairly confident it was because chris didn't want to be the one hooking the worms.
but the pictures are amazing. the pictures are so. them.
austin and graham. austin, the particular one standing back. not touching the worms or paying attention to what he is doing, just critiquing graham on his fishing pole etiquette.
and this is about as close as austin will get to a fish.
then there is graham. graham, the bold and careless wonder who digs in the dirt to pull out the longest and grossest worms he can find just to see how far they will stretch before ripping in half. and if you can't tell, graham has clearly honed his skills in tuning out the voice of austin.
clearly we have done little to give them different upbringings, so these two right here can decisively settle the eternal nature vs. nurture debate. but one thing i know for sure...
if austin ever tries to pick up a girl by telling her that he doesn't use hand sanitizer, i'm going to become a whistleblower faster than you can say fingerprinty.
