January 3, 2007 | Mama Smith

3rd on the 3rd

Today Matthew and I celebrated our third anniversary. Never guessing three years ago that we’d be celebrating, while pregnant with our second child. Life would be so dull if God followed our predictable, safe game plan instead of the dynamic, vivid path He’s leading us on…that will always include a few unexpected twists and turns.

We realized again tonight how different we are after just 16 months of becoming parents. Though we didn’t plan to start this journey into parenthood quite so early, we both like the new version of Matthew and Amy better. Yes – more tired, less versed in the social scene, and rapidly filling up our harddrives with ridiculous amounts of Brighton photos, we are at the same time becoming more dependant on Christ, less rigid about life going a certain way and given the opportunity to fall in love with another little soul, as well as fall in love with the real, raw souls of each other that only gets displayed in this certain aspect when you become parents together.

This was tested today after a long, wearing day with a clingy Brighton (due to too many changing faces and routines over the past two weeks for the poor guy), I was bummed that my exhausted prego body just couldn’t pull it together to organize the exciting night I had planned for Matthew and I.

Instead of the labor-intensive, intricate meal I’d hoped for, I ended up at the coop tossing ingredients for an old back-up meal into my bag. I didn’t have time or energy to get all decked out like I’d hoped, but B and I did manage to at least grab a shower before Matthew surprised us by coming home early. With flowers and two bags of apples in hand. If you know me, you know this little sign of affection was worth more than a box of chocolates any day. I have an absurb apple fetish.

We spent the late afternoon playing with our hyped-up boy, snacking on goat cheese and crackers, and just enjoying being a family together. Another reminder that our “plans” aren’t always what’s best.

After B headed to bed at 5:30, we ended up having a surprisingly sweet evening together (seeing as I was ready for bed at 2pm this afternoon and not sure how I’d last to dinner). Feasting on chicken tikka masala, toasting with our new vessels (I’ll explain…) and talking about our hopes for our marriage in the coming year over strawberries & cream in bed. It was far better than my original “plan” that had been dashed due to one cranky son and one tired mom.

So these vessels. You may have noticed the seemingly cheap-o “plastic” dixie cups, filled with wine, gracing our beautifully laid out table above. But in actuality, they are a surprise we found upon visiting the Design Museum in London. We had come across these interesting ceramic pieces by Rob Brandt a few months back on one of our design sites. Matthew loved the re-invention of a piece of “trash” becoming something of value. I just loved the playfulness of them. Then we found them in the Design Museum and knew they had to be this year’s anniversary vessel.

We started a tradition (way back three years ago :) of purchasing a vessel of some sort for each other at our anniversary mark instead of a gift. We hope to keep all the pieces, even if one breaks, and some day store them all in a cabinet or display them, when we live somewhere with a little more space. We liked the idea of even keeping the broken ones, tying in to the whole idea of the ups and downs of marriage. We’ll see if it actually works out though. With a bunch of young kiddos, we’re bound to have more broken cups than whole ones, I’m sure.