Finding Cole

If you have bothered to venture over to my new Tumblr site you will see that it's been hard for me to put down the new iPhone and pick up any other camera. I am absolutely loving photo blogging this way, it feels effortless, and in some ways realized that it is way more personal and revealing than anything I used to write here. The Tumblr is here to stay and I FINALLY found a way to have Cole easily blog with me. So we are both contributing to All the Love in the Universe, and it has filled up fast with our life. She even thought up a clever way to show off some of what she does at the salon. The girl is handy with an iPhone that's for sure. I had a real actual moment where my mind was blown, sparks and smoke were sizzling out of ears, and my jaw was dropped open on the floor as I thought about how far these camera phones have come. I thought ahead to just two upgrades from now, and really truly believe that if they can ever figure out a real solution to some kind of reliable sharp zoom feature on a camera phone, the ol' point and shoot walking around camera industry is in for some hard times. Real hard times. Now if you could just custom set your white balance.

So far my official review for the iPhone 4S is this: They put an amazing camera on a terrible phone... I'm hooked.

Anyway, what am I doing writing in here?! I'm not supposed to be doing that. The truth is old habits die hard, and every morning, no matter what I told myself, I would wake up, and open up this dashboard, hit new post and stare at a blank screen and wonder why I couldn't write anything. This morning I just felt like talking I guess. I feel better. Why? Well because I have been spending more time with Cole.

So last week Cole and I had to get a babysitter for a few hours to go to a meeting, and after that meeting, we decided to go have a beer before we got home since we had some extra time. We only stayed out for an hour together, but in that hour I realized how badly I needed this kind of interaction outside of the house. It was in this hour that I realized a big reason for my quiet here, is that I don't like just talking about the kids and family life all the time, that a big part of this blog was about my relationship with Cole and how insistent we were on keeping hold of our identities. We both have our careers going where we want them, and we have our family, but what about our relationship? Whoops, we forgot to keep time just for us. A big part of this blog in the beginning was about the fight not to lose ourselves entirely to the children and family life. We lost that battle. Obviously. All of the sudden I am wearing dad clothes and walking around Target in slippers and excited about some new yogurt flavor I just saw.

Anyway.

That quick little impromptu date came at the end of a week of pregnancy tests, Cole was about 7 days late, and every day, she took a new test, and every day it was negative, and we would wait 3 minutes, then look at the stick, then explode: "WHAT?!! This is fucking crazy." and after 6 days it was just full on bonkers and confusion. Turns out she was just thrown off schedule as her cycle was lining up with new people at work. That is one of the strangest things about women I think-- some sister planet comes into your orbit and all of the sudden galaxies collide and start pulling against the other, and everything has to align just right just so that everyone is spraying hormones at the same time. Just crazy.

As soon as we knew that Cole was not pregnant. I felt relieved. I wasn't expecting that reaction. Not at all. I was relieved? I was. I'm not ready. I had no idea I wasn't ready. I want my wife. That's exactly what I want. So we talked, and we decided to take full advantage of all of our wonderful grandmas and grandpas, and good friends,while they all still think the children are adorable and lovely and want to watch them. So we will happily accept the offers, and concentrate solely on us for a few hours a week. Just a few hours, that doesn't sound like much, but I mean just that one hour alone last week was like getting an adrenaline shot plunged into my heart. We went home and made out like teenagers, (although I had just shaved my beard off a couple days prior, so that make-out session wasn't so great for Cole. The stubbles. Ouch.) The point is, that even if it is just one outing a week, with an occasional weekend getaway thrown in, it's going to give us the chance to just be Ryan and Cole and its really easy to forget who they are sometimes. I see Cole smile every single day, but there is something completely different when she is smiling back at me just because we are sitting across from one another and we know we can talk about anything we want without a child climbing on your head. Even when we were out with friends, there is just something amazing about looking across a crowded room and catching her eyes and getting that smile of hers. It's always going to make me swoon.

The strangest part of marriage I have found is that you can spend every single day together, hours on end, and talk constantly about all kinds of things, but somehow have no idea that you feel lonely.

A few P.S. things:

If you do head over to the new Tumblr there is an "Ask" feature located in the header. I have never really opened up to questions before. But it would be kind of interesting to see if anyone has anything on their minds.

If you have not heard I am really addicted to instagram, and am loving the photos, and my buddy Mike just sent me this cool new thing: Watch out refrigerator, here comes instagram magnets.

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