Poll: Followed Up

Thank you guys so much for your words of wisdom regarding the early morning wake-up! As luck would have it, the same day I wrote this post asking whether people think I should be getting up with the first morning feeding, we put a (loud) humidifier in Alice's room. The white noise from the humidifier keeps her asleep until 7:30! So every morning last week I had a full hour in the morning before she woke up. Lovely.

As a result, I've made some progress in my fantastically gut-wrenching book "A Happy Marriage." It's a beautiful look at marriage - honest and terrifying, soft and real. I've found several passages particularly poignant, and thought I'd share a couple:

So much had happened in the twenty-nine years since his first disastrous gift. So many illusions dispelled. So much strength revealed. She had said things to him as cruel as anyone would ever say; and he had been crueler to her more than once. They had sworn love; they had endured hate. As children they had made children, one of whom was already a man, the other becoming one too fast.

He knew the statistics: most people who went into marriage counseling ended up divorced. It was a halfway house for the emotionally retarded: people like Enrique, too timid to tell the truth without a referee.

I love when a book touches me this deeply. I've found myself struggling to hold back tears several times, and think the story reflects the real challenges of living lives in marriage. I highly recommend it, if you can stomach the heartache...