Dear husband,
I have something I need to say to you. As you know, our morning routine has chopped and changed many times over since our first baby was born; our jobs have changed, our childcare has changed, the number of children has changed. Some mornings we’re calm and organised, but more often than not it’s chaos. Scratchy socks, missing shoes, and long deliberations over breakfast options (even though the menu never changes).
But the one constant is tea. Specifically, the tea you make me every morning while I get an extra five minutes in bed. From underneath the duvet, I listen for the familiar, comforting sounds – the kettle boiling, the cups clinking, the water pouring. Then you come back up the stairs, and I know there’s no more delaying – I really have to get out of bed. But I can do it, because you’ve brought me tea.
You make most of the tea and most of the coffee, and if we forget to eat before putting the kids to bed, you make the whatever’s-in-the-fridge sandwiches too.
It’s how things have evolved over time, perhaps because when the kids were born, I spent five years in a haze of sleep deprivation, and the kettle was safer in your hands.
And I realise now, I don’t often stop to say thank you. A proper thank you – something more than the muttered “cheers” that comes in between brushing one child’s teeth and finding another one still under the duvet.
So I’m saying it now.
Thank you for holding my hand when I first found out I was pregnant, and for not running away when I cried for two solid hours, with no idea why.
Thank you for doing most of the talking when a double-glazing salesman stood in our kitchen for an hour that night, not knowing he’d interrupted the biggest moment of our lives.
Thank you for bringing me toast when that was all I could eat.
Thank you for not thinking I’d lost it when I burst into tears because my normal jeans wouldn’t fit anymore.
Thank you for looking up the pregnancy book when my waters broke.
Thank you for holding my hand all day and all night when our baby was born, and more than that - thank you for holding her every night
when you came home from work and I couldn’t cope anymore.
Thank you for understanding, and for not panicking when you didn’t understand.
Thank you for all the little things that back then were big things – like charging my phone when I couldn’t find a charger, or letting me sleep in on Saturday mornings, or bringing home cake just when I really, really needed cake.
Thank you for not running away.
And, thank you for still making the tea.
