Fee Fi Fo Fum...

...we're celebrating the birthday of my Englishmun. man.

I know how much he loves not only being the center of attention, but being featured on my blog. I mean, who can blame him when I inadvertently posted a picture of him a while back with his butt crack showing. Now don't go looking, I deleted it. (Yes, I did feel the force of you all madly scrolling backward through the archive. Busted.) Now you know why I generally allow him to maintain his comfortable low profile.

But it's his birthday and you know - I love the guy - so I'll share a few little details of why I still get a kick out of him after 12 and a half years together.

He's calm. So calm that on the rare occasion when we argue and he keeps a very even, reasonable tone, it makes me froth at the mouth. However, this same deadpan trait can also make me break into snorting laughter for hours after he's delivered a line.

Like the time I put a bright red lipstick through the laundry and sent him a crazed email about how nothing would get the lipstick stains out after scrubbing the ends off my fingers and putting the clothes through the wash three more times and he replied:

"Have you googled "shit, I've got lipstick fucking everywhere" ?"
(By the way, this actually worked as I discovered that dish soap does an admirable job.)

He's an encourager. Especially after we've headed out for a hike in the middle of nowhere (miles up a trail, and then OFF the trail even though he promised me we'd stay ON the trail), and the sweat is dripping down between my eyebrows and the exasperation on my face is rapidly turning to fury, he'll still be saying "almost there! It's just around the next corner!"

Panamint Valley. Long ago.

But then we'll in all likelihood end up in some location that is so utterly breathtakingly that I forgive him. Until the next time. But back in the real world, his encouragement and support are what have helped propel me to make leaps of faith and take on challenges that I might otherwise have waffled over ad nauseam.

Have I been ever so slightly facetious? Then let me give it to you straight. He is my best friend. We've been through some rocky times - who hasn't? - but his strength and spirit and that blasted calm of his have been key components in keeping me from flying completely off the handle and running for the hills when things are spiralling downwards fast. He can still crack me up and I still burst into spontaneous random chuckles for hours after some offhand comment that he didn't intend to be funny.

He's talented. He's like a dog with a bone when he is working on finishing a project (treehouse, endless house and garden projects, planning the perfect roadtrip). He thanks me every single time I do the laundry, and he makes me feel pretty even when I'm not feeling it. Although being English, if you ask him if you look fat, beware, because the standard response is "I've seen fatter."

And the way he's embraced being a Daddy, especially given his fears about being a parent right up until the very moment Sweetpea entered our world, make me realize pretty much everyday that I hooked a good one. Like when he dropped her off at daycare only to realize it was GREEN day (meaning, Sweetpea should have been wearing green. She wasn't.). So he called in late to work so he could dash madly down to the Gap and stand outside the door til they opened, picked out a green t-shirt that was not only the right size but was actually cute, and then rushed back to her daycare to deliver green shirt to delighted daughter.

He creates adventure even when he's tired and doesn't feel up to it.

2009. The Headlands.

And although he claims that he doesn't dance, the evidence is clear that one little person can make him let loose. And since I'll be letting him subside back into relative obscurity once his birthday is over, I'm sure he won't mind if I share this. If you come back later and it's gone you'll know he minded.

Happy Birthday, my Englishman.