Winnie-the-Pooh and Marriage

When our kids were growing up, I was very careful about what I allowed into our home...books, tv shows, movies.

I like to call those days: Back When I Was A Good Mom.

It's just that Joshua was SO impressionable. I mean, he still is...but more so back when he was young. I had to be so careful, because he has a tendency to become immersed into the things he likes: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Boy Meets World, all the Alex Kendrick movies, Twilight, Pow-Pow-Power Rangers.

Like I've written about before, we had our own set of bad words here at home. The "s" words (we had two) were "stupid" and "shut-up." The "d" word was "dumb." (I wanted to post the link, but I'm tired)

Side note: I'll never forget the time my 4-year old Logan told his Sunday School teacher that his Daddy said the "d" word that week. Logan meant Jim had said "dumb," but his teacher thought he meant something else!

Side note #2...you might not want to read this part if you are of a "delicate" nature. Or, if you have girls and no boys: One particular teacher, Mr. Ricky, got a big kick out of the things my kids would say. I always joked with Mr. Ricky...that he asked "leading questions" to get the kids to spill all of their "family secrets!" As evidenced by the fact that even tho Mr. Ricky KNEW Jim had had a vasectomy that week, he asked my little Logan if his Daddy was feeling okay. Logan told Mr. Ricky that his Dad had gone to the doctor to "make his ding-ding LOTS BETTER." 

See what I mean? ALLLLLL the family secrets.

And also...I don't think I can adequately explain the feeling I had after I picked up Logan from Sunday School that day, and then thinking about it all the drive home...because I thought it was a normal Sunday, and that everyone in the pre-school hallway was just being overly smiley and friendly. I had no idea that they'd ALL HEARD ABOUT IT and had a big, ol' laugh about it before I got there.

Hole? I wanted to crawl in one. And then I had to do the walk of shame back down the hallway to church...where many of our friends had already heard the story FROM BIG MOUTH MR. RICKY...and were HOWLING at what had happened.

ANYWAY...where was I? Oh, yeah...

I just felt like there were millions of words in our vocabulary...so why did we have to use the ones that were mean and degrading? I felt like Joshua...and probably our other kids, too...heard enough of those kinds of words at school. I wasn't having them in our home.

So, I liked the "sweet" shows like Winnie-the-Pooh and the WEE SING kids and Berenstain Bears. And even tho it sounds lame now, I also let them watch Barney and Sesame Street and a few Disney shows. And they LOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVED IT. So, kids...take THAT! If I'm lame then so are YOU!

We also watched some of the old Disney movies: Jungle Book, Peter Pan, Cinderella...among others.

Side note #3: We did not watch Disney's Snow White. Snow White was a bad, creepy movie that I kept on the top of my refrigerator...because I my kids hated that movie were scared of it.

My favorite was Winnie-the-Pooh. The books and movies were just so sweet and innocent. No one called anyone else mean names, and the stories were all about love and friendship.

Of course, all bets were off when Logan came along. Oh, we still showed all of our favorite shows, but once Star Wars came out? Well, Logan was HOOKED. He was about 4, maybe, and he could quote every line of every movie. He and Joshua had to have all the gear and all the action figures.

But this is about Winnie-the-Pooh, and how it relates to marriage.

Joshua is 29 years old, and for as long as I can remember, I have loved Winnie-the-Pooh. I love the books, the movies, the bedding, the decorations.

So, one day...a few years ago...I was at the Hallmark store. I saw this big wooden sign with this quote from Winnie-the-Pooh painted on it: "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you."

I know, right? Isn't that the sweetest thing EVER? And it's exactly how I feel about Jim.

So, I told him that I'd found a sign that I LOVED...maybe for over our bed, or somewhere in our bedroom. I don't know what I expected his reaction to be...we've been married an awful long time, and I know him pretty well.

Because he totally missed the sentiment of the quote. When I told him what it said, he looked at me and said, "a hundred years? WHO on EARTH wants to live a hundred years?"

And that, boys and girls, is marriage.

"...rejoice in the wife of your youth." Proverbs 5:18