Today is my wedding anniversary.

This is a big year for Mom and Buried and me. Not necessarily because the eighth anniversary is a milestone, or that our eleventh year together is a milestone. No, it’s a big year because after surviving the newborn/baby/toddler gauntlet, we are about to re-enter the arena.

Something tells me that, come January, when we’re officially “married with children,” we’ll need to be more united than ever.

I wasn’t even going to write about my anniversary.

I keep my relationship with my wife fairly private (as opposed to the constant blaring I do about my relationship with my son), and she doesn’t need a blog post to validate how I feel about her even though she asked for one and I get the sense that I’d better write this if I want to have a ninth anniversary. She knows I love her. Besides, I’ve written about it before!

In fact, a few of the jokes I made in that anniversary post from a few years ago – about needing a partner for this parenting thing – may be the truest words I’ve ever written on my blog. I sincerely can not comprehend how single parents manage. I’d need my wife with one kid, or with no kids – she completes me…atball sandwiches orders from Seamless for me and god knows I love a good meatball sandwich!

(I’m not going to sit here and talk about how much harder having two kids is than having one because A) I don’t have two kids yet so what do I know and B) fuck you, having one kid is hard too! Parenting is hard, no matter how many kids you have. The challenge of parenting is less about the workload and more about the responsibility, and being in charge of someone’s life is big deal, even if you only have the one. Taking it all on yourself, whether you have one kid or twelve, is a superhuman challenge.)

With a baby on the way, I definitely need my wife more than ever.

I forgotten nearly everything about caring for a newborn, and I never knew much to begin with. The other day, I saw a video of a dad changing a diaper and it was literally the first time it had occurred to me that I’m going to be doing that again. (At least until we teach Detective Munch to handle it.) And that’s why I’m writing this post on my wedding anniversary. I need Mom and Buried to stick around, because there’s no way I can do this on my own. Neither of us can. Well, she probably can. I’m kind of a mess.

I’m terrible at many, many things, and Mom and Buried is good at many of the many, many things at which I am terrible (I may or may not be talking about cooking and cleaning and laundry and I’m definitely not because that’s a really terrible joke that I’ve already made before!), and that’s why we work together. That’s actually how the best partnerships work; you shore up each other’s weaknesses, fill each other’s gaps (IF YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING), and combine to bring out the best in one another and create a sum that’s larger than its parts.

For example, I say assholey things and quote obscure comedy sketches she doesn’t like, and she takes care of me and my son and herself and the impending baby. We’re like puzzle pieces if I were one of the many interchangeable and largely superfluous solid blue pieces that make up the sky and she were all four corners and also every single other piece.

I’d be an idiot, for a million different reasons, to take my wife for granted. Writing about how much I value her and our relationship on our anniversary is the least I can do. Actually, the least I can do is post “Happy Anniversary!” on her Facebook wall, and I’ve already done that. Getting her a push present when the baby comes is the most I can do, but I don’t believe in those things. So this blog post seems like a perfect, happy medium.

Happy Anniversary, honey! There’s no one I’d rather be scared shitless about having a second kid with! Now hurry up and push that baby out so we can hit the bar. I miss my favorite drinking buddy!