Before we got married, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t become one of those wives. You know, the wives that constantly yell, just to yell. I dreaded ever becoming one of those wives that mirrored Debra Barone. In the show, she’s hysterical because of the ridiculous predicaments that Ray would get into. In real life, it’s plain eerie how fast I’m turning into another Debra.

And Friday night was no exception.

At about 3am, I got up to pee like clockwork. I made my way through the hall, then before I get to our tiny bathroom, I trip…on JEFF. Jeff was asleep on the floor leading to the bathroom.

of course I have pictures of our unique toilet room.

To give you a better visual, our “toilet room” is about 1/10 the size of a half bath. (The shower is in a different room.) You can literally touch all four walls while on the throne. Jeff’s 6’2” body was positioned in the doorway and not in the bed or couch.

and that’s when the Debra Barone rapture began.

The beer and shot-fueled backstory goes something like this:
Long story short, Jeff and I used to go out together every Friday night to the hole in the wall bar the next block over. It was our weekly date night– something we looked forward to every week. Since I got pregnant, those date nights are forgotten for now and poor Jeff is stuck spending Friday nights at home with me.

Jeff carpools to work with his friend who happens to live a few blocks from us. They’ve become pretty good buddies since they’ve been driving together for several months now.

Jeff and his carpool buddy got into town at about 7:30. Jeff called me to let me know that he was going to the bar “on” his buddy to celebrate the news. (Jeff just told his friend about the pregnancy that day.) I told him to have fun and then I went on to enjoy my Friday night solo. Several hours pass and I texted Jeff to make sure he was ok.

He texts back: “Ok, they won’t stop.”
As in, his friend and girlfriend won’t stop buying him beers and shots.

Oh God.

I text him back, “U ok? Be careful.”

Several more hours go by, and I didn’t hear much more from Jeff. Finally, at about 11, I hear the door and then the steps up to our apartment. Jeff stumbles in, reeking like a distillery. bleck.

I directed him to his dinner in the fridge and told him good night. On nights like this, Jeff usually opts to sleep on the couch for easy access to the bathroom.

All’s well that ends well, right??

right. not in this story!

That’s when I found him asleep on the floor. (again. I found him in the same exact position a few weeks ago when his cousins from PA came to visit.)

What does this have to do with us about to become parents you ask? Haha. A lot, actually…

We’ve always known that we’d be parents one day. It may have taken us a long time, but we’re well on our way. (Well, not from this example. But we are!) In the meantime while we waited our turn for parenthood, we happily extended our youth by living in an urban area surrounded by blocks and blocks of indulgence. All within walking distance.
When it was the Baseball playoffs, we’d cheer at the bar. When we had a rough time at work, we’d mope together at the bar. When we hit a happy milestone, we celebrated at the bar. All of this can make for a disastrous routine, for sure. But, we always knew there would be a turning point.

My turning point was almost 4 months ago when I found out I was pregnant. Trust me, I’ve had those same foul nights many times prior to this life-changing event. Even though he’s been really wonderful and supportive thus far, I don’t think his real turning point hit until Saturday morning—the morning after.

 

Of course I did that same yelling routine because I was mad that he forgot his boundaries; but most especially, because he had reckless fun, not thinking of the consequences.

The next morning, Jeff kind of looked at me and said, “I know I can’t have that kind of fun without you because you’re not there (to make me stop.) I’m sorry for disappointing you. We were celebrating a happy time and I got carried away again.”

He can have fun without me, but if it involves booze, that’s questionable. (If you’ve partied with Jeff or challenged him to flipcup at some point, you probably know what I’m talking about.) I will mention though, to make up for that erroneous carried away fun on Friday night, Jeff was awesome for the rest of the weekend. He organized and cleaned the kitchen and scrubbed the tub– willingly! Talk about fun!

So, we’ve learned, there’s no rule saying that the husband has to stop having “fun” because he has a pregnant wife at home. However, the biggest lesson learned here is, Jeff and I (now) know that our reckless fun has expired, for the time being.

There will be a new kind of fun, the kinds that won’t revolve around happy hours and cleaning up adult puke. Instead, it may still involve puke, but hopefully not our own anymore.