Baby Gladiator

Despite being a coach, Paul isn't very competitive. I think being married to me brings out a bit of his inner "winner", so to speak, and that's usually just when we're playing a board game or video game. It was surprising to me then, when I spoke with his older cousin Michael (who is really a year and a half older, maybe two years) on Saturday. They were the best of friends growing up, kind of like my own cousin and I. There were a lot of parallels in his life with ours.

For one thing, he's short but has a tremendously tall wife. When we go out in public together, our matches look so odd, shouldn't the shorter people be with each other? Like us, they got married last year. Also like us, the man is the sweeter of the two! It seems that there was a bit of competition between us as couples, who had the better wedding, who had the better dress, which honeymoon was best. This is all complete fun, and not really as "Anything you can do, I can do better". It did keep us on our toes, though. Usually, we get their hand-me-down electronics and things like that. They're always buying new furniture, and new gadgets, new cars... whatever is newer they want. At first, Paul and I were a tad envious. If only it were that easy for US to just spend money hand over fist, and still be able to borrow a couple thousand to pay for a wedding like they did. Can you sense the bitterness? It's not like I don't like them, I adore them, and wish we saw them more, it's just really hard to see when all your pennies are going to the wedding fund, ya know?

Saturday rolled around, and I received a call from Michael. We started talking about televisions, and he mentioned wanting to wait until they got the stimulus check to buy a new one. Perhaps I mentioned our new 40" LCD TV we got to go along with the Blu-Ray PS3 we had (both of which were budgeted for, and also on sale), and then HE mentioned wanting a 47" LCD. Oh the competition. He also mentioned friends of theirs having a house in Maui, with a few bedrooms, and we were invited! We'd only have to pay for flights! It seems that while it rains, it pours, as a parent at Paul's school is offering us a vacation because Paul helped her son all throughout the year. All places were open! I'm thinking of Hawaii anyway, as I've always wanted to go! I mentioned to Paul that if we are actually pregnant when we'd like to go (July), it could be our babymoon.

Then, on the topic of family and vacations, and being out-spent by way of competition, Paul said "That's one thing we have to do first, we NEED the first baby." Ha, how sad are we? They get engaged first, move in together first, get married first... BUT, we actually met first! We win! Someone slap me. Again, we are all competing in the friendliest way possible. We're always happy for them to do things, and yes, we are very excited to see them become parents, as they've both never dealt with children or babies. Lucky for us, that's one area we're both very confident in.

Okay, okay, we are pathetic competitors. What would life be without a little competition with your loved ones?