The Army Man Ages

The Army Man celebrated his birthday last week, to little fanfare. He was busy with work and didn't leave until pretty late, so Laura and I met him at one of his favorite little places for a quick dinner and some ice cream. I guess this is what happens on birthdays as an adult-life goes on. I prefer everyone to stop what they're doing and celebrate my birthday, but the Army Man is much more mature than me and realizes that's not what usually happens. I think all in all his birthday was pretty good-I know he enjoyed all of his presents, and he loved his dinner. What he's not loving is getting older.

That's right, you can all laugh at him, I'll wait. I laughed plenty too, believe me. Those of you who don't know us personally might not realize that I'm actually older than the Army Man, by about 2.5 years. Yes, shocking I know. I don't think my poor mother will ever recover from that shock. But alas, there's nothing to be done about it now. So as I find myself approaching 30, my dear husband turned a whopping 27 years old and has suddenly decided that he's old.

Turns out everyone he knows in the Army marks age 27 as the year their bodies started breaking down. The Army Man claims he felt a pain in his knee on his birthday, so obviously this urban legend is 100% true. He's started groaning when he stands up. He gets tired easily. Naps are more common. He gets mad at kids for walking on his lawn. He turns the TV up louder than he used to. So maybe he is getting old! But the older he feels, the younger I feel, so Army Man: feel free to keep this up.

And now I have to embarrass him with a few pictures. It's hard to find ones of just the Army Man-most of them seem to have Laura in them.

Before the Bataan Death March in 2004

One of my favorite picture of Laura with her DaddySummer 2007On a jump in 2005

One of my favorite pictures of the Army Man

A silly picture from this month

I could keep going but I suppose I'd better stop there. I spent a lot of time going through my pictures this morning, trying to find the perfect ones to post, and it was actually a very nice trip down memory lane for me. The Army Man and I have known each other for over 11 years and are coming up on our 6th wedding anniversary. All of the pictures I looked at reminded me just how lucky I am to be married to such a funny, smart, sweet (and younger) guy!