How to marry a guy in 6 weeks

Andrew and I knew each other for about 6 weeks when he asked me to marry him. We had fallen into something like love (in retrospect, it was more like infatuation). In our reasoning, we'd both lived single long enough to know what kind of mate we wanted. Yes, at the old age of 23 we thought we had all kinds of wisdom. It is so, so, so laughable now. We even talk about how if either of our kids ever fall into a whirlwind romance we will definitely have words with them. We honestly didn't really know each other. And it could have ended poorly.

We had plenty of people question if we really knew what we were doing (we thought we did, but we didn't). We thankfully spent many of our Saturday mornings in premarital counseling. Do you know what our pastor said on the last day of our counseling? "I think you two will [long, long pause] be [another pause] okay." Not a big vote of confidence.

And we've been okay. I'd venture to say that on most days we exceed okay. Life isn't all rainbows and gummy bears, but I certainly don't feel like I deserve someone who has been so accepting of me as Andrew. He puts up with me, warts and all. I quote my ultimate heroine Maria VonTrapp "But here you are, standing there loving me. Whether or not you should. So somewhere in my youth, or childhood, I must have done something good."

And my husband's love for me carries over to our kids. I was snuggling with 3 year old Aaron the other morning and he pointed to our wedding photo and said "Mommy, you looked beautiful when you got married." (He frequently tells me "mommy, you're so pretty"...again, something I don't deserve).

We have a pretty "traditional" family. Husband, wife, two kids, two cars, two coffee pots, one big pile of laundry. But I don't think all marriages or families need to look like ours. I've been so blessed to have in our world many marriages and families that look nothing like what is considered traditional or normal. I kind of revolt when someone tells me what we "should" do to have a successful marriage or family, and I try my darnedest not to do that to others.

Sometimes if people think we're going to be [pause] okay, we're probably going to be better than okay. On most days anyhow.

Rewording an Indigo Girls song..."The less I force my family into perfection, the closer I am to fine."

(Their version is much better-my apologies)