Many of you married folk, I am sure, feel that they have been blessed with a “Super Spouse.” The one that knows you better than you know yourself. The one that you thank God for. Unfortunately, like all good things in our lives, we tend to take them for granted. Tend to forget how special this person really is. Tend to forget how intelligent, humorous, and creative they are and have the potential to be. But here’s the silver lining: Every so often, your spouse will reveal their specialness in such a magnificent way as to knock the wind out of you (figuratively, in most cases) and force you to remember and to realize what you’ve got.

I had one of those moments tonight. We had been visiting my sister and her family down in the Philadelphia area today for her son, Dillon’s church dedication. It was a long drive down and a long drive home (about 3 hours each way). Our 1-year old daughter, Erin, had been an angel all day long, but for some reason didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. Well, it wasn’t long before we were on the road back home that she was gonna lose it as soon as she figured out how hungry she was.

Here’s the moment…

E-I-E-I-OMy wife Kate, seeing the need to distract the ticking time bomb bundle of joy in the backseat as long as possible decided to sing with her. And sing she did. She started with some oldies, some fun songs, some church songs, but then something happened. She started in with Old McDonald Had A Farm. Erin has been able to sing the “E-I-E-I-O” with stunning skill for a 1-year old and so Kate decided to milk the song as much as she could. The standards came out pretty early: …had a cow …had a pig …had some chickens …had a sheep, etc., etc., etc. Now, Kate could have easily moved onto another song once the standard farm animals that forseeably could have been stationed on Old McDonald’s HUGE farm had been sung about, but instead she kept going. And going. And going. It was easily more than 30 verses later that she began to draw some blanks and ask me for help.

I tried helping with some stellar suggestions, including …had an anteater …had an armadillo

Neither Kate nor Erin liked my suggestions very much – not sure why.

The fact that she can distract our cranky 1-year old for over an hour with simple songs amazes me and is a testament to her maternal love. It’s not that big of a deal in the big picture of things, but it reminded me how much I love my wife.