When I was in elementary school,

a REGULAR report card comment code was "Does not work to potential". I never took it seriously and neither did my parents. We all knew it was true and it's because I was always taking shortcuts. When I type in the term "Does not work to potential" in google images, the photo I included comes up, along with similar ones for different products.

I see my son and husband -- the opposite of me in this way. They work to their potential at everything. The art of a "working shortcut" is something for them to learn, not something they default to. It's taken me 20 years to figure out shortcuts that don't damage, and even now sometimes my speediness causes disaster.

Loving Emmett makes me remember what I love in Mike. Because Emmett is much more like Mike than he is like me. And seeing the adorableness of these traits in my little 4 year old makes me realize why I fell in love with Mike. That for as much as I complain about Mike being slow with things, that there's a depth and an intelligence to "taking it slow" and "enjoying the trip". Emmett is just like him and is always trying to tell me how fast he's going because he hears it come up between Mike and I. But he's just like his dad and I need to encourage this.

So you couple Mike with me and my urgency to complete...my urgency to finish (which does at times produce good results) and there's a solid combination. Mike will do the taxes. Mike will cut perfect business cards. Mike will mathmatically figure out the perfect spacing for a piece of furniture. But I can come up with the ideas fast. I can paint a room quickly. I can clean a house with a timer. All the bitching I do about my speed and his speed...right now I'm realizing that I'm out of my mind.

I'm tired today, but woke up feeling very creative. When I pick Emmett up from school today, we're driving straight to Pearl to get some matted frames and good paper so he can paint pictures that we can frame and hang up in his room. But with Emmett, today when I layout his paints and paper, I know that he'll spend a good 2 hours completing his assignment. He's not trying to "get to the next thing. He's just enjoying things as they happen. There's something to learn from my family.

Today I feel like I want to really spend slow, quality time with Emmett. I know when the baby comes, my attention will be divided. I can't imagine loving anyone as much as I love my boy. And Mike continues to amaze me as he models the perfect husband for support during pregnancy. In the beginning, I felt like I was doing this "alone" and told him that. I asked him to please be in this with me. I asked him to please help me through this and angrily expected nothing. I have to say that he's doing it. It just took me six months to figure it all out. It's important that I credit him here so I don't forget it.