More on Craig

I can't believe I forgot this earlier-- it's one of my favorite things about Craig! So it turns out that Craig understands what I like. You can take that any number of ways, and it's probably true. Craig knows when he needs to make me laugh and he knows when I just need a hug. And he even knows when I'm (just occasionally) being a little bit ridiculous and probably need to be called out on it. But even then he manages to do so in such a way that I don't turn on him in rage. That takes skills.*

But he also knows what things I like. When we were engaged, Craig actually picked out the jewelry I wore for our wedding. He chose this necklace and the earrings (I chose the tiara before he'd arrived in Seattle):Perfect for my skinny, ballerina neck.

Of course, when he chose them, I tried them on, said, "Hmm, maybe..." in my most non-committal voice, tried on five hundred other necklaces, and then bought the one he'd originally suggested. He was so proud. I was pretty impressed, too, actually. And it made for a fun story.

Since then, he's managed to do this several other times. (It's not often I buy much of anything, so he hasn't had many opportunities to try.) The most obvious current example is my Easter dress for this year. I decided I needed a new dress, and dragged Craig and the kids to H & M to look for one. Unfortunately, none of their dresses quite worked: they were too short, or if I tried on a bigger size in hopes of it being longer, then they were too low-cut. And most of them were sleeveless. Craig suggested one dress that I tried on, and I quite liked it, except I couldn't really breathe.** So off Craig went to look for the next size up. Unfortunately, the next size up turned out to be five sizes up. So he brought back an entirely different dress.

It was fuchsia. It was sleeveless. It looked kind of big and clunky, somehow. I looked at it and said, "Um, no. Thanks for trying, but I don't like this dress." And tried on another one for the second time. Then I felt bad and decided I should at least try on the fuchsia dress. It was the least I could do. Did I think that it was big and clunky? Try swishy and fun! Hmm... Maybe it wasn't such a poor choice after all. But fuchsia on my skin color isn't really the best combination... I tried on a few more dresses. They looked all right standing up, but I could barely move in them. Not good for a human playground. Plus, they were all button-down dresses, which tend to do awkward things on me (is that something where you just have to be crazy skinny to pull off properly? I can never tell...). I looked at the swishy fuchsia dress once more. If I put a black shirt underneath it, maybe it wouldn't be so bad against my skin...

And suddenly I had a dress that I loved. A swishy, fun, bright Easter-y dress that I could wear even with kids.

Happy Easter to me!

Good work, Craig, once again.

One of these days I'll learn to trust his taste. Like I said, he knows what I'll like!



*I originally wrote "mad skills" but the pun was just too bad.

**This is something that might not have bothered me before having kids, but knowing they'd be climbing all over me at church the entire time I wore the dress, I decided this was an impracticality that I couldn't accept. Ah, how parenthood changes one!