First
Year Wedding Anniversary
by
Unaprimae
You don’t
need to wait 25 years to celebrate your wedding anniversary. My
husband and I had a very small, simple wedding ceremony –
attended by close family and friends so when we were close to
hitting the first year, I planned and fretted. I wanted to have
something reminiscent of our first honeymoon days… without
the cost.
I am typically
busy with work and a baby less than a year old. Throwing an elaborate
party, even a small one would be next to impossible and going
out of town is impractical with a teething baby in tow, so what
I did is plan something special for just the two of us. Yes, I
did the planning and the legwork but not without the help of my
good girlfriends. You should get one of those - girlfriends, I
mean. They’re invaluable, you know.
A week ahead
I asked my best friend Gwen if she would like to play with Una
for five straight hours. Gwen is a mother of a four year old and
is quite missing her son’s baby self and she eagerly agreed.
She’s also Una’s godmother. That took care of the
baby.
What I planned
was a simple dinner followed by a long soak in the tub. Am I making
it sound so banal? Think how a couple of unhurried hours are like
to two busy, struggling-with-their-career couples. Like a manna
to the Israelites.
The simple
dinner consisted of Asian fare. They are quite easy to prepare
and I don’t have a Chinese grandmother for nothing. Stir
fried rice noodles with vegetables, shrimp and chicken; sweet
and sour pork; tiger prawn soup and mango shake for dessert. It
wasn’t that difficult to prepare as I was preparing for
only two people. And no, I didn’t go for the candles, no
dim lit room – visual presentation is part of Chinese cooking.
Yeah, I was sweating and my fingernails smelled of onions. I was
chopping away like a mad woman that I am, cursing myself for miscalculated
timing but what the hell, the man is my husband; he’s seen
me in a more unappealing state than this.
I planned
the candles to go with the bath – and also our favorite
collection of classical music – violin. All adagio this
time. We used to spend hours in the bath when I was still pregnant
taking turns giving each other a foot massage. It’s those
idle days that I wanted to re-experience.
My husband
got home while I was in the middle of adding the noodles to the
vegetables. The table has been set and I was wearing something
sexy – relatively more appealing than my day clothes that
is… but my fingernails still smelled of onions. Jude, my
unusually understanding husband, ended up helping me with the
rest of the menu. I don’t think he minded as the kitchen
is my turf and he was proud of the chance given to him to prove
his culinary expertise. He loves bragging about his untested skill
in the kitchen. He proved handy in boiling the rice. I can cook,
bake, fry, roast but I cannot cook rice without a rice cooker
and, unluckily for me, the ever-dependable rice cooker chose to
go on strike at that day. I was quite nervous about doing it for
fear that we would get bitter toasted rice.
It turned
out that the scented candles made me sneeze so we blew them out.
We did enjoy the foot massage. And a few minutes after we got
out of the bath my friend delivered our darling baby girl back
to us. It was just the right timing since we were starting to
miss her.
The rest
of the evening was spent with the three of us in bed. We let the
baby share our bed. I ranted and raved about the new camera phone
– his gift… until we both fell asleep.
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