The gift for which I am most grateful this year did not come wrapped in paper with adorable pastel footprints. It doesn't even have little feet. I suppose the obvious gift for which I should be grateful is the creature now nestled in between my ribcage and bladder. And I am grateful for this opportunity to foster a pack n' play in utero for the great hiccuping squirminator. But if you ask me what gift I am grateful for the most this year, that which has made all the difference in my life each day and each uncomfortable night, it is the love of my husband which reduces me often to tears.

Much has already been written about this remarkable person that I have known now for one third of my life. So I will let Josh Groban sing the ballads and I will just briefly give thanks for the gift of my husband's love here. People will tell you to find a partner with a good head on his/her shoulders, who can provide you with financial stability. They will tell you to find someone who treats his mother well and who knows how to fix a leaky faucet. I will not exhort you disregard this advice. But over the course of the last months, when I have sometimes slowly or even sometimes rapidly lost my ability to carry out normal daily activities, such as bending over and then fighting the force of gravity enough to get back up off the floor, it has been the love of my husband, who, though tempted to join me on the floor in a fit of laughter, has scraped me and my barrel body up time after time.

Yesterday, he conveyed the following to me via gchat:

john: i don't know why but i was all excited about doing baby clothes laundry

Once again, I am so grateful for the love of my amazing husband, and so grateful that I had the wits and the good fortune to marry someone who has a good head on his shoulders, who can fix a leaky faucet, and who gets geeked about doing a load of onesie wash. I love him very much, and if he would like to have seventeen more babies, I would be happy to carry them, for throughout this last year, he has been the one to carry me.