7 Quick Takes (Volume 222)

1) It was parent-teacher conference week in our local school district and it marked an important milestone in the Boesiger household. After twelve years, twelve YEARS, we had our final conference in the middle school. It's almost as exciting as thinking about this being the final year for carpooling. Next year the kids we have at home will both be in high school and my mommy driving days will be over. I find this quite freeing until I think about one thing.

That means we're closer to them all being out of the house. Sigh.

2) I came across an interesting word: uxorious. It means having or showing an excessive or submissive fondness for one's wife. Like, I wouldn't mind if Kevin were feeling uxorious and cleaned the house or Tami came home to find her uxorious husband had already cooked dinner or Tami's uxorious husband decided a once-a-month getaway was necessary for his wife.

Some might say it means doting, while others say it's a bad adjective describing a weak man who won't wear the pants in the family. I'll let you decide on that one.

And here's an interesting tidbit. There is no comparable word in the English language for the opposite, a wife showing excessive fondness for her husband. I think it's because men already get all the breaks.

3) There's a little boy in our church, I believe he's only 2 years old, who idolizes Kevin. He pretends he's Kevin at home. He talks about Kevin constantly. He watches him carefully and points him out during every service. We found out just how intense his worship of Kevin is when his parents told us this story.

Apparently this boy and his dad have a thing where the dad points to the son and says, "You're the man!" The son then responds likewise to his dad. But last week when Dad pointed to the little guy and said, "You're the man," the boy said, "No, Dad, Kevin's the man."

I gotta tell you it was music to my husband's ears, who had enough razzing about not watching the Super Bowl.

4) Show Choir season has begun. Poor Ladies Man missed his first competition last weekend being sick, but Princess Dawdle caught her first. They look pretty snazzy, don't you think?


They always need to take a goofy picture. Princess Dawdle is middle left.

THIS pic is my favorite. She is getting so pretty.


5) I was talking at dinner about a new thing I feel God's telling me to do when suddenly Ladies Man stopped short.

Ladies Man: Wait, what? How come I haven't heard about this?

Me: I don't know.

Ladies Man: Why are you going to do this? Do you know where it will lead?

Me: Nope. God said to do it, so I'm gonna do it.

I loved his immediate response.

Ladies Man (smiling and nodding his head in approval): Straight up!

6) We were driving down the interstate when we passed a guy obviously annoyed with someone and cursing his fool head off.

Me: Now why do people do that? I don't understand it. Why do you use that word? What good is that? I mean, I understand getting frustrated while driving. When somebody pulls out in front of me and goes slow I'm like, "Are you kidding me?!" but I would never blankety, blank, blank, blank.

Kevin: Is the intent of the heart the same?

Oh, okay, Mr. HOLY! Thanks a lot. I think he needs to get hit with the uxorious stick!

7) Just to show you my amazing good sport, I will let Kevin have the last word today in Kevin's Korner.

So I have been given the last word this week. Trust me this does not happen often in our household. I cannot blame Tami for that however and as our kids grow older and we have fewer in the house this may change. I thought surely there is a word that is the counterpart to uxorious. Thank the Lord for Google. After a little searching guess what I found. Maritorious… excessively fond of one's husband. It is noted on the webpage that the word maritorious is "rare, while uxorious is fairly well known." What could be the explanation for this? Women are better educated and have bigger vocabularies? Husbands are lousy at showing their wives excessive fondness? Husbands already get excessive fondness from their wives? You be the judge. Maybe I should have vacuumed the living room in the time it took me to find the word maritorious. On a side note, as I type this on the computer, maritorious gets flagged as misspelled and yet when I type uxorious it doesn't. Maybe the counterpart doesn't exist after all.

Keep Kicking It!

If by chance your husband is uxorious this weekend and you find yourself with some time for reading, take a gander at more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.