This post is an ode to my husband who has thus far stepped up to the challenge of his wife (me) having breast cancer at a fairly young age.

This man has been my rock.  Since my diagnosis, he has sat with me, listened to me, comforted me.  He lets me win most arguments.  He stays with the boys while I go off with friends who are trying to support me with coffee, and wine and lunch.

All he asks in return is that he gets to get a bit of tennis in.

That’s all he asks.

He has been gentle, patient and understanding.  He has also been my cheerleader when I feel down (which, if we are being honest, is necessary but annoying).

Neither of us likes domestic stuff.  Cooking and cleaning and laundry are at the bottom of our list.  But he is mostly making an effort.

When we first began to date many, many years ago, I had that thought flit through my head in the beginning “He’s just too nice.”

Like a dating death sentence, am I right?

But then I really began to look at my life and realized that I could do a lot worse than nice.  In fact, I deserved nice.

And he wasn’t just nice.  He was (is) thoughtful and kind and gentle.  He is strong and brave and extremely loyal.  And ladies, he is also dreamy, hot, handsome.

He’s a good dad to our boys.

He’s a wonderful husband to me: smart as a whip, sharp as a tack, the man is the whole package.

Not every man will get up with the baby in the middle of the night.  Not every man understands that when he is alone with his kids, it’s not babysitting.  And no one needed to explain that to him which is an even bigger bonus.

He is my partner in everything, especially co-parenting and I respect his style because he is very creative.

When our eldest was born, my cousin gave him this little plush cow and when you squeezed it’s tummy, he said “Moo!”  Well, whenever my husband would change the baby’s diaper, I would hear the “Moo!”.  Even at 2 in the morning.

I asked him why  he did this and he said that this was his way of letting the boy know that a diaper change was coming.  Umm…ok. Kind of Pavlovian but ok.  I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t live on a farm.

We still have that cow somewhere and every time I see it, I think of late night diaper changes.

My husband also invented “punishment hugs”.  When one of our children is completely losing it (and this happens quite a bit) or has done something inappropriate or foolish, my husband will say, “I think that deserves a punishment hug.” and then he walks over to the child and gently hugs him.

And people….most of the time…it works.

I work in early childhood education and I never in a million years would have thought of that one.

And now we have found ourselves in a difficult place.  And even though it is essentially happening to me, he has made it abundantly clear that we are in this together.

And yes, we still have arguments (it’s always about cleaning! Ugh!) and no neither one of us is perfect but during this time I realize that my investment in marrying a really nice guy, is paying off.

I am so grateful to have him as my partner.  I honestly don’t know what I would do without him.  I really picked a good man and I am so glad that I realized all those years ago that I deserved to have NICE in my life.

And I still do.