At your service . . .

I bet you know people who would "give you the shirt off their backs," right?

Me, too. Except for I mean it literally. My husband did it for me the other day.

I have had three pregnancy-related meltdowns. Not bad for eight months. The first was when I slipped on a toy my kid left out and it scared the stuffing out of me. I had a PTSD flashback to the weekend before when I tripped on the way into a stadium and scraped up my knee pretty good. Or bad, as the case may be. But I had this horrible fear I would fall on the baby. I didn't, (hence the jacked up knee) but it was nasty flashback when I skidded across the living room floor a few days later.

The second was when one of my hospital tests was taking too long and I freaked out because I was afraid of making my visiting teacher late to pick up her daughter from school. (It turned out fine. She met me at her door with a mug of hot chocolate and a dismissive wave. "Quit worrying.")

The last one was this past Friday and it all went down due to a severe lack of sleep. I had gotten only four hours the night before and it was rough day. I vegged all morning until I felt like I could function. I tapped all my reserves to get through Cubs that afternoon (and yes, I'm a total rock star for even showing up while freakishly pregnant).

It was all gone, those reserves, when I got home. My boys weren't bad at all, just a little rambunctious. But there was something inside of me just waiting to break loose and I knew if it did, I'd start crying and somehow never stop. I felt my hold on my temper and sanity snapping thread by thread. It was this cartoonish sounding "sproing!" with each little fiber that popped.

Finally, in the interests of all our safety, I said to my ten-year-old, "Watch SpongeBob until your eyeballs fall out. Give your brother whatever he wants and for the love of all that is holy, if he cries, feed him chocolate."

Then I went upstairs to my bedroom and for the first time in the history of EVER, I barricaded it with a chair underneath the doorknob because my two-year-old can pop the lock. Then I watched Veronica Mars for an hour until my husband came home and jiggled the door handle.

"Honey?" he called. It must be said he sounded nervous.

I dragged myself off the bed and moved the chair, then crawled back into my pillows.

"Are you okay?" he asked from a safe distance.

I shook my head. I still had that watery sensation somewhere in my frontal lobe, dammed and waiting to flood out in a hysterical torrent. "I can't cope right now."

The nice thing about not melting down on a regular basis is that such a statement from me carries A LOT of weight. It's like a Def Con 5 warning even when said in a perfectly even tone of voice. Especially when said in a perfectly even tone of voice. 

"Okay," he said. And that was all. He changed into his hang out clothes and closed the door behind him. I stayed where I was through another two discs of Veronica Mars and only came out for a moment to say goodnight to Grant when Kenny put him to bed.

Then I went back to our room and proved that I was making some progress in my mood by taking the arm chair instead of crawling back into bed.

A minute later, he slipped in. "Feeling better?"

"Yes," I said. "I just felt like I was going to cry and never stop. I stayed up here so I wouldn't start."

Bless his heart, he nodded like this made sense.

I knew it didn't, so I explained. "It's just that stupid shirt." I pointed at the blue t-shirt now lying crumpled on top of the laundry basket next to a bottle of Spray-n-Wash. "I don't have any shirts that fit any more so I bought two yesterday for ten dollars each and I wore that one for an hour and it already got a stain on the front so then I had to wear this stupid shirt--" I pointed to a so-called maternity shirt that was almost four inches short of doing it's job "--and it made me mad."

And then I burst into tears.

Not cute, understandable pregnant lady tears.

Huge, gulping sobs. What Oprah calls the "ugly cry." I am not a pretty cryer. I look like I have hives the second I tear up. I sobbed, and I bawled, and I wailed. Kenny just sat on the floor by me and rubbed my leg. I recovered enough to say, "I hate not having any shirts that fit," and then that set off more wailing and gnashing of teeth.

He was very sad for me so he did the only thing he knew how. He said, "Here, take mine. I've barely worn it tonight and it will definitely fit you. It smells like me, but not in a bad way."

So I took it because I wanted him to feel like he was helping, not because I thought it would actually help. And while I was struggling out of my stupid maternity shirt and into his t-shirt he slipped out again. I sat down.

And I sniffled.

And I realized . . .

Him giving me the shirt off his back really did help. And so did the bowl of ice cream he had when he returned.

And that's why I love him.

He's not eager to please. He's just happy to serve. Me, or anyone.

But especially me.

Did I mention I love him?