Before I launch into my excessively wordy and sappy Valentine tribute to my boyfriend, I want to describe the sequence of events surrounding the taking of these pictures.

15 year old was snapping pictures while the 12 year old was helping to set up the shots. The other kids were running around climbing fences, sticking their fingers in cow patties and generally wreaking havoc in the background.

We posed, kissed and turned to examine the outcome of the shot. Dave and I both squint with horror into the distance and see cows chasing the twins with evil intentions in their black eyes.

We begin screaming and gesturing to the oldest child nearby to save the twins from the stampeding cattle. She did and all was well. Hailey continued snapping pictures.

This is the story of our life. Saving children from peril and bodily harm all hours of the day and night.

So anyway…carry on if you want to subject yourself to the torture of my declarations of love.

Mr. Abernathy is my penguin.

At least I think that’s the right fowl reference. I’m pretty sure penguins are one of those weird members of the animal kingdom who participate in the ever-elusive monogamy.

I’m honestly not even really sure if penguins are ‘fowl’. They could be one of those things like a tomato that we live our whole lives believing a sham that it’s a vegetable when in fact, it is a fruit.

Anyway. Dave is my penguin. My one and only. I guess that’s where the penguin similarities end though, because he most definitely did not incubate any of our eggs with his feet.

I win the prize for that one. (Not the feet part) I make sure he knows every day of his exsistence that I will always 100% be the winner in our relationship simply because I cooked and birthed all of our humanoids. I even baked two at one time and did a real bang up job.

Winner.

*raises hand*

Anyway. This story is about my gentle and patient husband. *takes off her narcissism crown and places it carefully in its glass case*

He deserves a medal just because he comes home EVERY DAY. He never knows which psycho is going to greet him at the door and he still shows up.

What else can you call that but straight up love?

Now that I think about it, he does have other penguin-like attributes that I adore such as his love of winter sports, sliding down hills of snow and ice and his highly adapted skills for the aquatic life.

Sometimes, I watch him pick up a baby and lean over to lovingly place him in his crib kennel and my heart hammers wildly. I wonder how I got such a high score as I drool when his muscles flex and his lips cover our tiny human in kisses.

There’s something about the polar magic of seeing the man I chose tenderly love his babies whilst his muscles tighten as he wrestles them to the ground and it makes me wiggle around in my skin a little bit.

Then there’s every Sunday when he puts on his tailored blue suit and sexy, pointy hipster shoes and I have trouble concentrating on Jesus and being reverent.

Men – take note;

A well-tailored suit on the man is the same thing as tiny, lacy lingerie on the woman. Go.get.yer.suit. Take your wife to church if she wants to go. It is worth the cost and the effort. It will pay you back in dividends.

You can call it a penguin-suit if it makes you feel better.

And now I’m reflecting back on what I just wrote and picturing men wearing suits and women wearing lingerie to church. How far the scale of sexism tips in my culturally programmed mind. Men really are from Mars.

Women, hailing from Venus are like, “Oh yeah. You being fully covered from head to toe in heavy fabric and sensible shoes is sooo sexy.”

Anyway…about my penguin. I realize painfully often how wonderful he is. I often grimace and snivel in private when I reflect on the day and relive the time I barked and bellowed because he didn’t wash the dish the way I wanted him to or dressed the kid in the wrong jammies or bought the wrong toilet paper.

I hang my head in shame as I access my memories of bleating at him in my hormonal rages for something so idiotic as throwing away a box I wanted or taking a bite that was too big from MY grilled cheese sandwich. I feel bad that I didn’t want to share my burrito with him.

A lot of my regrets involve food. It becomes agonizingly clear what a Nazi I really am and feel infinitely sorry for being the short, fat, never-ending-squawking penguin of a wife that I am.

In the world at large, men like mine are hard to find. I daresay he’s one of the last, true family men left. He makes me and his kids number one. Every single time.

Our hopes, our despairs, our dreams, our sorrows. He keeps them all in his pocket, searching for a solution. I burden him day in and day out with MY heart and MY desperation. My fears. My anxieties.

He navigates them all with soul and sensitivity and a little bit of salt. He knows he has to because otherwise he will suffer dearly, but he does it willingly. Because he loves me. He probably generally has no idea what I want, but he dons his sword and shield and fights hard to figure it out anyway.

I see the solicitude in his eyes, feel it in his fingers and sense it rising like steam from his heart. While I should celebrate his devotion to me every day of the year, I struggle to concentrate all my gratitude and contentment into one or two holidays a year designed to place a magnifier on our ideals, flowers on our table and heart-shaped chocolates in our gullets.

A bubble filled with gratitude and joy rises up from my gut when I think of all he does for me – all we do for each other and the respect and love we radiate for one another.

He works, he cleans, he holds the crying girls that surround him; he subdues the wild, heathenous boys that run in our gang of misfits.

He taught me the proper way to open a ketchup packet and kill a fly with a swatter…how to fight fair and get people to listen…even though those are skills don’t particularly see myself EVER mastering, he showed me.

He opened my mind to the option and artistry of asking probing questions and becoming a critical thinker. He shows me how to be patient and wait for what I want and not sell-out before I discover the right thing.

I wonder how I got so lucky. So blessed. How what I always needed and wanted became mine. I don’t think I did anything to deserve the honor but whatever it was, I gaze up to the inky sky and stars to pour out my thanks.

I recognize with a little bit of euphoria that he is my ideal. He is my dream. My fire in the arctic, my snooze button in the chaos of life, my compass in the wilderness.

My tale of fairies.

He is my penguin.