My husband and I forgot to celebrate our first anniversary, although we had a good reason. My husband's boss's wife, with whom we were all close, had fallen asleep while driving and crashed her car with 2 children in the backseat. The kids were not injured and she was not hurt seriously, but she had discovered that she suffered from narcolepsy. It was wild because, the doctor said, that her past episodes had been so brief, just a second here or there she probably never noticed.

Anyway, we had to take the kids for the night so he could stay in the hospital with his wife. That night, the kids cried the entire night, scared from the accident and missing their parents. The youngest boy wet his bed three times and this made the little girl so nervous she threw up in her bed. Fun times for all!

My husband had to go to the office and make sure everything was running smoothly and then coordinate with his boss to keep things operational. I stayed home with the children, trying to bribe them with french toast and oatmeal, then grilled cheese and crackers, then homemade cookies and crayons. They would lose themselves in the drawings and games for a few minutes but then suddenly one would ask for their parents and then the other would start asking and then they'd rile each other up so they'd start crying all over again. It was a long day, especially seeing as how I'd never had children of my own yet and wasn't used to it.

My husband was gone all day, returning after 8pm, exhausted. The children's parents finally came to get them and they were so tired too they forgot to say thank you (just a little thing, but in hindsight was a foreshadowing of what was to come - he only stayed at that job for a couple of more years before moving on, although we managed to stay good acquaintances with them).

Once the kids were gone I cleaned up the house from the mess I'd made trying to entertain them. I washed sheets, scrubbed the kitchen floor and dragged the mattress outside to air out. My husband heated some soup and ate alone at the table and then fell in bed immediately afterwards.

It was only the next day that we realized that we'd missed our first anniversary! In the excitement we had planned to go out to dinner and dancing. We obviously never made it.

So it became out little "thing" to never say a word to each other approaching our anniversary day. We'd pretend we'd forgotten. And then wait and wait and wait and at the last minute, just before midnight, whip out whatever surprise we'd been hiding and plotting. A piece of jewelry, a trip to Mexico, years later a prengancy test that said "YES" and once even, a puppy. This one was tricky because he had to keep it at the neighbors and then sneak over there and get the sweet little thing at night.

The excitement of hiding like that and waiting (and I admit, wondering if he'd *really* forgotten this year), made it half the fun!