Here’s a great example of what I mean. For our first child my wife broke in the delivery room with style. She was pushing, almost done, when the doctor got that “uh-oh” look on his face. Our first child had decided to come out the wrong way. My wife was wheeled to an operating room while I signed a series of documents that to this day remain a mystery. She had emergency surgery. The child was fine. She was fine. I was doing all right although I don’t remember a whole lot about it other than I wore a white hairnet to surgery and cesarean sections seemed like high end plumbing, lots of tugging and grunting and splashing of liquids.

Still, all in all, over the last seven years I’ve come to believe that my wife and I both shared a pretty positive mental picture of that experience. You know, other than her getting cut open after being in labor for hours and that high school football coach mentality I adopted in lieu of breathing exercises. It made perfect sense to me at the time that if breathing and counting helped get the kid out then screaming, “Get it out, girl! GET IT OUT!” could only be an improvement.

But, with that little issue behind us now, it came as quite a shock to me last week when my wife told me AFTER she labored to deliver our child, THEN endured emergency surgery, that I leaned in close to her sweaty little face and the first thing I said to her was, “Baby, your breath really stinks.”

I know, I know, I shouldn’t even use this example. Pregnancy makes these women think crazy things. I probably said, “Boy, your esophagus had lots of kinks.” Or “Baby, your chubby little face is really pink.” After all, this was the same woman who, during her next pregnancy, created a mint chocolate chip ice cream coverup involving me, the manager of the grocery store and the stock person who scurried to hide the ice cream each time she arrived because every store carries mint chocolate chip ice cream and this store “NEVER HAD IT.”

My wife also remembers the first time she saw me. She said I was wearing cut off bluejean shorts and talking to another girl. She says this with some disdain, like for some reason it is my fault that we did not have some soap opera moment, drop everything, and rush into each other’s arms.

I don’t remember the first time I saw my wife. I do remember the first time we talked. That’s when SHE asked ME out on our first date. I also remember that five minutes after I accepted her offer some meathead friend of her boyfriend tried to wax the love-bugs off his car bumper with my face. This is a minor detail that is not included in the official family history my wife keeps.

There are times where her revisionist history makes up for my obvious shortcomings. “This is where your father proposed to me,” my wife tells the kids. “It was so romantic.”

I understand this. The marriage proposal is supposed to be romantic. Ever since she was a little girl my wife had envisioned a romantic proposal with some guy on a white horse in a suit of armor, not the blubbering, emoting mess of a man who fell to his knees, trying not to upchuck on her feet he was so nervous.

Ditto for the marriage ceremony. “It was a beautiful service,” my wife tells the kids when they ask about it. The truth is we got in front of the preacher and my nose turned into a faucet. I was sniffling so loud we both had to be prompted to respond. The service sounded like one big echo.

I only remember one thing about the ceremony. My wife had really good breath.

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