Independence Day

Did everyone have a nice 4th of July? We did, for the most part. We spent the afternoon/evening at my parents' house having dinner and enjoying their pool with family and a couple of family friends. Sadly there were no fireworks this year. It's been so incredibly hot and dry that our county banned them this summer. Actually, a house on my parents' road burned to the ground this past Sunday, although there were no fireworks involved to my knowledge. It was a really beautiful home, one Nick and I have always admired, and it makes my heart ache for the family that lost so much.

There was some...friction before we went to my parent's house. Morgan had spent the night with my parents, so she was already out there. Now I will be the first to admit that the house has been in kind of rough shape lately. And in fact, Nick had promised to spank me for it a few weeks back, but that never happened. And I've been reaching that stressed-out/no-focus/really-need-an-attitude-adjustment stage. And Nick has been getting more and more irritated with the state of things as well as my attitude. And I truly have been trying to get it back in order, but frankly I've not been very successful, and my attitude about just about everything had really started to spiral.

Anyway, there was an argument, the details of which don't really matter, but the gist of it was that I had not been holding up my end of the bargain with this whole "you go out and work while I stay at home and be a homemaker" deal. And I muttered something along the lines of "You don't exactly keep all your promises yourself."

There was about 5 seconds of silence while I continued to fold laundry, and then I heard his laptop snap shut. The next few minutes are kind of a blur, but before I knew it he had his belt off and was not so nicely insisting I get myself up the stairs. I do remember refusing, on the grounds that Daisy and Jack were home, but really mostly because I was mad. Then he threatened to spank me right there in the living room, which got me moving, because while Jack, at 6 months is too young to care and Daisy was off playing somewhere, I certainly didn't want her to come in and find mommy getting her bottom blistered. Even then, though, I was pretty defiant, and I got a couple of good licks on the way up the stairs in response to the constants stream of back talk that was coming from my mouth.

Once upstairs he bent me over the bed and really laid into me. By this time I was crying, but mostly because I was pissed at him, although I didn't really have a good reason to be, other than maybe because he really hadn't followed through on the previously promised spanking, and now I was getting it, but not on my terms. There was a lot of me getting out of position and telling him to stop and to leave me alone, but he stayed firm with it and kept spanking hard. And at one point in the middle of it he said, "I don't like having to do this, because I love you," and I shot back, "No, it's because you don't care." And that caught his attention. There was more spanking, and when it was over he left me there to get myself composed, but later he told me that he he really does care. When he told me that, we were about to leave for my family's house, so I asked him if we could please talk about it later.

That night when we went to bed I brought it up again. He apologized for being so mad when he spanked me, and I told him that he didn't need to apologize, that I'd needed it, and that was part of the problem. He asked what I meant, and I explained that, having told me that he wanted to continue with DD, when he promised a spanking and then didn't follow through, it really did feel a lot like him not caring. And I told him that when I get to the point where I really need the reset button pushed, my hands are kind of tied if he won't deal with me when I need it. When I'm still in the reasonable stage, I refuse to purposely make him mad just to get him to discipline me. And because I certainly don't enjoy punishment spankings, it's easy enough for me to not push the issue in the moment, even if I know I need it. But if he just keeps blowing it off, eventually I get to the point where I'm rebellious and disrespectful, not to force a spanking, but just because my attitude has devolved to that point. Frankly, at that point, I want a fight, not a spanking, but a fight is not going to solve anything.

Anyway, I told him that I was sorry he'd had to spank me, but that I was glad he had followed through, and I think it really hit him just how the lack of follow through before had affected me.

So that was our Independence Day. How was yours?