4am.

In my experience, nothing extraordinary ever happens at 4am.

When I was a teenager, it was sneaking back into my bedroom window before dawn, praying my mama wasn’t waiting in my room threatening to send me to a convent where they don’t allow push-up bras or wine coolers.

In college, it meant drunk food at a seedy 24 hour waffle place along the highway, with glitter and mascara streaked across my face.

Now that I am married with kids, the thought of seeing 4am turns my stomach.  It means someone pooped through their diaper, or is vomiting something up, or I’m having a panic attack, or someone younger, drunker and with a much more exciting life than my own accidentally dialed my number, and I answered it all freaked out because I assumed someone must have died, but then she is all, where’s Robbie I’m super horny, and I’m like, promise me you are getting a degree in something and that Robbie doesn’t have an ankle monitor on.  And then she calls me a crazy bitch and she hangs up, and I can’t go back to sleep, so I lay in bed wondering if she’ll turn up on next season’s The Real World.

(Incidentally, just typing Real World randomly made me google Melissa from Real World New Orleans, which was, in my opinion, one of the last great seasons, because they still cared about showing up to their fake jobs, and had way less HPV floating around up in there.  Anyways, she used to blog at princessmelissa.com, but has since moved on to tumblr, and she is married with a daughter, and it’s adorable and I just want to shake Tonya from Chicago and be like, listen, amazing things can happen for you when you put underwear on.)

So, sitting in the LaGuardia Airport at 4am on Monday morning, I had low expectations.

And things were already not off to a great start.

The bakery only had onion bagels, and the man sitting next to me smelled like pee, and I have this thing when I travel, that I cannot go to the bathroom, no matter how much I try, and after 5 days of eating everything wonderful New York had to offer, my stomach was hard and distended.  Like those kids on the Feed the Children commercials.

It was the first time Andy and I had gotten away since we had Jude 4 years ago.

It was a mix of eating and making out and sex without Yo Gabba Gabba on and sleep.  Lots and lots of sleep.

But, at 4am, I was still exhausted.

I laid my head on Andy’s shoulder, mentally deciding, as I leapt in and out of sleep, that I would rub my belly as if I were pregnant, so that the fellow passengers sitting at Gate D2 would think I am, in fact, not fat and bloated, but rather, adorable and pregnant.

Kiss me.

What?

Kiss me.

Um, we’re in the airport, there’s a Rabbi staring at us.

So.

But, I have onion breath.

I don’t care.

So I did, and I waited for him to wince, because I don’t care how much you love someone, onions are onions, and that taste had been festering on my tongue for at least half an hour.

So, what was that all about?

I just wanted it to be romantic.

The kiss?

No, the moment.

Why? Are you still drunk, because I’m totally not going to do it in the airport bathroom if that is where this is going.

No, I want you to marry me again.

What?

Marry me.  Again.

And then I died.  Because, who does that at 4am in a dirty airport terminal, with sticky seats and Rabbis, and still have it turn out completely and utterly, balls to the wall romantic?

Gate D2, LaGuardia Airport 4:13am

So.  We’re getting married.  Again.

And this time, we’re doing it the fun way.

The first time around, per Andy’s request, we had a boring, traditional wedding, when I wanted nothing more than a fat Elvis impersonator to walk me down the aisle, and then spend the night partying it up in the city that never sleeps.

So, we made a pact to have a conventional wedding first, and then the next year, head to Vegas and do things my way.

But, with each passing year, I kept getting pregnant.

But, not this year.

This December, we say I do.  Again.