Q&A with the Wife - Let's hear from Terry

(NOTE: On Wednesday we wrapped up our five-part "Q&A with the Kids" series. Before returning to your regularly scheduled blog content next week, let's take a few minutes to pick the brain of Mrs. Terry Tennant, my wife of three-plus decades and an absolute whirlwind of love and service. You won't find many like her.)

What's your favorite thing about your husband?

For as long as I can remember, the deal has always been I make dinner and he cleans it up. I take that totally for granted until I hear other women say they do both and how much they hate it. He knows my love language is acts of service and has always tried to frame things around that like planning time with the kids for a Mother's Day yard clean-up, a birthday Lego party, or a whole-house clean-up from top to bottom. So, I guess the answer is he's always thinking of how he can make my life easier – even with fewer kids around to take up my time.

If you could change one thing about him, what would it be?

The very obvious answer to this is that he could fix things. It wasn't that big of a deal in the beginning, but now I'm tired of fixing things, painting things, etc. Fortunately, we're in a position where we can just pay someone to do things now. The underlying answer, though, would be that he wasn't so hard on himself to be perfect. He's pretty good at most things and he doesn't tend to see it that way.

That's Terry and me with jazz saxophonist Dave Koz.

On that note, how hard has it been over the years being married to someone with next to no mechanical ability?

It has its ups and downs. I mean, fortunately, I do have the ability to fix a lot of things, but I'm just getting tired of doing it. And the older I get, the more difficult it is. Probably the hardest part is that no matter how you try to explain something, there are many times where it just makes no sense to him and that can be difficult because it's completely clear to me.

Did you ever imagine you would have five kids? How did that happen?

No!  I do remember thinking 3-4, and then I vaguely remember Scott saying 4 or 5 and thinking, "What?" But then it happened and I wouldn't change it for anything because I really like #5.

That's Terry when she was a little kid, celebrating a birthday.

How do you like having an almost-empty nest? What do you miss most from the years when the kids lived at home?

It has its pros and cons. Pros would be the house is much cleaner, bills are a lot less, bathrooms are always open, more down time. Cons would be it's always quiet. I sometimes miss the noise and the big dinners around the kitchen table. The constant on-the-go is gone, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. I miss the football games for the band and for Jared, the soccer games for the first four, the track meets and cross meets for Jack (and Melanie and Chloe). I also miss the parents we used to have in our lives. Some are still hanging on, but many just fell out of touch. I miss watching movies with the kids. From when they were little, I miss dance parties and wrestling tournaments and making cookies and doing crafts and constant snuggles and book reading and all that comes with kids in the 0-10 range.

What is the most exciting thing to you about becoming a grandma?

I am just excited to have a baby in the family again. One where I won't be tired all the time and I can just smother with love. I want to be the best Grammy I can be – making cookies, having sleepovers, playing on the floor and basically spoiling him the best I can!