That Pivotal Family Moment

Everyone pretty much knows family life can be defined by a particular moment or event. That certain thing that happens that henceforth marks time in your family. From then on, everything is "before the-certain-thing-happened" or "after the-certain-thing-happened"... For us, there have been a lot of those things. The usual marriage, and then children. Even major vacation trips mark time for us. Car accidents. Good things and bad things. The most recent has been my husband's acquisition of a new, bright orange tractor. We don't have a farm, mostly woods. And a big pond (that somehow requires much tractor work). Life for us is described by pre-Kubota or post-Kubota terms. Now, I mostly just hear him driving around the ol' homestead. At first, it kind of bothered me - the constant sound of the tractor. Now, I hardly notice it. Right now, tractoring is a passion for him. My mom calls the Kubota his new mistress. (Which rather implies he has an old mistress. Huh.) So anyway, we'll wait a while and let him go and do his thing without whining about it. He's having so much fun.