We’ve had “Undercover Boss” on for several hours tonight. You know, just…on. Occasionally we’ve looked up from wrangling children, answering emails and sorting mail to wipe a tear as a boss helps a single mother or pays for an employee’s education. My husband knows I’m psyched about “High Profits” on CNN, because who wouldn’t want to follow the journey of a couple of twenty-somethings navigating the new industry of legal recreational marijuana while getting wildly rich?

We know we have the new “Saturday Night Live” and the new “Last Man on Earth” on Hulu ready to go another night this week. If “Goodfellas” comes on one night or if it’s Harry Potter Weekend on ABC Family, that may go out the window and our channel will change. Next month when Season 3 of “Orange Is The New Black” is on we will stop the world for an hour a night. It’s a great part of our marriage.

We don’t like to say we’re “soul mates.” I’ve always thought that term was rather silly. We feel it lessens the commitment we made. We choose this life together. We choose to be committed. Fate didn’t magically make us “soul mates.”

So I don’t believe in soul mates, but I do believe in “TV Soul Mates.” Marry your TV soul mate. Seriously.

We like to watch a lot of the same stuff. My TV soul mate sat with me the night they found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in that boat after the Boston Marathon bombing. We live tweeted together as CNN gave us the play-by-play. We like the State of the Union Address, ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries or the occasional House Hunters. He just changed it to the special “Saturday Night Live in the 2000’s.” Why not? The more Tina Fey, the better if you ask me.

We also have an understanding about televisions in our house. We only have one that works. We use the iPad to watch other shows. We don’t have a TV in our bedroom. It’s just our preference. You and your TV soul mate have to have that kind of understanding.

We don’t always agree. I groan every time he turns on THE SAME DUMB MOVIE we’ve seen a million times. He turns on “Joe Dirt” or “She’s Out Of My League.” I remind him every time that those movies will end the same way. They are just not the same edited for language on Comedy Central. Come on! But, I’ll watch them with him. In turn, he makes fun of me endlessly for my fascination of the Duggars on TLC’s “19 Kids And Counting.” He laughs, but will stick with me during “Dance Moms.” He knows what’s up with Abby Lee Miller and her craziness.

You don’t have to agree all the time, but as TV soul mates, we indulge each other. He let’s me panic about kidnapped women and family homicides while watching “Dateline.” I glaze over during the NFL Draft as he panics for the Denver Broncos and takes to Twitter. We like indulging each other a little. It’s what you do for your TV soul mate. Plus, it’s 2015. Your TV soul mate can always roll their eyes and disappear behind the laptop. It’s part the indulging.

More than anything, TV time at night is our time together. We can talk. TV spurs our conversations. As much as it’s fun to have total control of the remote when he’s away on business, it’s lonely. Television is so much better with a soul mate.

This morning I got tweets and texts. My Facebook wall got messages like this:

It was no surprise. Charlotte was a popular choice for the royal baby name from everything I had read. Charlotte Elizabeth Diana is truly beautiful and fitting. I LOVE it.

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that our baby name choice for our first born was seriously considered. I was a tad possessive about it, which is totally insane. Turns out, I was ahead of the trend! A Clinton and now a Windsor. It’s fitting since many of you know I’ve been trying to get in touch with Kate for years. I’m a bit of an anglophile.

We told our Charlotte that it was a possibility that the baby princess would share her name. She was skeptical and moody this weekend when she said, “That’s my name!” I her defense, she was tired.

I couldn’t wait to tell her when I picked her up from preschool midday today. I pulled her outside to tell her and quickly film her reaction. I was so proud when she had a change of heart. Take a look. I added subtitles because her classmates were yelling, trying to get her attention and it was loud. See, Charlotte’s are so popular! Now, more popular than ever.

Yesterday was all about my 4-year-old daughter and her dance class. She knows the only time she gets to wear makeup is for the dance recital or dance pictures. She couldn’t wait to put on this year’s sparkly get-up. I hurried her through the pouring rain and growing crowd of moms and dancers. I got her ready. I forked over picture money. I shuffled her in line with the other little girls in purple tutus.

Then we waited.

I looked down at my squirming son in his stroller and attempted to pacify him with crackers, toy cars and board books. I chatted with an old friend from my dance years. Our girls now dance together. I joked about him being the “brother stuck at the dance studio.”

I looked at my baby and realized he too could be one of the countless brothers I saw at the dance studio over the years. Bored and sullen, they would wait on a bench or a wooden chair outside my classes. We would saunter by in sweaty leotards, barely glancing at them. They were often still in shin guards or karate uniforms from their extra curricular activity. Their moms made them do homework while they sat. The lucky ones had Game Boys. The luckier ones had a Game Boy, trading cards, or Pogs, anything that would briefly catch the attention of their sister’s friends. The boys would half beam with pride and half cower in fear in that brief moment that a gaggle of girls surrounded them. I saw the same look on my son’s face last week as he toddled among his sister’s classmates. They all giggled and screamed, “Look at the baby!”

We were still waiting yesterday when I needed to change my son’s diaper so I took him into the women’s dressing room where we got ready for the pictures. There were two sets of sisters with their mothers getting ready. I went to a corner to quickly take care of business. Two costumed little girls peered over my shoulder as I changed him as fast as my skilled mama hands could go. I purposely worked to cover my son. I have to imagine these young ladies do not have brothers since they were clearly fascinated by what they saw for a brief second. My unashamed one-year-old babbled and waved at the girls, not realizing the indignity of the situation. One mother said, “Girls. Let’s go. Give that baby some privacy!”

Poor “dance brother.”

We went back out to wait. Another bored dance brother in a football jersey came up to us to ask about a toy we had. I looked at him staring into our stroller and I vowed to either have my son be a cool dance brother in the popular boys’ hip hop program at our studio or at the least make his sister occasionally be a “baseball/football/hockey sister.” It’s only fair to my son and all the dance brothers.

This morning my husband lost his temper for a second and raised his voice, urging us out the door. He got our son strapped in his seat and made his way back towards me in the garage. As I walked out he stopped and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t need to yell.” “It’s okay,” I said.

It WAS okay. I meant it. He WAS sorry. He meant it.

Then tonight he got on me for yukking it up with my sister on the phone and talking about adult topics within earshot of our daughter. I didn’t even think about it until he brought my inappropriate behavior to my attention. I sighed and said, “Sorry, I’ll watch what I’m saying around her.”

I WAS sorry. I meant it. He knew I did.

This week we celebrated ten years of marriage. Someone asked me what advice I had on having a good marriage. I laughed because I really don’t feel like an authority at all. We just happened to find each other when we did. But, if I had to give any advice, it’s this:

Say you’re sorry and mean it. Don’t say it to pacify the other. Mean it when you apologize. If you’re the spouse accepting the apology, truly accept it. Don’t hold a grudge about it.

That melodramatic movie from the ’70’s got it all wrong. Love means ALWAYS having to say you’re sorry. It means saying it over and over again and meaning it each time. I am a flawed human married to another flawed human. Then we went and created two little flawed humans. I can think of no better example for them than to admit when we’re wrong, apologize, and forgive.

If there is anything I’ve learned in the past ten years, it’s that. Happy Anniversary, Greyson! There’s is no one I’d rather be a flawed human with than you. Here’s to many more years of apologies.

For years my husband has marveled at my bedtime routine, wondering what on earth could take me so long to get ready for bed. Exasperated he says, “No one on earth takes so long to get ready to go to sleep! What are you doing?!”

It’s true. I would think most women take longer than their male significant others to go to bed. For mothers of little ones, it’s an unending string of tasks adding to another hour of sleep we won’t get.

This is exactly what I did the other night and not far from my nightly routine:

• Announce to husband, “I’m going to bed.”
• Kiss him
• Check locks on back door, garage door and front door
• Unlock one door to let the dog out
• Put rogue sippy cup in the dishwasher
• Add remaining dishes in the sink and start the dishwasher
• Remember that laundry needs to go in the dryer, start dryer
• Turn off lights, but leave a few on so we won’t get robbed and I won’t trip when I wake up with a crying baby
• Head upstairs with an armful of shoes, a hairbrush, toys and bag of stuff I bought at Target that was all sitting on the stairs
• Check to make sure each child is breathing and still sleeping
• Notice one child has kicked off her covers
• Tuck her in without waking her
• Go into bathroom and turn on faucet to warm the water
• Pee
• Turn off now warmed water to go back downstairs to let the dog back in
• Go back upstairs
• Remove eye makeup with baby wipes because I no longer buy actual eye makeup remover
• Toss the empty wipes package
• Wash face
• Apply zit stuff
• Apply moisturizer (Although, I have a new skin care routine coming soon! Stay tuned! I digress…)
• Pee again
• Remember I need my Neti Pot because of spring seasonal allergies
• Take Neti Pot downstairs to sanitize it in the microwave
• While it’s in the microwave, notice I haven’t packed the preschool class snack in the “Snack Basket”
• Load the basket
• Find the weekly take-home preschool bag with the frog painted on it to put with the basket so we won’t forget it
• Realize it’s in the car
• Look for shoes
• Don’t find shoes
• Screw it and don’t get the bag with the frog painted on it
• Get the Neti Pot out of the microwave and wipe up the water that spouted out of it during sanitation
• Can’t find paper towels so I just leave the water in the microwave
• Announce to husband that now “I’m really going to bed.”
• Go back upstairs
• Wash face
• Realize I still have black smudges of eye makeup on my face
• Look for wipes that are gone
• Lick my finger and wipe under my eye
• Remember I have a date with my husband later this week and decide to try an old dress on
• Try on shoes with it too
• Try on a different dress
• Put pajamas on
• Use Neti Pot
• Change pajamas after getting saline from the Neti Pot on them
• Go downstairs and get water to take medicine
• Listen to husband say, “I thought you were going to bed!”
• Assure him that I am
• Take medicine
• Brush teeth
• Pee one more time
• Look for charger
• Plug in phone
• Check on kids one more time
• Lay in bed and look at Twitter until my husband comes in and asks me why I’m still not asleep
• Reply by saying, “I was doing stuff!”

Husband’s bedtime routine:

• Comes upstairs
• Brushes teeth
• Gets in bed