Situation Normal

J. and I took the girls out for pizza at California Pizza Kitchen last night, and as I looked around the restaurant at all the other families there with kids, I took comfort in the fact that everyone looked as tired and shell-shocked as I did.

Friday night. It's the end of a long week. You are tired. You want to be doing something "familyish" to kick off the weekend. You have the best intentions, but you are exhausted. I was glad to see we weren't the only ones with melting-down kids. Glad to see other couples sipping their drinks staring off into space, wanting desperately to talk over the day, but being to tired to even open your mouth. Thousand-yard stares.

At that moment I realized how much kids profoundly change a marriage. Once you have kids you don't have any time or energy left over to tend to the person you loved so intensely and directly before having kids. When you decide to have kids you know you are signing up for a lifetime of caring for another human being, but I don't think anyone is prepared for how little time is left over to tend to the needs of your partner.

All those nuturing things you used to do as a couple from walks to vacations just don't happen as easily. Weeks where you feel like you miss your partner—miss the closeness and comforting and sharing—stretch into months, and perhaps years. I can see why marriages fall apart. I can see how in just a few short years marked by having a kid or two, a couple can feel like they don't know each other anymore.

Hold that thought.

For some reason last night, the restaurant didn't have their act together and screwed up our order more than once and kept us waiting 45 minutes for our meal. By this time, my telling Wallie that there were scary spiders under the table wasn't enough to deter her from wanting to escape the loudness and bustle of the restaurant. She spent most of her time waiting for her pizza in her cave.  And after a couple of martinis, I didn't really care. (P.S. CPK: Kid-friendly, full bar.)

Finally, our dinner arrived, the girls tucked in, and J. and I could say "hello" to each other. We ran down the day in about 10 minutes and moved on to other subjects. My girls are not pleasant when they are hungry, but after devouring their dinners, we decided they were being "good" enough for an ice cream cone.  We headed over to Baskin-Robbins where the girls chose sherbets that turned their tongues and mouths psychedelic colors and tried hard not to think about what cancer-causing chemical was making those colors so vibrant.

It was after 8:00 when we got home, so we tossed the girls into the bath for a quick scrub-a-dub, read a story, and put them to bed.  They feel asleep as soon as their tired little heads hit their pillows.

I puttered around the house for a bit then came back into our bedroom to find J. sprawled across the bed. I snuggled up next to him and we began talking. Three hours later we were still chatting, my head in the crook of his arm, his arms wrapped tightly around me. J. brought up things we talked about when we first started dating, things I probably mentioned in passing but that he remembered. That made my heart full.

Of course we talked about our girls and our hopes and dreams for them. We can't believe that our little Bunny will be a kindergartener in the fall...Why does it seem like life without kids went by so slowly, but life with kids is whizzing by so fast that moments seem to fly by without giving me a chance to remember them.

Speaking of remembering, I can't remember the last time we had three hours to ourselves at home to talk. (We usually save everything up for a weekly date night.) It felt like old times when we used to talk and talk until one of us feel asleep. It felt good. It almost felt like we didn't have kids and it was just us all over again. Those are the moments, those connected, overflowing-with-love moments, when it's easy to imagine having children and making and family. And those are the moments that couples can't forget to share with each other more than just every once in a while.

My husband is J. We have the same values and beliefs. We laugh at the same things. We want the same things out of life and for our kids. We love our girls more than anything. He loves me. And I love him.

Comments

[bombaygirl]

This is so true. I have to make myself remember why I married my husband, sometimes, because life is so full taking care of our 2 little ones. Thanks for writing this...it is good to know that we aren't the only ones that need to work on re-connecting with each other.

[MamaChilanga]

What a lovely post!

Our solution, which is not for everyone, was to downsize our lifestyle so neither of us would have to work full-time. We live more simply now, but we have plenty of time for our daughter -- and for each other. For us, the trade-off was well worth it. Yes, we live in a tiny rental, drive an 11 year old car and rarely go out... but we get to spend lots of time together as a family and as a couple. Well, well worth it.

[heather p.]

you're telling me!

we had a similar evening, and when we were both sprawled in bed after conquering baths and dinner and books..... i secretly had plans to get into an unopened Valentines Day purchase (http://www.kyintrigue.com/kyintrigue/intrigue.html) but instead we talked and laughed and snuggled. it was brilliant and so filling. i must admit i am in love with this altruistic phase of life, but i hope to get into the goods before next Feb 14th!

[Porter]

It's funny how a little can go a long way when you really love someone.

[blogversary]

My husband and I had moment like that not too long ago and was so nice and a great marriage refresher.

Great post.

[Mary Tsao]

Amen.

Nice post. I'm going to go give my husband a hug right now.

[honglien123]

Today is my 6th wedding anniversary. When I was younger, I thought that when we'd get to this point, we would travel to some exotic place or present huge gifts to each other to as signs of our love and devotion. Instead, we had the kids babysat and went to a late lunch and movie. It's amazing how after kids, that's all it takes. =)

PS We saw Hot Fuzz, freaking hilarious although quite gory in some parts.

[twizzle]

Very sweet post, and so true!

[kimberly/tippytoes]

I was going to write the same as twizzle - how sweet and very true!

[kim]

What a lovely night - wish we could all have more of 'em.

Btw, I just had to pass this on:
Wonder Pets. DVD. Tuesday. Hallejuah. (In case you didn't know...)

[wood from sweetjuniper]

beautiful post, stefania.

thanks for sharing your friday night.

[Kat]

My husband and I clearly need a night like this. We almost made a life-changing decision (moving) without really talking it through mainly because we didn't have a block of time away from kids and other distractions to really listen to ourselves and each other. We realized what we were doing and hashed it out after Sat. morning classes with the kids sacked out in the back seat of the car. Eating Burgerville from the drive through. Driving around for hours (in a truck running biodiesel, at least). Not as romantic, but we got the connection we needed before we really screwed up.

[earlyduckie]

I have been thinking about this very topic so much lately. Hubby and I are are trying for #2 and I worry that we will lose that connection. Moments like you are described are the types of things to keep us going.