Our bedtime routine for the older 2 boys consists of a few books, a few songs, and sometimes a story. I started the storytelling portion a couple of years ago as inspired by my uncle, who told epic tales about my siblings, me, and my cousins — and I do mean “epic” as I only found out later that he lifted a lot of his material from classics like the Odyssey or Iliad. The trick to storytelling is that they have to close their eyes to imagine the story, peppered with all the references that allude to their interests du jour. Before you know it, they’re sleeping soundly.
But as the boys have gotten older and a bit bossier with their requests for story content (“make the bad guy a giant!” “say that we’re traveling up a volcano this time!” “pretend that C has super strength and can defeat the monster in one punch!”), Dave has started to troll them a little bit during his nights putting them to bed.
Take, for instance, J’s fascination with dragons for the past few months. He requested stories about the brothers as dragons, and we obliged. But then he started requesting that his dragon self had multiple powers: fire and water. Or fire and water and ice. And eventually, without shame, he asked that Dave tell the story with J featured as an Everything Dragon. As in, everything power. As in, totally OP* and does not make for much of a contested battle scene at the story’s climax.
So Dave obliged and started telling stories about J as an Everything Dragon. But in the stories, the attack scenes were riddled with mentions of poppy seeds flying, or sesame seeds scattering around, or J getting soggy and crumbly from the rain. The big reveal finally happened: J was actually an Everything *Bagel* Dragon.
This happened subtly at first, but then in enough stories that eventually I could hear J explicitly request during story time: “Dad, can you tell me a story where I’m an everything dragon? But not the bagel kind.”
In the 90 – 120 minute saga that is bedtime in our house, I have to say, me loitering in the hall to eavesdrop on the hilarity of Dave trolling the boys with these types of things is probably not the material that would get us featured on Parents magazine, but it is definitely how I just spent my Friday night.
*overpowered/gamer-speak
Recently I’ve been thinking about the many proverbial plates that I’ve knowingly let crash to the ground as I simply can’t keep them spinning anymore. To be sure, Dave & I are running on a time deficit everyday; there is far more that we want to do – or even should do – than time allows in this life stage, so many tasks don’t make the cut.
That said, and for a plane that’s being built as we fly it, we do seem to have a good gliding pattern.
With that in mind, I’ve come to appreciate the kind of shorthand, or even unspoken arrangements in place, that makes it a lot easier to predict, manage, and optimize as a duo. Key word: unspoken, as in, we have never explicitly addressed these things.
A few examples:
- Things we own separately:
Dave is the only one who uses our carpet steam cleaner on messes, who holds the baby during meals so I can eat while my food is hot, who makes runs to the post office regardless of whose return it is.
I am the only one who changes the lint trap, makes our bed, and initiates our garage spring and fall clean-ups. - Things we tag team:
I retrieve a new roll of toilet paper so we never run out; Dave actually mounts the new roll on the holder vs leaving it forever propped on top as I would.
Dave goes room-by-room to rouse the boys for breakfast in the morning if they’ve overslept; I then go room-by-room to open shades and turn off fans so the house doesn’t still feel sleepy.
I purchase & light enormous volumes of scented candles; Dave pretends to appreciate that I found new fragrances for the season… every season.
I periodically purge the toy collection; Dave runs it up to a donation center.
I organize, store, and swap out all the boys’ clothes by size and season; Dave doesn’t complain when I’m delinquent and our almost-7-year-old’s jeans look like he’s wearing floods because he’s clearly in a growth spurt and still wearing jeans that fit when he was 5 and did I mention I’m letting more plates crash lately? - Things we do simultaneously:
Never allow dry-clean or hand-wash-only clothing of any kind into our home.
What are your unspoken arrangements?
Every year for Valentine’s Day, I gift Dave a “Day of Dave” to redeem during the year. Dave tends to wait until the last moment to cash in, so yesterday we went out for Valentine’s Day 2021. The premise of Day of Dave is that we do anything Dave wants to do for an entire day. 10+ years ago, it involved elaborate breakfasts, leisurely progressive dinners, full-body massages, tech shopping, or binge watching the movies he otherwise could not convince me to view.
We had children, and the indulgent spirit of the day drastically declined changed. This year, for instance, Day of Dave meant he got to sleep in (at least, past 7), he almost got time to himself while I took 3 boys on a slow-paced jaunt to the store (unfortunately the 4th boy wouldn’t nap so “alone time” became “alone +1,” which is still a relative improvement, I guess?), & we all went to dinner at Dave’s favorite restaurant: Pizza House in Ann Arbor.
I snagged this picture as Dave was looking at the menu on his phone. Our eldest, picking his nose. Our second-born, off-camera under the table, excitedly popping up to show us all the “old food” he was finding. Our third, actively trying to climb into the booth of the people next to us, while loudly singing “Do You Know the Muffin Man” to them. And our youngest, tired from his projectile vomiting episode in the car as we parked to come in, causing us to have to postpone our reservation, strip him of his butternut-squash-soaked layers, zip into campus, and buy him new clothes to wear to dinner.
In our defense, we are all out of practice after 2 years of exceedingly few experiences dining out. Irrespective of that, however, it was a bit of a mess. By the time we got home, put the boys to bed, and cleaned up the disaster C left in the car, it was all we could do to pour ourselves a couple of drinks and watch the most mindless Netflix show we could find.
So why is it that I woke up today feeling a renewed and profound appreciation for our marriage? Is it because this man I married always makes me feel like I’m enough for him, even when I am so mentally tapped out that I can barely eke out an itinerary of fun on a day that’s specifically meant to be special for him? Is it because there’s something instinctually, fundamentally satisfying about celebrating our love for each other with the children we created together? Is it because the trenches of life with small children create new and surprising bonds between partners, whereby you thank your lucky stars that the handsome guy who was so witty and social in college is also an absolute champion at changing an infant out of vomit-soaked layers without letting the pooled liquid drip onto the upholstery?
It’s probably a combination of all of that, but regardless of the rose-tinted day after, let the record show: next year for Day of Dave, we will hire a sitter when we go to dinner.
When I take a picture of my husband that he didn’t ask for:
When my husband takes a picture of me that I did ask for:
Dave and I occasionally travel for business and between the time differences, kids’ schedules at home, and back-to-back meetings afar, we barely have time to catch up those weeks.
I got into the habit of keeping notes of all the things I want to tell him when we reconvene. My latest list from his trip to California looks like this:
- Ashley’s #?
- Can we convince Joe & Julie to move in next door?!
- Mern’s neighbor has solar panels [nb: the “Mern” here is a friend who lives in Colorado, so this also involves a story around how I discovered that]
- J running laps
- Salami drami? Salama drama?
Does anyone else do this? Is it super weird, or only moderately weird? When I mentioned it to my sister, she didn’t miss a beat and said, “of course you do.”
When my parents first pulled out of our driveway with all 3 boys in tow for a 5 night venture, I’ll admit I was a little overwhelmed. What should we do first? Didn’t I have a list of books I wanted to read? A list of projects I couldn’t find enough daytime hours to tackle normally? A list of people with whom I was overdue for a good catch-up? A list of lists that I’d been meaning to make??
Now, 6 days and 5 nights later, here’s where we netted out:
- Dining out.
We had 1 lunch and 3 dinners out. The food scene in one of the major cities nearby is phenomenal, so we indulged in everything except portion control: appetizers, desserts, tapas, cocktails, even overpriced mocktails for me. In these outings, we also had a startling realization that we haven’t managed a “quick” departure in over 6 years now. We’ve grown accustomed to baking in time wrangling and packing up kids’ diaper bags, helping put on shoes, refilling water bottles, checking for items left behind, buckling and arranging in various 5-point harnesses. We were so quick to get in the car for our first luncheon, in fact, that I delayed our outing by 30 seconds because I was simply convinced we couldn’t be ready to go that quickly and must be forgetting something. - Staying clean.
With the exception of the tumbleweeds of dog fur that accumulate from our shepherd, things have been remarkably (literally: I felt the need to remark on this at least twice every day) clean. We only had to do a load of our own laundry once during this time. We ran the dishwasher about a third as often as we normally do – and that included cleaning baby supplies. We last vacuumed on Friday, shortly after the boys left. It is now Wednesday, and there are still vacuum tracks on parts of the carpet. There was such low urgency to need to clean, in fact, that we even optimized when we ran our machines to reduce power usage during surge times amid a bit of a heat wave. I would congratulate myself for being so eco-conscious if not for, you know, that ship having long since sailed given the number of offspring we’ve created. - Quality 1:1 time.
Dave & I went on walks every day, had several bonfires by ourselves, and he cooked me a fantastic dinner on our last evening alone. As a rule, our most substantive conversations happen when the boys are securely strapped into car seats and we can mentally relax enough to focus more exclusively on talking to each other, or when the bedtime rush is over and I’m only partially coherent anymore. I probably spent about 90% of our waking hours chatting endlessly, and then only last night wondered if I should bust out my personal favorite (& otherwise regarded as totally cringey) “Table Topics” game. - Having a social life.
Years ago, one of my dear friends told me that when I talk to someone, I make them feel like the most important person in the room — & I consider that a high compliment. But having kids is a constant exercise in multi-tasking (something I’m not good at in the first place) and as a result, I haven’t felt on my social game in years because I can’t really focus on the person with whom I’m speaking while my kids are around and devising yet another method to inject danger into otherwise banal situations. With our free time these past few days, we therefore had a bonfire with neighbors, a decadent dinner + dessert progressive evening out with two of our best friends, and a sunny lake day with family including great bonding with our 2 year old niece. - PANIC NESTING.
(Kind of) joking about it being done in a panic, but I got a ton of concentrated nesting done. Baby’s laundry is washed and stocked, diaper stations are set up upstairs and down, bottles/pumps/pacifiers have been cleaned, dried, and organized to minimize a need to scramble amid my impending newborn mental haze. I also took the liberty of conducting a massive toy purge, which is both very satisfying for me and also leads to my bi-annual conviction that we should all focus more on gifting kids experiences rather than things, which leads to me figuratively standing on my soap box and preaching to Dave for 30 minutes about this, which leads to him reminding me that he’s always agreed with this but I can keep repeating myself it if helps.
All in all, it was a wonderful, recharging, productive time. And, of course, an honorable mention to the 6th thematic trend of how I spent the days: simultaneously very much looking forward to having my favorite little monsters back at home with me.
Dinner at one of my favorite swanky spots – not a kids’ menu in sight. 
Enjoying s’mores and more time to converse with our neighbors than is afforded by our usual wait for the school bus. 
Queso and charcuterie. My favorites. 
D & our niece palling around before dinner and fireworks. 
Amazing homemade meal & mocktail by D, cartoon car place mat because we’re still us.
June 30th is just a date on a calendar, but it’s also our anniversary. We’ve spent this date traveling to new cities, to foreign countries, to some of the most beautiful local spots… having extravagant dinners, al fresco picnics, or Subway sandwiches… alone, or among friends, or with our growing number of children. Last night, we celebrated 10 years of marriage with a substantially different version of our original vision for the milestone (the Amalfi coast!): consuming a takeout charcuterie board, watching our backyard bonfire, doused in bug spray. We talked about our early dating days, some of our favorite anniversary trips, & how nice the patio looked since being power washed. We looked up at the back of our home and recalled one night shortly after we first moved into this 4 bedroom house with our 2 month old son who still slept in a bassinet next to our bed. We stood at the top of our stairs looking into the big, empty space feeling like impostors pretending to be adults… and now that we’ve slowly replaced things like our former condo’s modern furniture with toddler-friendly ottomans, “big boy” bunks, and over-sized reading chairs, that a massive portion of our life happens just behind the windows between the living room and kitchen, and that the bedrooms are filled with the small, sleeping bodies of our favorite people in the world.
Another June 30th, and another set of happy memories made not because of what we were doing, but because we were together.
The more time we spend as parents, the more often I catch myself watching Dave with the boys, thinking about how deeply endearing it is that the same young man I found so intimidatingly witty, so intellectually captivating, so absurdly handsome 14 years ago — the man that I married — is now the father to my sons. And, dare I say, how often that mental train of thought is followed by a wave of validation: damn right he’s knocking fatherhood out of the park in a fashion equally as impressive as anyone who knows him is accustomed to.
There are many ways in which Dave sets a wonderful example for our sons… around work ethic, self-care, environmentalism, compassion for others, generosity (just to name a few)… but these particular aspects of his style of “dadding” are my personal favorites:
- Credit-less care: I am not exaggerating when I say that Dave has more raw intelligence than perhaps anyone I’ve ever met. He has a post-graduate degree. He works as an officer in a financial company and has to be available at essentially any time of the day, any day of the week. So it’s all the sweeter to me that he also painstakingly reassembles and glues the broken tail of J’s styrofoam plane after its crash landing, or creates a tension-based repair solution for O’s “special ring” (dentist prize) after it was left out and stepped on, or reattaches the lift-the-flap pages from “Where’s Spot” after too many enthusiastic reads by A. He does these types of things shortly after bedtime so the glue can dry by the time the boys wake up, and they are reliably elated. Unless I catch the exchange and make a point to acknowledge what he’s done for them, the boys rarely question how their possessions seem to miraculously rebound from the brink of certain doom (the garbage). He does this — this unasked, unexpected, credit-less care — in a thousand different ways throughout the year. I can only imagine all the things that even I don’t notice.
- Physicality of play: this dynamic I don’t think is unique to our family, but I appreciate it nevertheless. I love that Dave’s style of play with our boys is so different from – and incremental to – my own. We went sledding last winter at some nearby sand dunes. I climbed maybe 25% of the way up the hill, thought that was plenty high, and started stabilizing my sled to have a boy join me to sled down, only to realize that Dave had continued the march upward until they reached the very top. The experience of Dad pushing the tire swing vs Mom is not even close anymore (and probably explains why they don’t ask me if Dad’s nearby…). J had only just mastered the monkey bars last fall when Dave demonstrated how one can also climb on top of them. Years ago, Dave read an article about how dads tend to stop being affectionate with sons around the age of 2, despite the fact that sons still need the physical affirmations as much as daughters for many years afterwards. So the physicality of play and affection also extends to everyday interactions, and creates this incredibly warm sense of heart in the core of our home.
- Quality of leisure time: give Dave a 2-hour block of 1:1 time with his son, and he will turn it into a memory they’ll talk about for months. He will turn uncommitted time into a child-paced walk around a downtown, a bike ride to somewhere novel, lunch out someplace special. Contrary to how someone else (not pointing any fingers here, just hypothetically speaking, I assure you…) might approach those 2 hours, however, where she is compulsively compelled to also fit in something like a pit-stop at the library to return books, or lunch as restricted to being near a store that she has to run an errand at anyway, or just trying to hype-up an otherwise pretty standard grocery excursion… Dave is strictly motivated by the joint leisure time. The drive is spent listening to music selected to the son’s taste (which they then request during car rides for weeks afterward). Waiting for the meal is spent playing games on the back of the restaurant place mat. There’s somehow always an opportunity for ice cream or Slurpees or poppities afterward. J came home with his “journal” from junior kindergarten, and a number of the pages with prompts like “what did you do over the weekend” featured answers around simply being with his dad — in the hammock, playing, lying in the grass and looking at “clowds.” In our increasingly busy microcosm, the little moments of focused attention shine – and matter. And Dave makes the most of them.
And, of course, I’d be remiss to exclude what is evidently key, touted by many: “the most important thing a father can do for his children is love their mother.” If that’s the gold standard, then I am particularly happy to report that 14 years after this witty, captivating, handsome man first told me he loves me, our children have their most important bases covered.
Happy Father’s Day, Dave.
