I was recently chatting with an Italian friend who is due with her second child in the next few weeks. She confessed some concerns about how she could love her new baby as much as her first, but she draws comfort from a saying that she translated and shared with me:
“Love is the only whole number that you can multiply by dividing.”
How beautiful (& true) is that?
Related: the most profound poem about children // “do you think you’ll keep going? or are you done?”
“How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?” a new friend asked me recently. We traded rituals and I silently celebrated finding a kindred spirit when she confessed she too never woke up early to make pink pancakes or cut her kids’ sandwiches into heart shapes. Further, our resident Elves on Shelves also strictly move from tree to mantle and back again (we made a mental note to have our boys hang out more next December so they don’t accrue higher expectations from friends with more creative parents).
No, for my kids, I do some sweets and simple cards (this year homemade as I couldn’t justify $12 in cards when 3/4 of my kids are not yet literate).
But one tradition I do stand by, particularly for those of us celebrating with someone decidedly difficult to buy for, is the “Day of Dave.” For almost 15 years now, I have “gifted” Dave the promise of one day that is specifically about what he wants to do. On these days, we may eat an enormous batch of homemade crepes for breakfast. We may finally watch the show he’s convinced I would like if I just gave it a chance (and I then save my honest reviews for the following morning). We may visit Costco to purchase our first “big kid” TV after our first years as newlyweds with a big, boxy, low resolution hand-me-down and its faulty remote. We may bring our kids to celebrate (2021), or we may develop better judgment and leave them at home (2022).
For any of you looking for last-minute gifts for your significant other (romantic or otherwise!), it’s not too late to gift them a day of choose-your-own-indulgence. You heard it here first.
Related: another love hack: when a lousy roommate might save your marriage // overheard: things I need to communicate to my husband
new york “never sleeps.”
but parents on vacation?
they sure as heck do.
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?
Dave and I caught up with a couple of old friends this weekend. As we recounted our most salient experiences during the pandemic, my friend confessed she and her husband were really aggravating each other in the beginning. Thrust as many of us were into suddenly being around our significant others non-stop, they each cited a number of pet peeves that became unavoidably omnipresent: she left water cups on every surface of the house, his typing was unforgivably loud.
As they realized their communication was reduced to not much beyond nagging and irritating each other, they came up with an idea: they would jointly blame Chad, their new imaginary roommate who was the real culprit of all of these recurring offenses. It wasn’t her, but Chad who couldn’t keep track of just 1 water cup. And they’d be fine to work in close proximity if not for Chad’s obnoxiously loud typing habits. Suddenly they were on the same page — and laughing about it.
Not only is this brilliant marital advice, but it’s also a bit of a relief. After all, I have long felt guilty that I have a large box of maternity clothes — which I no longer wear or need — taking up valuable floor space in our bedroom, but it turns out it was Chad’s fault all along.
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 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.
