The most successful relationships are never between two people who are exactly alike. I mean, yuck – I would hate to date me. I know what my weaknesses are and I just couldn’t find them attractive in someone else. Kevin’s protruding hip bones, ability to go to bed with no dinner and casual indifference for food are both admirable and inconceivable to me. I just couldn’t take a guy seriously if I had to hear my own drivel about fat pants, chins, celebrity BMI’s and jiggly parts shot right back at me. The dialogue in my own head will suffice, thank you. So yeah, to level the playing field I’m admitting that if we were just alike, one of us would end up on the business end of a shot gun purchased at Walmart with diaper money.
However.
Parenting brings on a multitude of new and exciting discrepancies. The big things, the deal breakers – we agree on those. Still, I’m finding that as we trudge through this first year, watching Elsa’s quirky little personality develop – our own temperaments and essential natures are slowly rising to the surface.
We left Target tonight (the nerve center of family bonding) and stopped in a local take out type of restaurant for an impromptu dinner. The grub was sleeping in the back seat and we hadn’t been out for a while so I insisted that we eat inside with real forks and other humans. Our drinks hadn’t arrived before the kid was literally standing in her car seat, reaching for knives, hair, soy sauce and trying to eat the placemat with the Chinese Zodiac printed on it. She was also super stoked to share her new found ability to scream and make the hair on our arms stand up. I was laughing. Kevin was sweating bullets.
“I guess that’s the end of taking her out to eat with us.”
“Noooo, she’s tired. She’ll be fine, we just have to time it right.”
“I guess we could drop her off with your parents if we want to go out, so it’s not like we’ll never go out again…”
“That’s a mistake. If we don’t take her out with us, she won’t learn how to act when we do.”
I’m not saying one of us is wrong. We both have very realistic expectations and even when we’re not on the same page, we’re at least in the same chapter – but tonight I noticed that he is definitely an “always” and “never” kind of guy and I’ve read enough Q&A on BabyCenter, Parents Connect, What To Expect, Parents Magazine, American Baby… (it keeps going) to have an answer for everything. I know what’s “normal” and “common” and when to call the doctor. When one of us is ready to implode, the other is usually right there with a fresh set of arms for the baby. I may roll my eyes the next time she wakes up screaming and…
“She always does this now. I think she’s done with sleeping through the night.”
“She’s teething – it hurts. This is totally normal.”
But seriously – thank you jesus. I would slam his head in the diaper genie if he started quoting Heidi Murkoff to me. <3
