Our Italy Trip (A Long Time Coming)

One of my dreams came true this month. It was arguably the best thing ever for the long-term health of my marriage, too.

We took a 9-day road trip through central and northern Italy -- just me and my husband, without the kids. We felt like empty-nester retiree types, only we're in our late 30s and we have two preschoolers.

Seriously, DH and I had not had that much alone time to have even a full conversation and/or as much sex as we could handle since around 2005. It was fantastic. And it's been hard to return to the stresses (even the happy stresses) of real life.

The kids stayed at my parents' house, and all of them reported that it was the best time they ever had together. My dad thinks the kids have never been more fun, especially our 5.5 y.o. son, who has apparently inherited his grandfather's great sense of humor. When we called to check in one night, my dad had trained him to say to us: "We've been locked in the closest the whole time and Papa only lets us out to eat." He delivered his lines perfectly and we all had a good laugh.

My parents are, quite honestly, the perfect grandparents. They took the kids to the zoo or the park everyday, took them to see two plays, a nature center, a kids' craft event, and a baseball game. The kids can't stop talking about how much fun they had. (Can you say: lovingly spoiled?)

About how the trip came together - one day DH came home and told me he had just spoken with my parents and they had agreed to watch the kids so we could take a long trip to Italy together, which by the way he already booked because he found a great deal on Travel Zoo (and it was apparently also on Groupon). And he had already checked my work calendar and cleared out my schedule for me. Wow.

We've always wanted to go to Italy, and even though we've each traveled all over the world, remarkably, neither of us had ever been to Italy. Plus my husband speaks fluent Italian thanks to his family heritage, so this fact is all the more shocking. We fully intended to go as a belated honeymoon the spring after we were married, but then the Pope died, and travel to Italy suddenly became prohibitively expensive for us. Dream deferred.

Now, dream realized. It was awesome: Roma, Toscana, Venezia - yes, Venezia is a tourist trap, but I say, "Please, go ahead and trap me!!" We focused our visit on Roman ruins and wineries - and threw in a few museums for good measure. We had the best service ever in restaurants, thanks to DH's Italian. Lost count of how many times he told his family's American immigration story. I've never gotten so many things on the house before.

Our friends loaned us their GPS that already had Italy programmed into it. They said it would save our marriage. It did. Having the actual GPS coordinates ahead of time for one of the more remote hotels we needed to find was probably the smartest move we made. It was so remote, in fact, that the hotel put up a video on YouTube of someone driving to it to help guests find the place. Which cracks me up. We also got a kick out of the British-sounding voice of the GPS (a Garmin) garbling the names of Italian streets.

Prior to this travel, I had not done trip research in ages. The Lonely Planet guides used to be my go-to book references, and they've served me well for years. In March, I finally heard of PBS travel guru Rick Steves, and I gave his travel guides a look, too. For Italy, I think I like the Rick Steves' Guides a bit better, although clearly he enjoys museums a lot more than we do, so we by no means took all of his advice.

We flew Iberia on the way home. Not my favorite airline ever. (Nobody will ever beat the awesomeness of Cathay Pacific out of Hong Kong, the airline love of my life.) Though after we were seated, they were kind enough to give us a free upgrade to business class, I suspect because I speak Spanish - I definitely didn't request it. The Americans seated around us were like, why them but not us? Lo siento, cholos! The only real logistical surprise was when had to test the size of our carry-on roller bags twice at the Venezia airport, and I was concerned we were never going to get my bag out of that metal contraption again. But it worked.

We want to go back soon. Like every year and then retire there (unless we have grandkids we're lucky enough to see....). Our next trip will include Milan. Someday.....

So that's where I've been, and why I haven't been commenting on your blogs until recently. Do you share my affection for Italy? Where is your dream destination?

The Virtues of Appearing To Be A Mediocre Mother and Housekeeper

Sometimes I come across voices in the comments sections of interesting blogs that really strike a chord with me. Like this commenter @fiftyfifty1 (who unfortunately does not have a blog of her own) from a recent thread on The Skeptical OB blog. I think Ms. @fiftyfifty1 really nails the nuances of how smart mothers who want truly equal partnerships actually behave as they negotiate both within their marriages and within the confines of unreasonable "looks" expectations of our larger society. Here are her words:

"It took my husband and me about a year of adjustment that included a fair amount of fighting after the birth of our first, but I can truly say I do not do more than my husband does and probably less. My techniques for success included being willing to let him fail in a spectacular fashion, being willing to ignore everything except that which was downright dangerous, and (most important) being willing to appear to be a rather mediocre mother. My kids looked worse than any kids around. But mismatched and stained clothes on your kids is a small price to pay for not having to dress them or do the laundry yourself." 

"Also strangers often seem to direct all questions to the mother. I frequently say "I don't know, ask their dad" and point at my husband. When other moms e-mail me to see if my kids can do a play date, I forward all the e-mails to him, and then have nothing more to do with it. And I don't act as a manager, delegating tasks to him. I figured he would be able to rise to the task if I were dead, so that meant he could rise to the task even without me being dead."...
"But there is a reason behind what appears to be on the surface just a "control freak" behavior by mothers. Mothers really do have to field judgment from those around them about their parenting and housekeeping. Men almost never do. This is, I think, at least part of why women go back and re-do [the household chore] when men do it poorly. Until everything got adjusted and worked out between my husband and me, there were times that things *really* looked bad. I remember that he left food scraps in the carpet in the sunroom and there was a horrible invasion of ants everywhere and yet he still didn't vacuum it up and one of his family members came over and saw it, but who do you think got criticized? Me! And other moms have teased me about how tangled my kids' hair was (and actually still is occasionally), but he's the one who gets them up and dressed. And when one of his elderly relatives sends a gift and he doesn't make the kids write a thank-you note, it is me they call up and ask "If it arrived". And these are just the criticisms that make it to my ears. I'm sure there are more judgments that go unsaid, and I'm sure they are directed at me, not him. Oh well, still worth not having to do it all yourself!"

Amen, sister. Amen. One question though. Did you really *need* to engage in a fair amount of fighting for a year after you first became parents? I ask this because I've been there, done that on the postpartum fighting with my DH (after we had our second child 3.5 years ago) and now in hindsight, I don't think any of our old behavior was productive, nor in any way feminist or cool. By "fighting" I mean verbal spats that felt really intense (activating fight or flight response/flooding), that were about the same issues repeatedly, and ultimately went nowhere - and we've learned that for us, that brand of going-nowhere fighting was a total waste of our time and energy. We should have seen our marriage counselor much sooner because we truly needed a neutral third party to get us to get past our own defense mechanisms (learned from dysfunctional marriages witnessed in our families-of-origin) to be able to see and say where the other person is coming from, and to finally work towards a solution. We certainly could have done it without all of the drama. Lessons learned!

These days though we do seem to be able to put into practice some better, research-based conflict resolution skills, and I'm thrilled we have a generally peaceful, happy union these days as a result. For a great resource, see "Fight Less, Love More: 5-Minute Conversations to Change Your Relationship Without Blowing Up or Giving In" by Laurie Puhn, J.D. - originally recommended to me by Gretchen Rubin, author of "The Happiness Project" and "Happier At Home" as one of the many fine books in her excellent bibliographies. And don't hesitate to make that first counseling appointment.

Yes, it's hard when society is all about judging the woman for all of the various appearances-- her own, the kids', the home's -- but never the man. I think it is a worthwhile project to develop your "But is this really my priority?"-meter. It takes guts though. Not everyone is comfy enough with themselves to be able to let some things FAIL sometimes. Most women I know have simply not been socialized to be able to let appearances go, and they can't operate outside of the proverbial box. Just do it.

Sex Before Dinner

I'm the friend that people call up to ask for "married people" sex advice. I'll take that as a compliment. (I think?)

One of the biggest sexual roadblocks I'm hearing from married people has to do with being too tired at night for the mood to strike: "Help, we have amazing little kids, but they are cramping our sex lives because we're never alone!" Yes, that was me when my 2nd baby was under a year old, and not coincidentally, my marriage was at its lowest point ever. I learned that The Sex is very, very important to me. I start feeling irritable when I don't have The Sex regularly -- I start hating my DH and probably vice versa.

(Yes, folks, this is reason #1925 why I don't blog under my real name!)

Did I also mention we are crazy enough to co-sleep with our kids-- in separate beds, on separate floors of our house? This fact makes it difficult to ever have The Sex in our own bed late at night. That, and we all go to bed ridiculously early by American standards. (I judge this so-called US standard by the number of texts I get from local girlfriends after 10pm at night when my phone is turned off -- y'all Amurrikans definitely need to go to sleep earlier).

So how do we prioritize The Sex, you ask? It's as simple as making Sex Before Dinner part of the weeknight routine:

#1. We plan to have sex early in the evening, 3 nights a week, as soon as we're both home for the night (it usually happens somewhere between 5:30-6:15pm-ish). We say hello to each other and the kids, talk briefly about our days, then put on some Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood or Dinosaur Train for the kids, and set them up with a beverage and some fruit. DH and I sneak off to a room in the house with a lockable door and a box of tissues. The TV distraction for the kids only works if we don't let them watch TV at any other time, which is hard because educational-ish TV is quite possibly the world's best babysitter ever.

#2. Twenty minutes later... done! DH starts getting dinner ready (he plans all dinners a few days in advance to free up more time), and afterwards the kids and I clean up, and eventually we're all asleep by 9:30pm (unless the 3-year-old has napped that day at preschool, grrr.....).

By having sex before dinner, DH and I are never "too tired" for sex. I've found that it's like sex begets more sex - and planned sex on weeknights often leads to more spontaneous sex on the weekends. I have no idea why on earth that is - it just is.

Try it, you'll like it!

Film Review: This is 40... (see it)

Hollywood comedies are not usually super feminist-friendly undertakings, with the notable recent exception of the excellent Bridesmaids. Which is why This is 40, starring Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd, came as such an unexpected surprise to me. It's the sort-of sequel to Knocked Up (which was a decidedly un-feminist movie), however the world of This is 40 really has nothing to do with the sad sacks we met in Knocked Up. It explores totally new, refreshing, even possibly sexist stereotype-breaking territory. Here's a full review I liked.

I want to be perfectly clear: this is not some full-on feminist comedy. There are several problems with it, mainly having to do with class and privilege, dissected very nicely here. However, I can't help but feel hopeful about it. I'm taking it as a sign that the American film industry might be making some small progress.

For starters, the depictions of working women in heterosexual relationships in this movie won't piss you off as much as they did in the recent comedy The Five Year Engagement (the one where the guy goes batshit crazy after he gives up his career because his fiancee pursues the job opportunity of her life). I'm sick and tired of countless shows featuring working mothers as these unfortunate, hot messes who can't get it together and who Hurt the Kids because they work outside the home, while the fathers take no responsibility at all. This is 40 offers a welcome reprieve from all of that.

There are many beautiful little things to appreciate about the complications of the extremely privileged LA family headed by Debbie and Pete, a married, dual income couple who are both turning 40. They are something of a paradox: at times so much fun to watch, and at other times the very definition of the word eye roll. At times they are vulnerable and real, and their tenderness gave me hope in my own marriage (don't gag), other times they are total, unmitigated jerks in need of a serious call out -- {SPOILER}

... make sure you stick around for the ending credits to watch comedic genius Melissa McCarthy do just that.

The subtle, pitch-perfect stereotype-bending this movie does sends a unique feminist message. Debbie's a working mom who has not let herself go. She runs her own business, and her family needs her income (more on their financial situation after the jump). She has her own hobbies. She has her own interests. She goes clubbing and in one scene could go to bed with an attractive young professional hockey player if she wanted to. We get to see the imperfectly perfect Debbie in all of her complexity. And she's legitimately, hilariously funny.

Pete is a dad who also works at his own business and actually parents his own kids - I know, what a revolutionary idea. We see him happily handling the kids' morning routine. We see him physically present and engaged at his daughters' school. We see him monitoring his tween daughter's online presence. We see him disagreeing with Debbie about how to best parent their kids. We see them arguing about money. We also see him defending Debbie when another mother threatens her, even though Debbie is Wrong with a capital W. It just felt honest, as in a true version of equally shared parenting many of us aspire to but that is very rarely seen in movies or in life.

I also loved the fact that both Debbie and Pete suffer from daddy issues from their own families of origin, and that those issues are explored and compared. How wonderful to see depictions of family dysfunction that are not mother-blaming for a change.

One interesting criticism I'm hearing everywhere has to do with Debbie and Pete's imagined financial situation. They are so "rich" in the sense they conspicuously consume: they live in a fabulous mansion with a backyard pool, throw lavish parties, dress and decorate with style, have a personal trainer, an expensive bike, they vacation at a fancy resort, and their children have all matter of electronic gadgets.

But they've missed a mortgage payment. Their accountant says they're beyond help and now they need to sell the house - primarily because Pete has poor judgment both personally with his father and because he has been running his business into the ground (the $30k indoor neon sign was a spot-on example). They suddenly find they need that $12k someone has stolen from Debbie's business. They need back the $80k Pete loaned to his mooching father without Debbie's permission. So the criticism is: that these rich, overprivileged people honestly feel like they are strapped for cash seems laughable. Wrong. Not at all. It's an economic fact these days. Hello, ever hear of the Overspent American phenomenon? Loads of people look rich while having a negative net worth and zero cash flow (See The Millionaire Next Door). Yours truly even blogged about that recently, when my rich friend confessed to me she could not afford a cup of coffee. So I find their economic situation 100% believable.

That's the thing about this movie. It makes you ask: can this be real? It made me reflect, and made me laugh so hard I had trouble breathing. It encouraged DH and I to have a great conversation about aging, the way we parent, the way we problem-solve in our own marriage. See it. It's not perfect, and you'll cringe at a few things, but see it anyway.

Friends Don't Treat Friends Like Their Own Personal Unpaid Therapists

Came across another one of "those discussions" on the internets where the (mostly hetero female) commenters air various grievances about their husbands not sharing the weekend childcare load equally. Specifically, where the men make these unilateral choices to just leave the kids alone with the wife at their house for several hours on the weekend, while they go off to pursue their hobbies without first communicating or seeking any sort of agreement beforehand. How sucky. And just Wrong.

It seems to me that "how to actually solve the problem" talk is NOT particularly welcome in (most of) these discussions. Yes, I understand folks need to vent. Yes, I get that sometimes we need to seek feedback to assess what is typical across society, to see if our situation is really as off as it feels. However, at some point, we all need move on to the next logical steps.

We eventually need to identify and address the actual problem. (Unless, of course, we're enjoying the shitty status quo pity party. Clue #1 you are wallowing in your shitty status quo: you leave a blog comment saying you're distancing yourself from your real life friends who you have convinced yourself are just lying/bullshitting/sugarcoating about their marital happiness in order to try to make you feel bad.)

Then someone offered this viewpoint:

"Who needs a therapist when you have really great friends?"

To which my initial reaction is "Aw, hell NOOOOOO!!!!!"

And then I laughed a little, because I recognize that sentiment as the exact thinking of one of my (recently-divorced) best friends. She has totally gone over her limit of office visits to the Friend-as-Unpaid-Therapist's Office. An old econ professor once made the "friendship as a form of social insurance" argument, and it never rang true until recently.

Going over one's social insurance limit with friends generally looked like this in my world: My BFF's other BFF would call me up (or vice versa) and say he's at his wits end with her, he thinks she's making bad choices, he wants to stop being her nonjudgmental shoulder to cry on. He's about to say something to her he'll regret a la the Cher character in Moonstruck: "Snap out of it!!" Inevitably, I'd tell him to hang in there, but maybe have better boundaries, take a break from those heavy discussions with her. He'd do the same for me. It got to the point where we finally mentioned it to our BFF, and shared our feelings that she would be better served by speaking to a licensed therapist instead of us. Luckily, she's a real and true friend, and did not reject us for saying so.

Anyway, I know folks generally want to vent and have people empathize with them while doing whatever it is they really want to do anyway - and it is great there are spaces out there on the internets for that. Up to a point. It can't go on forever. Whenever I read same, I can't help but want to move right into SOLUTION mode, and make a comment about improving the communication, or going to therapy, or working through a Hendrix or Gottman book together as spouses. I have a bias towards Doing Something About It.

So I don't generally comment.

Look, I don't claim to have all the answers to the problem of being married to a good person but having fallen into a shitty dynamic you can't seem to address. That said, I do feel qualified to say that I know what does not work.

What generally does not work is kvetching to your mother or your friends in real life who will then be forced to continue to interact with both you and your spouse forever. More often than not, they will begin to resent your spouse if you talk too much shit about them. It's just human nature when you care about someone. You'll eventually forgive them and have sex. Your friends and mom won't. So please, go ahead and talk directly to your spouse. And exercise extreme caution when bitching about your spouse behind his/her back.

Bottom line. Licensed therapists, relationship books, blogs = yes. Overburdening your friends and family = no. End rant.

BLOG CARNIVAL - How I Get It All Done (and Am Fabulous)

Happy International Women's Day! This post answers the call of the wonderful Blog Carnival Hostess With the Mostess - @feMOMhist.

Listen up youngish (or oldish) women, here's where I inspire you to decide for yourselves what you want out of life and encourage you to believe you can have it.

Here's my recipe for work/marriage/parenting/living life fabulously. I've got 6 touchstones about that, then I'll share my day to day logistics (I think ours are probably pretty rare for Americans today).

Who Am I? Four years ago, I was a former academic turned VP at a BigName company making bank. Then I got pregnant, and had a nice long mat leave, came back, and was at the lowest point of my life ever, my marriage sucked, I had no social life, I was out of shape, and I had an epiphany. When my first child was 8 months old, one day I just knew I had to leave BigName because I had to travel all the time and I never saw my baby or my husband. (No really, I never saw my baby or my husband.) And though it paid quite well, I didn't love the work and how it drained all my time and energy. I felt trapped by the hours the job required.

We solved the problem in an odd way - by moving far away to a much smaller town where we could pursue our passion for skiing, spend more time as a family, and get the hell out of the stressful BigCity corporate rat race. It was the right decision. People thought we were nuts for leaving. There were haters, but the haters were wrong. (In fact, one hater still living our old life came to visit us recently and confessed that he envies our current life.) Best decision ever, second only to marrying DH.

Now I'm the owner of 2 profitable businesses (providing almost as much income as I made at BigName - quel surprise), the mother of two kids, ages 4 and 2, and the wife to Mr. Perfect who works one 9-5ish M-F job where he's the owner and the boss, but unlike most Americans he has 12 weeks of vacation. We ski a lot because now the mountain is only 30 minutes from our door. We are happy.

My Six Touchstones for how I manage to get it all done:

1. Marry Well or Not At All - Doubt means don't. I've seen too many careers derailed because someone married an asshole, and then had to deal with more weird passive aggressive shizz than could fill an entire episode of shitty Dr. Phil. My husband rocks, and does more around the house than I do. We have had rough patches in our marriage due to kid stress, but we've worked though them. (Thank you Harville Hendrix and John Gottman, et. al.) We schedule the time for dates and having fun and sex together - I guess that's our secret. My old male mentor once advised me, "If you and your equally ambitious spouse want to run with the big dogs, carry the leash in your mouth, and have children - live near the office, get the help you need on childcare, and you will have more flexible time and more total time to spend with your children." Amen!

2. Be Ferociously Organized - this is a personality thing, I think. I came out of my mama's womb knowing how to organize, write everything down, and remember the details. I'm a planner by nature, and I'm excellent at time management. If you're not, may I suggest "Getting Things Done" is a cult book for a reason.

3. Know When To Let Shit Go - Our home life is at times a controlled chaos. It will never be camera-ready 100% of the time when our kids are little. There is often a dog turd lurking somewhere. We just roll with it. We still have people over once a week. This provides the incentive we need to tidy up. I let go of the need to have a perfectly manicured home. It is at a Good Enough level of clean most days.

4. Show Them The A.F.C. = Actual Fucking Cash. That's how you get promoted in a company or survive as a business owner. You have to produce revenue. You have to convince the people with P&L responsibility that you're the reason for all of the A.F.C. coming in to your area, so therefore you're valuable and deserve more. People seem to forget that. As Tina Fey said "Everyone is your competition." Learn how to compete. Once you consistently show them the A.F.C. then you'll free to do more of what you want to do, such as showing up to work at 10am, or being a royal beeyatch when the mood strikes. Read "Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office" if you want a shitty-titled but accurate how-to.

5. Pay A Professional - Delegate. Outsource. We have a gardener. We have a handy person who comes quarterly to tackle our running list of things I can't fix in 5 minutes time. We would have a housekeeper if we could find one locally who could actually complete the job right. (Still searching). We have 2 regular babysitters. We would use daycare, which is more reliable, but there are no good daycares where we live. It saves us time to have the sitters come to our home and let themselves in. Our regular daytime sitter also does light housework. We pay her well and worship the ground she walks on.

6. You Make Time For Things That Are Important to You - I need me time. I need to ski a lot. I need time to go see a movie in the middle of the day if I feel like it. I need local friends. I need our dinner group, our wine group, and my two book clubs. Even though they're often not perfect, they're working for me now. Life is too short to let your time get away from you. So I re-arranged my life so that we have the kind of time for these pursuits. I don't have to go to an office everyday. We have no real commute. We have plenty of vacation time. In a few years we'll take the kids out of school for weeks on end and go on a big international trip. These tradeoffs make living in Podunkville worth it.

Now, our day to day logistics.

Most Weekdays:

I wake up at 5am, work out, and shower. Start working at my computer at 6am.

Kids wake up at 7:15am or later. I eat breakfast with the kids. Spanish-speaking Babysitter arrives at 7:30am. DH takes DS to Bilingual Montessori.

I work at home from 8am-3:30pm. I can come and go as I please, and run errands or have me time if it's a slow work day. Either DH or I will pick DS up from Montessori and noon and meet up for lunch. Babysitter leaves at 3:30pm.

I play with my kids from 3:30-6pm. But if I didn't finish my work (happens very rarely), and it's winter, I'll take them to the local McDonald's with a play area and I'll work on my laptop. If the weather is good though, I'll send them out in the backyard to play. Or put on a movie for the kids if that fails.

One day a week DS has karate from 4-4:45pm - DH often takes him. DH comes home anywhere from 4-6. DH cooks dinner every night. We sit down together as a family and have a routine of each taking a turn talking about our day. Even the 2-year-old, which is hilarious. I do the dishes while he plays with kids.

At 7:30ish we start the bedtime story routine. If DD has not napped at all, they'll both be asleep by 8:30pm. DH and I have sex and/or read and watch TV in bed. I do one last work email check to make sure I have no fires to put out. We're all asleep by 9:30-10pm.

Weekday Exceptions:

I'm home all day with the kids one day a week (DS is at half day Montessori, and I attend morning co-op preschool with DD).

If it is Thanksgiving-Easter I'm skiing one day a week with DH, while our sitter cares for our kids at home.

We have Date Night one weeknight a week, and we have a regular sitter come from 5-9:30pm.

DH and I are also in book clubs and on local boards that might meet the occasional M, T, or Th night every 6 weeks, so we roll with that.

Most Weekends:

We have Date Night every Saturday from 5-10pm, when we sometimes meet with our Dinner Group of 3 other couples, or our Wine Group of 4 other couples. Regular sitter watches the kids.

Sunday am is ski school for DS, so DH and I get a half day of skiing in, while a sitter watches DD. We could take her skiing with us if the sitter calls in sick, but it is a lot more fun to ski sans kids. She'll start ski school when she's 4. Eventually we'll all have blissful, full days of skiing.

Other than that, we don't have much scheduled on the weekends. And we like it that way!

What works well about our daily logistics:

We don't have our kids in activities that take up much time. There's skiing (which we also get to do while DS is doing it), spanish (in our home), karate. They don't have a choice at this age. Swimming happens during the summer when karate is over. Very rarely we'll do a one-off soccer or art camp that is short and ends soon. Our daytime babysitter teaches them Spanish, and she tidies up the house - lots of drive time saved there. It might start to suck when they're older and ask to do more activities. To which we'll start off saying no...

We are not bound to an office schedule. I work from home. DH works out of an office but is an owner and sets his own hours. We can take vacation pretty much whenever, but we will lose some income. Living in a small town, there's no traffic, and no commute stress. Win-win-win-lose as to the lack of ethnic food.

There you have it. Thanks for reading! Feel free to share yours.

Two October Birthdays, One October Anniversary

October is a very big month here at Casa hush. First comes DD's birthday, followed a week later by our wedding anniversary (7 Year Itch, anyone?), then DS's birthday, then Halloween.

If we had known then that we'd be so fertile around Christmastime, we probably would have re-thought the whole fall wedding idea. That said, I remain a huge fan of fall weddings. We got married in a large-ish Midwestern city, on one of those unseasonably warm, sunny October Saturdays. It was something like 70 degrees outside. We were such lucky bastards.

Every year on our anniversary we break out the photo album. This was the first year the kids really noticed the photos, and seemed to enjoy looking at them. I have to pat myself on the back a little bit: my wedding gown has aged really well. It was a form-fitting, lace-embellished gown, in the style of Monique Lhuillier. I think some of our guests thought it looked very conservative and maybe even a bit grannyish back in 2004, but it would fit right in with today's bridal fashions. Of all people, it was my mother who convinced me that it was, in fact, The Dress. She urged me not to go with the type of strapless, poufy skirt number that was all the rage circa 2001-2005. That was the first and only piece of fashion advice my mother ever gave me. And 7 years later, I still have to say: Hey thanks, mom. You were right.

So, DD is now 2 and DS is now 4. We no longer have any children in diapers, nor drinking from bottles, nor sleeping in cribs. Mostly we all sleep fine at night - if they wake up and get lonely, the kids just crawl into our ginormous bed. We seriously thought this time would never come. It is so good.

Halloween is the last of our Big 4 October events. We have 2 parties to go to this weekend, and on Monday we'll do some trick-or-treating in our friends' neighborhood. We live too far out in the country to ever get any trick-or-treaters ourselves. DS wants to dress up as either Iron Man or Captain America. Bummer. The days of my son in cute, cuddly Halloween attire are apparently over. DD is going as a bumble bee. I know it won't be long before she asks to be a frickin' princess. Gah. My friend who is Halloween-obsessed and also has a 4-year-old, was lamenting the fact that her daughter chose a "racy kitten" costume this year. Major bummer.

In other news, there is an older girl at DS's school who has a major crush on him. She keeps drawing him notes with stories and pictures depicting their future together. It is really too funny. The girl's mom approached me after class yesterday and joked about how we're going to be future in-laws. DS seems oblivious to it, and simply says "yeah, she's my friend." I think it's his utter nonchalance that keeps her coming back for more.

When Your Married Friends Argue Publicly

DH and I went to a party recently with a bunch of married couples. Among them were I and M, who are a married couple with 4 daughters. I and M have been married for about 14 years and now have an Obviously Dysfunctional Relationship. Not the kind of dysfunction involving anything one might ever feel the need to report to the authorities or anything, just enough passive aggressive tension and spite to fill an entire episode of Dr. Phil (and to take that cloying shine right off his scary white teeth, too). Let me give you a flavor.

At the party, I goes over to DH and one of my girlfriends, C, and starts in about his wife M's incessant nagging of him; how M is a bon-bon-eating SAHM who is constantly out with the girls while he busts his ass working (sorry, I, not true - M is constantly doing Kid Stuff, like schlepping her passel of kids around to way, way too many activities, but I digress)... and his little diatribe goes on to the point where it all gets reeaaallly uncomfortable for DH and C, as they eventually realize I is 1) not at all joking, not even a little bit, and 2) has NO IDEA how socially-inappropriate he is being, and how everyone feels about it. (Granted, I'm not the world's most socially-appropriate human being ever, but well, it takes one to know one I suppose.)

Then I heads over to another group, including M (!!!), and repeats the same conversation/diatribe to a new group of innocent bystanders, including yours truly. M handles it as gracefully as possible, kind of disses him playfully, and ignores I for the rest of the night. Later I ask M if she's ok, and she denies that anything is amiss or bothering her (which I don't believe for a nanosecond.)

A few days later C calls me up and eventually gets around to her main reason for calling: after what went down at the party, she was trying to figure out if I is a total dick or if she's taking crazy pills. I assure her that I is a total dick - and we bond over that for a minute. I've always thought one of the best beginnings of a friendship is disliking the same people and things.

Then when DH and I finally have a date night to ourselves, DH brings up I's party commentary, and says he feels like he needs to say something to I about it. He rehearses a few things with me, and we come up with something like a bottom line: "Dude, at that party you chose to make your marital problems public, and you talked shit about your wife in front of her friends who happen to like her a lot, and it was totally awkward, and we're worried about you guys...WTF, man?" (My guyspeak is not very fluent, but that's the gist of it.)

Then DH said, "you know, I really think therapy would be good for them. It turned things around for us." Amen, honey! We learned how to put the fun back in dysFUNctional.

And then DH says, "M needs to hang around with you a little more so she can learn to be bitchy in a good way, because there is no fucking way you would have ever let me get away with disrespecting you like that in public. You would have been like, 'Excuse us everyone, we need to leave now,' and you would have dragged my ass out of there, and I would have dreaded the ride home..." Um, thank you, DH? But he's right - that does sound exactly like me though - all sweetness and light. ;)

Then we talked a bit about maintaining boundaries around friends' issues - such as how do you draw the line between giving unsolicited ass-vice that will 9 times out of 10 be disregarded anyway, and making an observation that might actually open the door to a welcome conversation. Like in this example, "Dude, I, it seemed like M was really on your last nerve at that party...." and see where that statement takes the conversation?

What would you do?

Working on My Marriage

I haven't posted about my marriage in ages. Which naturally means things are going swimmingly because I have zero to bitch about at this time! I attribute this in large part to the fact that 1) neither of our kids is under the age of 12 months anymore, and 2) we have figured out how to communicate much, much more effectively.

I've beaten this one to death, but just want to reiterate that "Getting the Love You Want" by Harville Hendrix was a book both DH and I found very, very helpful and illuminating.

I also came across this very interesting little blog about working on marriage last week written by this earnest, adorable young married couple without kids (who BTW are VERY into Christianity though DH and I clearly are not, but no matter... whatever you believe, I suppose you just gotta be on the same page as your spouse with it, right?). They have these "Tuesday Night Questions" they ask each other that I think are absolutely ingenious:

1. How did you feel loved this past week?

2. What does your upcoming week look like?

3. How would you feel most loved & encouraged in the days ahead?

4. How would you feel best pursued in sex/intimacy this week?

Damn good questions, no?

These adorable young people get it. Harville Hendrix gets it. John Gottman and the myriad people he's co-authored relationship books with also get it.

I hope that someone out there on the internets, like me and DH, who is looking for answers to the problems in their relationships (problems that they know in their hearts to be solveable ones, NOT one of the 4 A's: addiction, abuse, adultery, abandonment) can get their hands on information like this. It literally saved my marriage. All those hard times not so long ago seem like distant memories. Believe it when people say there is an end to Survival Mode with a new baby.

Anyway, I'm off to a little date night with DH now. Wishing you and yours lots of romance, or even just a good lay this Valentine's Day weekend...

Drug Addict in the Family

It had been almost a year since DH had last heard from his little brother - who is actually not little at all, and is turning 31 soon, but generally behaves more like a teen so no one who has known him any length of time can quite believe he is truly a Grown Ass Adult. Last time we saw him, he was at a party at my parents' house in the middle of a blizzard, where one of my best friends and her husband overheard him making a phony phone call pretending to have lost his credit card - so that DH would loan him some money, which he did. Did I mention this party was actually our baby daughter's baptism, and that DH's brother was her godfather? Yeah.

So you can see from miles away where all of this is going.

Tonight, his brother emailed DH and both of their (divorced, now remarried) parents to reveal that in fact he is a coke and marijuana addict who is depressed, is an insomniac, was fired from his job, thinks he will probably be in legal trouble with regard to the circumstances of his firing, has no friends, has told more lies in the last 12 years than he can remember, has no identification, no documentation to be able to obtain identification, has no friends, and that his life basically sucks, and he is ashamed, sorry, and doesn't know what to do.

At this time, DH and I are trying to figure out if he is a threat to himself or to others. And what the best course of action is. Would DH hopping on a plane help matters? We live 2 time zones away but we have close friends in the city in which his brother lives in who work in psychological services, and can hopefully make some helpful suggestions/referrals.

Immediately after receiving the email, DH called his brother; they spoke for only a few minutes, then after they hung up DH just started sobbing. DH has felt a lot of what he calls survivor's guilt for having escaped their horrible family of origin, and built a healthy life for himself. DH had to fight back the knee-jerk reaction of wanting to call each of his parents (who BTW are each batshit crazy and Not Good People, but I suppose the good news is we all live on opposite coasts) because he really wants to let them know that he holds them responsible for having been such shitty parents to him, and even moreso to his brother.

As for me, I'm just sad, and I'm trying to be a good active listener, and to support DH the best I can. I suggested he set up an appointment with our therapist to process all of this. In a way, it is a real shock. The drug addiction piece does come as a surprise on the one hand, and yet on the other hand it certainly explains a lot of the behavior we've witnessed over the years but had chalked up to depression and personality disorders and general effed-up-edness.

It just feels really crazy tonight. And I feel so awful for DH.

Friend Ain't Getting Any

Mrs. P, one of my two IRL BFF's, and I had a long phone conversation today, covering a lot of territory, mainly marriage and kids. I told her about my recent marital trubs, dramatic hotel stay, and how therapy was certainly helping. And then she went and dropped what I felt was a total bomb - that she hasn't had sex with her DH for almost a year!

Wait, what???!!!

I now realize we often have no idea what is going on in other people's marriages. Hell, I'm sure mine looks great from the outside... little do they know.

Mrs. P is mama to an adorable 21-mos-old, who she Attachment Parents (her term) to an extreme. As in she and her DH have not been on a date since before the kid was born. Like, whoa. As in full-boat AP: co-sleeping, BF'ing, cloth diapering, no babysitters ever - all the hard core shit. I'm a bit of an APer-light, but I think I'd jump out of a window if I never had any time away from my kids.

My sense is that Mrs. P has trouble finding balance. She tends to go to extremes with things. And her DH is kind of a pushover - he just does whatever she says, and doesn't feel confident enough to ever initiate sex, or plan a date, or do anything. It would be nice if he knew how to balance her out. I think she has contributed to it by not acting like intimacy is any sort of priority for her.

Your thoughts?

It's Been a Bad Day (please don't take a picture)

Last night was date night, and it was supposed to be fun. Instead it sucked, and turned into a big fight at 4:30 am this morning with both kids suddenly in bed with us.

Which had the effect of making me realize that some Very Important Something just might be missing between DH and me.

I know I have been bitching a lot... you all out there on the internets are probably sick of it. But I told myself I would always keep it real on my blog, because I am unable to in my real life. So please bear with me.

This morning was the first time I have ever really wanted to leave my marriage in a real, granular way. I actually started to plan it in my head, and that scared me. Why? Because for the first time I felt truly hopeless about DH's ability to make the changes we've recently discovered in therapy that he needs to be making. In his behavior, I saw visions of his fucked up parents. Let me be clear: I'm NOT talking abuse, nor any of the Four A's that for me would be an automatic "adios" to my marriage.

To be more specific, DH made me feel like the worst mother in the world - and I might add, like I am operating as a single parent here- for no good reason. He basically said I was "coddling" the kids by letting them be in our bed (after they had spent the entire night up until 4:30am in their own beds), and "coddling" them by not letting DD cry it out in her crib (CIO doesn't work at that hour when she is already standing up in the crib), and "coddling" DS because at 2.75 years of age I let him drink from a bottle and because he won't sit still and cooperate for a diaper change. (the only way to rid DS of bottles is to rid DD of them and she is only 9 mos old.) Why am I putting my excuses/responses in parentheses anyway? I know what the fuck I am doing - it is called SURVIVING!

I love how DH only has actual parenting opinions in the middle of a fight at 4:30am. I also love how DH arrogantly assumes he knows better than I do despite never having read a single fucking book about raising a child nor even looking at a single fucking parenting blog.

So there's that, plus the date night from hell where I realized, if I were just meeting this guy for the first time tonight and he acted like this, I'd never see him again. He just had the personality of a grapefruit last night. This was the same guy who last week got an email from the place we went to and forwarded it to me and said "let's get a sitter and go to this" - so I set everything up and at 5 o'clock yesterday he had forgotten all about it and said "do we have to go?" I said no, we could do something else, and by the time he got home he changed his mind and wanted to go. Then he had nothing to say the entire time. I kept trying to talk about something, anything, light things like what's going on in the world, and he was just not there. And I realized I no longer have the patience for him. I needed to be able to look forward to a good night out and have it happen. And there was no good reason it shouldn't have.

Reading back over this it all seems trite - but I can no longer deny it - for me, the connection is just no longer there. The intellectual spark, the fascination about the world, SOMETHING, fuck even LeBron James's announcement I would have been happy to talk about, but instead he was a total dud. And for the life of me, I cannot deal with it. Then he is a total unhelpful dick this morning? I may be at the end of my rope. I am seriously contemplating checking into a hotel this weekend.

I need a sign.

Our First Counseling Session

The long-awaited marriage counseling appointment finally came & went. And wow. We really put it off for far too long.

Our therapist, Dr. R, surprised and impressed me on many levels - I guess I wasn't expecting much from a professional working here in Podunkville. His tone was a great fit for us. When I read on his CV that he also does "Pastoral Counseling," I asked him if he would have any problem working with an atheist like me, and he said no problem at all. He mentioned that he is a mentee of Dr. John Gottman's, whose work I really believe in- and that sealed the deal for me.

What can I say about the hour-long session? DH and I both cried multiple times. My DH has an issue with me that he finally figured out is not really about me, but is about deep-seated family-of-origin pain. Basically, his anger that I am not a better housekeeper has nothing to do with the dirty dishes in the sink, which is what I knew deep down all along. That was validating for me (and for the record, our house is quite clean thank you very fucking much). I didn't say much this time. I had trouble finding the right words for what I was feeling. And I wanted DH to keep talking. I knew I needed to think about these things a lot more. Afterwards, we went for a walk in the park and I suddenly got really angry with DH as I started really thinking about all of the stuff I have been putting under the rug. I need to learn to express my anger in a healthier way. My issue (I think) is that I am good at making things seem like everything is ok when actually DH's moods are killing me inside - just like my dad handles my effed up, emotionally-abusive mom!

I just love dysfunctional family legacies, don't you?

We will definitely be coming back to see Dr. R, and hopefully in time we can come up with some strategies so we don't scar our poor babies for life, end up in divorce court, or worse yet, end up remarrying the exact same effed up pattern-having spouse. Hooray!

Marriage Counseling

DH just texted me that he has the name of a local psychologist who can provide us with marriage counseling. I have to admit I am a little scared - that our confidentiality will be breached in our little town, that when people find out they will think we're on the brink of divorce (we're really not - this is a very proactive step, as things fortunately have not gotten ugly thus far), that the psychologist will hate me for being an atheist, and if it ever comes up that it will quickly get around town, that it won't be worth the money, that the therapist will be podunk and dr.phil-like... perhaps many of the usual things we fret about when meeting a new therapist.

Why now? I know we're in Survival Mode (with a 6.5 mo old girl and a 2.5 year old boy).. but the thing is, we need more of a structure to our conversations, and a scheduled time to truly work on things. Instead of me going through what I feel the issues are, I'm just going to copy and paste some emails between me & DH from this morning (one upside to anonny-blogging?). Oh boy....

****
Email from DH to me this morning:

You asked me in the last email why I was upset and not seeming like I gave shit. Rather than hold things in and be passive aggressive, I'm going to try and be more direct.

I feel last night was an example of why, at times, I feel like I'm alone in our marraige.

Between 5:00 and 10:00 pm last night, when DS was awake until he fell asleep, here is what I did:

- Cooked dinner
- Cleaned the majority of the dishes (you did put the detergent in the dishwasher)
- Showered with the kids
- Cleaned and dressed DS
- Played with DS
- Booked flights
- Made dinner reservations
- Starting booking rental property
- Took DS in bed and took an hour to get him asleep

During this same time you did:

- Dress DD
- Hold both children, mainly DD, while watching about 5 hours of TV (including TV watched while I cooked).

This is not meant to be a "scoreboard" to see who's a better spouse/parent etc. But it illustrates my frustration at times when I get home and I don't feel our marraige is a partnership. I loved it yesterday when you came out and helped me pull weeds. We had time together, we talked, it actually meant a lot to me. (I'm actually crying right now as I write this email to you thinking about us to illustrate my sincerity).

When I have to ask you several times to turn off the TV to eat dinner with me, that really hurts my feelings. When the opportunity presents itself, both kids asleep and/or playing, and you choose to watch TV or read on the internet, it makes me feel like I'm not very important to you.

I empathize that there are times when we both need "me time" but I just want to feel like I matter to you. You'll find that my mood improves greatly the more I feel like you want to be a partner with me. Whether we like it or not, as parents, there are daily responsibilities that we need to take care of EVERYday: walking dogs, feeding dogs, cooking/buying dinner, cleaning the dishes, making bottles, getting the kids asleep.

***
Email from me to DH this morning:

I'm flabbergasted.

What do you do when your spouse insists that you in fact did only 2 things in a 5 hour period, and totally ignores and minimizes at least 15 other daily chores you did after he went to bed that he routinely takes for granted? And then uses that as a bizarre rationalization for his unexplained bad behavior for the last 2 weeks, including his 5-day vacation with his buddies?

Do you respond by cataloguing the things you did? Or do you just stop doing them until he finally gets it?

What is your issue with saying you "help" in your own home? Do you get how patronizing and inaccurate that is? And why are you so obsessed with who does what around here anyway? Why do you feel the need to control and micromanage these things that don't even matter in the grand scheme of things? It is as though there is a part of you deep down that gets off on discrediting what I do.

I just don't know what to do with you anymore. You are really not getting it.
***

God, I hate how cold I sounded! DH really is a wonderful husband - sometimes a r'tard and sometimes unbelievably selfish, but mostly really, really good. I think this is worth working on.

Any words of wisdom for us?