I remember sometime when the triplets were babies, our little house was full of baby paraphernalia. There were three walkers, three high chairs, three...you get the idea. I had one of those big, colorful, plastic gates to keep them in one place and was constantly helping my three year old helper over these hurdles. I even had a table I called my "trough" where I'd scatter Cheerios and goldfish crackers so they could graze when they wanted a snack. My brother-in-law came by one day and said,
"Coming over here is like visiting a day care!", and I said something like
"Yea, I know, but just try living at the daycare!". But we did and I am so thankful for God's grace during that time. And Tylenol. And the invention of pacifiers.
But we know things don't get easier just because diapers are no longer on your shopping list. As they grow and change, so does the family. Being with your children, all the time, can bring challenges to your home, sanity, and marriage. How do you find time to spend with your spouse when there's a child in every room and an interruption every minute, and with most, an income that doesn't allow for many dates? We haven't completely mastered that problem yet, but have found a few things that have worked.
1. Find ways to be alone during routine activities.
Recently I helped Guy clean out his workshop. He's a carpenter. It's full of sawdust. I'm allergic to sawdust....and I married a carpenter. God has a sense of humor, doesn't He? I spent the latter part of that evening with ibuprofen and an iron lung. But it was an act of love and a way to minister to him and our relationship. But you don't have to wait til the weekends. If the kids are playing outside and you don't have time to sit and relax because dinner is calling, enjoy a glass of wine while you make dinner together. Even with the occasional interruption, you are still having some alone time in conversation and can reconnect before the kids come in to tell you how much they don't like what you made for dinner.
2. Get lost in errands.
Last fall we bought a second hand sofa that we had to pick up one Saturday morning. Guy prepared his truck with ropes and ties, while I left things out for my mom to help with the kids during our two hour errand to Robertsdale and back. Guy didn't need my help. He could have gone without me. I have no skills in loading sofas onto truck beds, but we saw a possible date. For us, riding in his truck, without kids, was a date, okay? We find romance where we can.
3. Dates don't have to be dates.
Since we've been married, one of our favorite things to do is enjoy some coffee together, or an adult beverage, with one another and talk about anything. Before children, we had loads of energy and would be up before the sun, with coffee in hand, sitting outside, watching the sunrise over the bay at our first home in Belle Fontaine. Eventually our coffee chats turned into afternoon coffee, and now they've even morphed into mostly Saturday mornings. The thing is, these chats are often how we keep up with one another and make sure we're still on the same page. It says we still want to make time for each other, even if it is less time than we'd like. If you really want a block of time, you have to find something to occupy all of your kids, but that is another post!
All families, whether super sized or not, have dealt with this long before us. In reading the Little House books as a child, I was in awe that those people lived in one room together
all the time. Parents rarely were away from their children and certainly didn't have nights out, but no one got divorced over it either. They somehow found time to be together because many of them ended up with a lot of kids...hmmm.
I'm also reminded about the grace that comes with the Sacrament of Marriage. Guy and I move about through our days together, with the kids, and we couldn't jive more if it were choreographed. I know his ways and he knows mine. He's systematic in most everything he does and my impulsive, just get it done, devil-may-care attitude has learned to appreciate this trait in him. After 16 years of marriage, a year of engagement, several years of dating, plus a few addresses and not to mention a half dozen kids, we kinda know each other. Like most married folk, we move around in any situation with an unspoken body language that only we can translate. This is one of the things about marriage that can't be explained to a person whose just getting started or never gave it a chance. It's one of those 'you have to experience it for yourself' things.
To me, this is part of the romance in marriage, but you'll miss it if you aren't looking. When you're dating, especially early on, in the
can't wait to see him or I'll die part, everything seems romantic, and it usually is. But looking back, early love is selfish, as it should be, with no distractions of children, mortgages, insurance deductibles or psychotic pets. You can't wait for his call, then it comes and you linger on the sound of his voice. You long to see him and eat up every minute you have together. After awhile, you both get past infatuation and move on to a realistic, deeper version of love, a necessary shift, or else no one would ever leave to take the garbage out or buy groceries.
But those things that got to me when my husband and I started out, still touch me, and reassure me now, when we have so many little ones who need our time. This is something I believe is a product of the grace in marriage. The things I loved about him then, I can still see in him, while we move through our choreography of parenthood, and I admire him and love those wonderful ways of his, ways I don't always focus on though, because I'm busy pretreating his children's underwear.
This is the person to whom we fall when everyone else seems to give us no thought, when our friends, our good friends, have disappointed us, when our families have dismissed our feelings, and the world has generally abandoned us. When we feel like no one in this world understands what it's like, to get so little time to yourself. When the rubber meets the road, nothing feels as medicating as a strong hug in his arms and his assurance that you matter. Remember why you wanted him, forever, to never be without him. He chose you, above all, with all your goodness and all your mess. He coulda done something else, but he didn't.
He's the one who held you through disappointment, and listened to all your rants and nonsense, and told you when your oldest was only three and the triplets were nine months old and you walked in the room holding a positive pregnancy test, shaking and teary-eyed, "That's wonderful, Congratulations" and "We'll be fine" and sealed it with a kiss, and the one who put up with you when you weren't the best version of yourself.
He is that important, above all other persons, because he is not another person, he is part of you. God changed you and made you one flesh and you can feel that down to your soul, and so does he.
So the next time some smart elec sees me with my six pack of kids and says-for the hundredth time, "Don't you know what causes that yet?" I'll cough up some sawdust and say, "Of course, and we happen to like it!".
