There's Nobody Else To Do This (ahem) Stuff But Me

Into every grownup's life this moment must fall: the moment when you realize that whether you want to or not, you're fully responsible for taking care of something. And there's nobody else to do it but you.

I'm not talking about big stuff - like parenthood, letting your mother move in with you, or taking over the family business. I'm talking about the little daily stuff we'd all rather ignore, like taking out the recycling.

Here's an example: the liquid soap dispenser at our kitchen sink broke last week. It just stopped pumping soap up. And for a good three days I regularly went to the sink, attempted to get some soap, remembered it wasn't working, felt frustrated it wasn't fixed yet, and walked to the bathroom where there was a working soap dispenser.

It never occurred to me that I should do something about this. For three full days.

And here's the kicker: I wasn't even expecting Cliff to resolve the issue, because he was out of town. Replacing the soap dispenser was clearly my responsibility - who else was going to do it, the four year-old? - and yet I just kept looking at the busted soap bottle with disappointment, and then heading to the bathroom sink.

I'd like to think I'm not alone in this. I know I'm not alone in my family, as I've visited a certain family member's house at a one month interval and found the same junk mail sitting on a side table on the second visit as on the first.

This tendency to overlook obvious responsibility can trickle down to parenting. A babysitter once had to prompt me to teach Sam to put his shoes on himself. Twice a day I sat down on the floor to slip Sam's feet into his Velcro sneakers, and it never once occurred to me that a three year old could really do this for himself.

Marriage compounds this. Even after a task comes consciously to mind as clearly needing to be done, you can still stall a few days by waiting for your spouse to do it. 

Like right now, the red indicator light on our home phone is blinking to indicate we have a voicemail. For some reason, I hate checking voicemail. It was blinking all afternoon as I sat at my desk less than two feet from the phone: it truly didn't occur to me to do something about that. Now I'm just hoping Cliff takes care of it. In fact, perhaps this entire post is just an elaborate way to drop a hint ...

My grownup commitment for the day is to notice some things that need to be done and do them. Not big stuff. Just things like getting rid of the expired medicines in the bathroom cabinet. Because whether I like it or not, I'm the grownup here and somebody's got to do this stuff.

Survival and Second Marriages

Cliff and I have often written about how the divorce statistic you probably know (50%) probably doesn't reflect your reality. (Read what we've said here and here.) Your actual odds of staying together are likely much, much better than 50%.

But if you're already on the other side of a bad first marriage - what do your divorce odds look like if you decide to give marriage another chance?

The Wall Street Journal read a great (and encouraging) article earlier this month, Secrets of a Successful Second Marriage. While second marriages are often shorter than first marriages, this is largely because second marriages begin later in life and often end with the death of a spouse.

"The fact that the divorce rate isn't higher for remarriages shows that a lot of people are trying very hard and with great success to make their second marriages work," says Andrew Cherlin, professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University. "We used to think that second marriages were much more fragile."

The article has some helpful tips on how to increase your odds of success in second marriage.

Gentle Disregard: How Someone Else Can Help You Get Past the Ugly

I caught one story in NPR's ongoing series on obesity in America today. The focus was on the sex lives of the overweight, and the impact obesity can have on a marriage's sexual intimacy. 

It's worth listening to - find the story here.

One man featured in the story particularly got my attention. After struggling with weight for years, he came to feel entirely unlovable. Counseling and a determined effort to get his weight under control helped, but what made him turn the corner was the love of his wife:

"My wife, saying to me, 'I love you and I'm attracted to you regardless of your weight.' That was something I needed to hear and something I needed to believe, though I still struggle with it," Leckbee says. "But it's, now I'm more self-aware, now I understand it, now I'm able to look at it and go, 'My libido is really low right now because I've been eating too much and I'm feeling bad about myself.' I can express it to my wife and let her know I'm feeling this way."

We all need someone who looks at us and says, "I love you regardless of your _________." Maybe that blank is filled in with the word "weight," but maybe it's "stubbornness," or "controlling nature," or "bad breath." Maybe it's all of the above. 

The Indigo Girls have a song, Free In You, whose chorus sums it up:

And I don't know / How you show / Such gentle disregard / For the ugly in me / That I see / And for so long I took so hard. / And I truly believe / That you see the best in me / I'm enough for your love / And the thought sets me free.

Here's hoping you have someone (spouse, sister, father, friend, God) in your life capable of showing "gentle disregard." Knowing you're enough for someone else's love is the best motivation possible for tackling "the ugly in me." 

When Your Wrong, Your Wrong

The only thing standing between you and
this shirt is $22.25.  Buy it at
http://www.zazzle.com/thebloggess. 

My son has recently started a Pre-K program that is taught largely in Spanish. As a result he's started trying to speak Spanish, which is a different thing all together from actually speaking Spanish.

Let me illustrate:

Sam:  Do you know what ice cream is in Spanish?

Cliff:  (Playing along.) What is it?

Sam: Icey creamy.

Cliff: I don't think that's actually the Spanish word for ice cream. I'm pretty sure helado is ice cream.

Sam: You're wrong.

Cliff: (Checking his iPhone to make sure he's right) No, Sam, it's helado.

Sam: Hmph.

Sam has also recently insisted that his eyes are lime green. And even in the face of considerable physical evidence, an iPhone translation app, or good common sense, Sam tends to double-down on his wrongness rather than hint at the possibility that he's not right.

Most of us are like Sam: we have a problem recognizing when we're wrong. Cliff has written about this before (see his entry, On Being Wrong), quoting "wrongoligist" Kathryn Schulz, who says that being wrong feels like being right: until you realize you're wrong.

I guess the real question is, how do you speed up the time it takes to realize you're wrong?

Cliff will be the first to tell you that I'm not an expert at admitting I'm wrong. (Though I'd also say that Sam got his stubborn wrongness traits from both his parents.) But here's one thing I know: feeling absolutely certain about something is usually a pretty good sign that you're wrong: 90% of college professors think they're above average.

My new wrongness goal is to catch myself when I feel certain about something and then to open the door, just a crack, to the possibility that I could be a teensy, eensy bit off base. My new wrongness goal for Sam  is to teach him never to do Spanish vocab battle with a guy armed with an iPhone.


(A comment on the t-shirt above, which I adore: it's taken from the commerce page of The Bloggess, a well known blogger and one of my favorites. Read her if you like funny stuff and you don't mind being offended regularly. But there are some of you, and you know who you are, who really should not click on that link. Don't blame me when you do.) 

Do you smell something?

Somewhere along the last 4 1/2 years family dinners at restaurants became much more complicated. I faintly recall going out for supper when our oldest son was a newborn: We sat his carrier under the table and barely noticed his presence as he slept peacefully through a three course meal. But then he started spending more time awake. And then he expected to get food and drink himself. And then he started craving actual attention from his parents. Throw in some sippy cups, a couple crayons, an unlimited supply of energy and an additional child...well, family dinners at restaurants become much more complicated.

Perhaps the most difficult component of taking two children out to lunch is the looks you get from other diners. There's a strange mix of pity and annoyance involved. Other people's children are only cute and adorable for a very limited time, after all. Once other diners start noticing a child's volume or attitude, it's pretty much all downhill. Because then they find themselves asking questions such as, "Why do they let him dress that way?" I used to ask questions like that...now I consider myself lucky when my son willingly wears something other than green mesh shorts and a Superman pajama top. At any rate, taking your children to a restaurant is essentially inviting strangers to observe you, judge you and - occasionally - interject their wisdom. Thus, we typically choose restaurants carefully and arrive with a myriad of portable appetizers, art supplies and toys in tow. Still, there are some things you simply cannot prepare for, and there are moments where strangers' observations actually prove helpful.

We recently stopped at a small town pub for a quick lunch when our morning hike had been cut short by rain and tired legs. Our weekend camping trip had been lovely, but some warm comfort food sounded pretty appealing. In a shocking turn of events, our son ordered macaroni and cheese. We opted for some sandwiches. I debated whether to order a beer or drink for quite some time. Just a typical meal out, honestly. We even managed to keep our children in their seats and occupied while waiting for the food, which is akin to getting two members of congress to remain civil and rational for an entire conversation. Everything was going quite well. But shortly before the food arrived, our server started behaving strangely.

First, she picked some scattered snacks up from around our daughter's high chair and - in a very concerned tone - asked whether we needed anything. We replied that we were quite all right. Then she returned and said, "Are you sure you're okay? It's really no big deal. Messes are pretty common." Again, we assured her that things were under control, wondering why some spilled crackers were causing such a problem. Maybe she just was not accustomed to serving families? Then - shortly before the food arrived - she brought over a gigantic wad of paper towels "just in case we needed them." We thanked her again, only this time I cheerfully added, "Hey, could I get one of those draft root beers?" As we puzzled over the mountain of paper towels, we started to notice a very pungent and very familiar odor. "Do you smell something?" my wife asked. That's when everything started to make sense. When I replay the moment in my head, it's much like the final scene of "The Usual Suspects." I imagine my coffee mug slowly crashing to the floor as I think back over our server's comments, smell that odor and realize that I have missed the reality right underneath my nose.

When I pulled back the vinyl table cloth, I discovered a trail of poop cascading down from my lovely daughter's diaper, dripping from the high chair and literally piling up on the floor beneath. I mean, I have been a father for nearly five years, and I have never before seen that much crap. We stopped thinking about root beer and shifted into crisis intervention mode: I ran to the car for different clothes, Amber took our daughter to the bathroom, I used those paper towels the server had offered before we even realized what was happening. It took literally 20 minutes to settle in again, and we were being stared down by every diner in Utica, Illinois. The looks of judgment were out in full force. Apparently these people had never seen a literal shit storm quite like this before.

I apologized to the server profusely, explaining that we honestly did not realize what happened. She obviously recognized that, but opted for hints and indirect communication because she did not want to offend us (see my wife's recent post on the perils of indirect communication). We had wondered why this young woman was behaving strangely. She had wondered why we were so calm about the poop all over...well...everything. I mean, she brought over a massive wad of paper towels. And I responded by cheerfully ordering "one of those draft root beers."

Indeed, eating out with young children is complicated. Not only are you risking an epic diaper blow-out, but you are inviting total strangers to observe you, judge you and - occasionally - interject their wisdom. Here's my question, though: is it possible that other people could actually prove useful in that capacity? After all, that's what community is. Couples and families consistently rely on friends, counselors and even strangers to see what they're missing...to point out the not-so-proverbial poop that's hidden under the high chair. Marriage is every bit as complicated as taking young children out to dinner. At some point, you might need to invite some outside perspectives and wisdom. You also might need their help cleaning up the mess you conveniently ignored.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)

How Biscuits Almost Ruined My Wedding

Warm, buttery symbolic
representation of indirect communication. 

I'm known for hyperbole, so let me say up front that the headline is a bit of an exaggeration. A more accurate title might be, "How Indirect Communication about the Possibility of Having Biscuits at Our Wedding Reception Almost Ruined a Day Several Months in Advance of the Actual Wedding." But that's not nearly as attention-grabbing, now is it?

In addition to hyperbole, I'm also known for indirect communication. Let me share the legendary (at least to me and Cliff) biscuit story:

Our wedding was done on the cheap, and to help the budget stretch even further my fabulous sister-in-law Patti and her equally fabulous husband (Cliff's brother) Michael volunteered to fix all the food for the reception. Patti is an excellent cook who makes meal prep for 250 look as effortless as Thursday night dinner for five. Michael is pretty handy in the kitchen himself, and also has the remarkable skill of carving delicate little things out of fruit.

So a few months before the actual nuptials, Patti took Cliff and me on a scouting trip to Sam's Club. We were on the look out for good reception foods, and of course, free samples.

At one point Patti suggested biscuits for the reception buffet.

"Are biscuits really afternoon wedding food?" I asked, quietly.

"Sure!" Patti responded.

Gulp. My heart sank. Because of course I most definitely did not want biscuits at my afternoon wedding reception. "Help me out here!" I whispered, emphatically, to Cliff, feeling a little indignant that he hadn't jumped in already.

"What?" He asked. And rightly so, I now understand. Because indirect communication is a conversation killer. If I didn't want biscuits, I should have just said so, straight out.

I wish I could say that now, 10 years after our wedding (which, for the record, did not include biscuits), I've gotten better at being more direct. But I haven't, at least not always. For the last month I've been hinting that completing a certain project is a priority to me. Then last Wednesday night, when it was clear the project was not going to be done soon, I said to Cliff (in a pitiful, disappointed voice), "It's just that I really wanted it done for tomorrow."

"What?" He said, again. You notice a pattern here, right?

"I just sorta had it in my head that we'd have it done by tomorrow," I told him, about a month too late.

"Well you're telling me that about a month too late," he responded.

Yep. Did it again. In my indirect-communication-oriented mind he was supposed to know that my frequent reminders about the project meant I had a deadline. Gosh ... it's hard to see why he didn't figure it out. (She says with self-directed sarcasm.)

Lesson learned, again. If I want something, say it. I can't expect Cliff to read between the lines.

Maybe, this is the decade where I'll finally learn that.

How Men Adapt to Parenting

Anyone else hear the study on NPR today? A study of 600 men in the Philippines discovered that single men with high levels of testosterone experienced significant decreases after becoming fathers.

Here's a link to the NPR transcript.

Researchers acknowledge this may have something to do with sleep deprivation - a common side effect of parenting. But even so, the research is encouraging. Lee Gettler, a Northwestern researcher and the lead author of the study, explains:

"It's not just mothers that have an innate, kind of biological orientation towards childcare, men have that ability, too. And so I think that this can really broaden our idea of men as fathers and what the traditional role fathers should be perhaps, or what it means to 'be a man.'" he said.

That's kind of cool.