We were eating dinner quickly as the baby slept and our 3 year old played. It was probably the first alone time we had since the baby arrived. There wasn’t much talk going on at the table. We were both exhausted and silence is exactly what we wanted. My husband eventually looked at me and said “Hi, what’s your name? It’s nice to meet you.” We both laughed and I jokingly responded, but that joke out of his mouth had so much truth to it.
Our evenings use to be filled with binge watching TV and socializing with friends, but now the TV plays enough “Doc McStuffins” that we have memorized the episodes. We use to spend evenings reading books, news articles aloud, and staying up late in bed, but we are lucky if we end up in bed at the same time now. When he walks in the door from work my first question isn’t “How was your day?” it’s now “Do you want to do bath time or dinner clean-up?”
Something that we both wouldn’t trade for anything has stepped in between us. That thing is called parenting. We seem to lose sight of each other in the midst of parenting. And now that there is a newborn in the house it’s happening even more. It’s never an intentional thing; frankly it’s in our nature. We chose to be parents, but we also need to choose to give our all to each other.
We make sure to always ask how the other is doing. Granted it may be 5 hours after he has arrived home or in the middle of the night during a feeding, but it’s so important. My husband asked me the other day “How’s staying home with two kids now? Harder or easier than you thought? What can I help with?” Just those questions alone was what I needed that day. Knowing that in all the craziness he’s still wondering how I’m handling the home front and what more can he do made my heart sing.
Laughing is the key to happiness around our house. Our newborn likes to stay awake from around 12:30 until 2/2:30 AM. The first night or two of her doing this I think I cried a couple times due from pure exhaustion. The next couple nights we made the most of it. We laughed as we searched endlessly for something on TV only to resort to an infomercial about Christmas lights that you can project on your house (interesting, huh?). I ate a couple of snacks and we watched Saturday Night Live in the middle of the night as our sweet newborn didn’t have sleep in mind.
There are days that the noise level has been so overwhelming and I’ve had no time to myself, but instead of being distant I lean on him. We have decided that if we don’t take that time for each other then we will lose sight completely which is not a choice in our house.
I sat in bed the other night nursing our baby for what seemed like the 50th time in 2 hours and my husband headed to our 3 year old’s room as she screamed his name. I jokingly started singing the Darius Rucker song “It Won’t Be Like This For Long”. It’s in these moments that though I miss the times we had with just us, neither of us would change it for the world.
It won’t be like this for long
One day soon we’ll look back laughing
At the week we brought her home
This phase is gonna fly by
So baby just hold on
It won’t be like this for long
-Darius Rucker
