I am learning that parenting is like a roller coaster.
One day your child is an angel and the next, you catch a glimpse of a devil’s tail as they round the corner. As Stella gets older, I am learning that the change is more frequent and unpredictable.
One of our current challenges is getting Stella to bed. We somehow seem to be missing the “window” of optimum sleepy time and find ourselves in the hyper, second-wind stage.
With me working three 12-hour days (and being five months pregnant), my hubby and I have settled into our bedtime routine roles. I am in charge of bubbles and bath time and then I pass Stella on to her father for stories and bedtime. Sometimes, as I am drifting in and out of sleep, I can hear my husband’s attempts to calm Stella down way past 9:30 p.m.
As you can imagine, the role sharing is not always “fair” (it never is, is it.) I get to be in bed before the hubby while he sometimes struggles late into the night (late for me, that is) to get Stella down. He gets frustrated. A lot.
When the frustration arises, I have to, very gently, remind him that if we want to look at “fairness," there are plenty of other roles that I would happily trade for bedtime.
Although this is not always well received, in the end, we have to remember that our household can only be successful if both of us are involved.
Unfortunately, working full time can get in the way for both of us. Even after a long day at the office, the household still needs to be tended to, by both of us.
The other night — on one of our rare nights where we were both awake at the same time — my husband wondered aloud what we were going to do when baby number two comes. I told him we would do the same thing that we were doing now, happily (sometimes) sharing the duties of running a house with not one, but two children.
All couples argue and fight. Life is stressful with or without children. The one thing that I try to remember is that as parents, the only way to successfully run the household is to work together, in whatever way that may work.
When keeping score, it may not always appear as an even game, but in the end, it somehow works. Single parents deserve a standing ovation … and big bottle of wine.
