Marriage Monday!
This morning I crawled into bed at 5:45 with Scarlett, hoping I could snuggle her back to sleep. We had been up since 5. She blew bubbles while I laid there attempting to accept the fact that she wasn’t going back to sleep. Chris rolled over, and I apologized for waking him up. He asked what time it was and sympathized when I told him how long I had been awake. And then he offered to get up for a bit until I needed to get up for the first dayhome kid’s arrival. I closed my eyes and was back asleep in seconds.
I’m telling you this story because while it is SO NORMAL for us now, it wasn’t always. When Elliott was little I would sometimes be woken up 5-6 times in the night, and up for the day well before 6. And I did it all alone because I didn’t know how to communicate my needs, and I sort of thought that night time/early morning parenting was a solo sport. I grew up with a Dad that was mostly a spectator in the parenting game, and while I didn’t consciously think I wanted the same thing, my actions created a similar environment. I often took on all the hard parts of parenting because I was afraid that Chris would resent our choice to have kids if it was too hard, and in the early years I was afraid he wouldn’t want more kids unless it seemed easy.
