Married with Children

So maybe I'm revealing a little too much about myself here--or maybe I'm just stating the obvious--but early parenthood can really do a number on your marriage.

You spend nine months in this blissful state of pre-parental naiveté, whimsically poring over paint chips in 50 shades of blue and nesting and baby-mooning and co-creating a fanciful vision of what your new family will inevitably be like. You're happy. You're a team. You can't wait to become parents together. And, of course, this all puts you on as high a note as high notes get, maritally speaking. You feel like nothing, no nothing, can break this enchanted streak of wedded glee.

And then the baby arrives. And you become parents. And holy shit you never sleep. And your husband seems maddeningly incapable of wiping the baby's butt exactly as you're sure butts ought to be wiped. And someone (but definitely not you) used the last of the baby formula and now it's nearly midnight and you're stuck in a state of half-dress making an emergency run to Walgreens and vowing that someone (but definitely not you) will pay for this. And you catch yourself wondering if you'll ever find time to shave your legs again but you can't see how that's at all relevant since you're decidedly over trying to impress anyone; you're just trying to survive.

And so it goes, that period of early parenthood. At times you question how couples-with-children ever come out on the other side, and you come to understand the real Christmas miracle behind those holiday cards with cheery, smiling families exuding togetherness, because it seems incomprehensible that The Crazy will ever end. What could ever bridge the vast marital trench dug by early parenthood?

And then you find out the answer: Toddlers.

Not because everything suddenly becomes easier, though of course it does; you get [more] sleep and you've long ago given up caring about butt-wiping techniques. It's because you have a common enemy, a new shared source of ridiculous parental angst that is best experienced together: Irrational Little People. And suddenly get to see what a funny sense of humor Life really has.

For all the early days when babies were a marital wedge, toddlers reunite parents with blessed little moments of forced togetherness--shared eye-rolls that say "omigod-this-tantrum-over-crayon-colors-at-the-restaurant-table-is-really-happening" or mischievous "watch this" looks as we use reverse psychology to manipulate Owen into eating broccoli by offering it to Eliza.  Tricking two little kids into doing what you want ("If you give Eliza that toy back, I'll let you take a bath and go to bed!") isn't any fun without a sympathetic co-conspirator audience to show off for.

Toddlers are an on-going inside joke that only you and your spouse can understand, and that in and of itself creates a bond like no other. Now my favorite marital moments involve high-fives ("Oooh, good one, Daddy!") after a particularly impressive parental feat, as the kids stare at us blankly, wondering what the hell we're celebrating. And one day, I hope, they'll have kids of their own and they'll understand: it's a shared sense of victory, a deep appreciation for how simultaneously ridiculous and wonderful this time in life really is, and the knowledge that there is no togetherness quite like being married with children.