Journal Excerpt

The silence in the house right now feels so strange it’s sort of stunning. Been a really full day with the kids. In other words, a normal day when I’m solo parenting, which has been the norm lately. Dave’s been traveling some or all of every week this month. I celebrated the quiet by finally taking a shower.

One day I’m going to look back and forget what this is like, so I figure I should write about it. Solo parenting four kids the entire day feels like triaging and managing four beings with urgent, unique and changing physical and emotional and safety needs, while accounting for unpredictable reactions and interactions between the four, while balancing a constant list of chores (somehow keeping the house constantly tidy makes me feel like it’s not all going to pieces). I’m constantly attending to the kid with the most acute need while briefly addressing the one or two with the next most acute need while planning how and in what order I will get to those one or two as soon as I finish with the first. And meanwhile staying peripherally aware of the fourth. And thinking random things like I wonder when I’ll be able to actually leave all of them long enough to take out the stinky trash? I can’t believe I actually fantasize about taking out the trash.

Those order of needs constantly shifts. Typical scenarios from today: trying to feed a fussy Esme while holding her to see if eating will improve her mood as she’s likely too fussy to put down in the high chair (most acute) while negotiating a timed method of sharing a toy the boys are fighting over (second and third most acute) while telling Ellie yes, I know she wants pink lady apples thinly sliced because she’s reading The Berenstein Bears And Too Much Junk Food, and that’s great, but she will have to wait a few moments (least acute). Or comforting Elijah who is screaming after falling off his chair and hitting his head (most acute) while telling Eric to please go wash his hands with soap and not touch the back of the dining chair with sticky fingers (next most acute) while asking Ellie to go guard Esme who has made a break for the stairs again (least acute, though could quickly become most acute if she falls and gets a subdural hematoma, the MRI of which is flashing through my mind as I’m asking Elijah if he would like ice for his head).

Or walking Ellie through the fingering for E and A-flat major scales, which she finds hardest (most acute, since I lack perfect pitch and can’t tell which key she’s in when she shouts “DO I CROSS OVER WITH A 4?” across the house) while advising an increasingly-frustrated Eric that it’ll be easier to drag Esme in the play tunnel on hardwood rather than carpet (less acute, and Esme is so cute laughing in the tunnel) while checking to see Elijah is okay (lying down on a couch, non-acute). Or running from my room where I’m fetching a new bag of kids’ dental floss after hearing Eric scream “I’m pooping and Esme is putting her hands in the toilet! She’s eating her hands!” (most acute, unaware of other two momentarily). Or nursing Esme to sleep (most acute) while gesticulating wildly to the boys that they are to return to their beds and wait for me for whatever issue they have lest they wake her up (less acute) whereupon Elijah’s face crumples up and he starts crying right there in the room (slightly more acute but still less acute as Esme is so fussy I couldn’t help him anyway until she’s asleep). Elijah tells me later, with big and very serious eyes, that he was upset because I didn’t say the end of the bedtime story. I retell the end of the story (the one of Jesus healing the paralytic man that came in through the roof—Ellie asked, how did they make a hole in the roof? and I can’t remember if there was one), but Elijah says no, you didn’t say the end. So I say, “The End.” and he’s fine and I finally leave and the house is quiet.

There was the usual mix of questionably-worth-it adventures (getting all four in swimsuits and sunscreen to play in a kiddie pool in the yard), minor victories (Eric actually did a reading and math lesson!), and tough moments (said “what’s wrong with you?” after Eric complained about his cup all through breakfast only to spill a ton of milk all over the room after I got him a new cup; technically the spill was an accident and I should have just addressed his earlier complaining rather than losing it over the spill. Milk spills are always disproportionately frustrating for me for some reason).

There were good moments, that I could appreciate as they happened, and that’s good. Eric being affectionate (I asked him, “will you still let me hold you after you get big and grown up?” and he said, “after I grow up bigger than you I will hold you, mommy!”). Realizing Esme can say cheese to the camera (“cheh! cheh!”). Holding Elijah and dancing to “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” (they loved the lyrics). Reading Ellie’s journal entry about her loose tooth (“it moves every time I drink milk”).

Well, that was the day. And now I’m going to go enjoy my lime seltzer and rummage up some chocolate and go read my novel. Thank you, God, for this full life and full day.

Terrible Two's

I remember when someone first mentioned the terrible two’s, I was like, what? Ellie was at the time just turning two and still easy-going. They say there are two golden periods for kids: a year (sleeping through the night generally) until eighteen months (before the terrible two’s), and six years (post-terrible two’s, which really should be terrible three’s and sometimes four’s) until nine years (pre-puberty).

Well, Ellie’s first golden period lasted longer than usual. When the terrible two’s hit eventually, I was like, oh, I see. When they hit with Eric, I was like OH I SEE. Elijah’s in the thick of it now—he’s two-and-a-half—and I’m reminded again what it’s all about.

In a way, it’s sort of comical. The terrible two’s are saying no to literally everything (“no! don’t want to!”). It’s wanting to climb into the van and get buckled on his own (“ja-ja do it!”) even though he can’t actually do it and takes forever trying (“come on, Elijah!” the others are always saying. “Ja-ja slow,” he replies). It’s always having a vocal preference (“want that one!” “don’t have poop!”). It’s getting overly emotional over minor perturbances (“shirt wet!” “blankie not right!”). It’s displaying touchy possessiveness (“mine!” “got it first!”) and being sensitive to exclusion (“wait for me!”). It’s tending towards exclamation points or wails, towards demand or distress.

At heart, I think it’s him desiring independence, but not being able to actualize that most of the time, leading to a need for verbal assertion and frequent frustration. I think of this time as a little preview of the teen years. It’s saying a last goodbye to the spirit of infancy: I’m glad at least that he still has slightly chubby thighs and a protuberant tummy. It’s the emergency of a new self, and in that sense a window into all the things we basically desire as a person: having a sense of achievement and purpose, feeling included and special. Just, you know, in super-unfiltered fashion. That’s how kids are, though. Unfiltered little pieces of humanity, running around in all their loud-talking, messily exuberant glory.

That’s what I’ve got, four little pieces of glory running around here this week while Dave’s gone. If I see things that way, can see the strange sort of irony in a still-infant-like boy making loud demands, it helps traverse these stages of transition with humor and equanimity. And that certainly helps a lot.

Confirmation Bias in Marriage

There's a saying in residency: “You see what you look for. You look for what you know.”

I remember as first-years we had to come up with interesting cases to present for weekly grand rounds given for the entire body of ophthalmologic faculty, a nerve-wracking experience. We had to figure out how the knobs on a slit lamp worked while simultaneously finding something interesting to world experts, then get grilled on-stage about differentials and management. Every single week. That’s Hopkins for you. Anyway, during early morning rounds we’d pool together what cases we could find to see what passed muster for our chief resident. He was someone we looked up to as a demigod: tall and attractive, impeccably dressed, freakishly intelligent with intimidatingly high standards, but somewhat socially awkward. Terse, blunt, the opposite of nurturing or effusive. He had a way of talking without saying a word, and as we’d go through the one or two cases we could find, he’d purse his lips dismissively and ever-so-slightly shake his head.

There was always one resident in my class who’d have a list of eight or nine cases each week. We’d each be desperately trying to dig out one case, and he’d pull this long list out of his white coat pocket. Some of them were ridiculous, but more often than not he’d have one or two worth presenting. I was always dumbfounded: we worked in the same clinics; how did he end up getting all the interesting patients? Until I realized: he read. All the time. I mean, I would read about a diagnosis here or there, but he was reading thoroughly through entire ophthalmological texts. He didn’t get all the interesting patients; he just knew what to look for. Things that probably passed right under my nose.

It’s a bit like confirmation bias: we see what we expect to see, which then confirms what we expect. Some of the cases were ridiculous because he saw what he wanted to see rather than what was contextually likely, but a lot of the cases were true pick-ups of interesting findings that others would have overlooked. The point being, what we think or know shapes how and therefore what we see. To some extent, we see what we want to see.

This is especially true of marriage. In marriage you see the strange juxtaposition of someone’s most unfiltered strengths and weaknesses. No one knows better than a wife how her husband is self-sacrificial, hard-working or the like: she also knows better than anyone how he leaves his socks on the floor, or farts, or whatever. When you focus on the good things, you don’t notice the bad things as much, and sometimes they even become oddly endearing. When you think about the bad things, they seem to be everywhere.

If you think, he never knows what to do with the kids, you’ll see him getting the wrong milk cups out or putting mismatching clothes on them. If you think, he’s so untidy, you’ll notice all the times he doesn’t immediately put something back the way you would have. If you think, why does he have to zone out so much? you’ll start seeing all the times he checks something on his phone or watches shows. But if you think, he cares about us so much, you’ll notice the way he sets out breakfast bowls the night before to save you time in the morning. If you think, he serves without complaining, you’ll notice how he always drives, or changes diapers without being asked. If you think, he’s so generous, you’ll see how he never criticizes what you buy for yourself.

In a discussion about her book The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, Shaunti Feldhahn once spoke about how couples who are happy do one simple thing: they think the best of each other. If a husband is late for an anniversary dinner date, for example, the wife could be sitting there thinking: he’s always late. He doesn’t care about us. He always works too much. Or she could be thinking, he’s doing his best. He must believe that whatever is keeping him at work is important for both of us—and that makes her respond differently to him when he finally shows up.

On the flip side, psychologist John Gottman microanalyzed videotapes of couples talking, documenting tone of voice, facial expressions, and body movement. He found that the greatest predictor of divorce was the expression of contempt. Contempt is the end product of steadily seeing the worst in your spouse: eventually they become someone subhuman. Someone you treat in ways you wouldn’t treat a stranger on the street. As Gottman says, “it’s trying to put that person on a lower plane than you.”

I’m not suggesting turning a blind eye to real issues we need to talk and work through, but I think it’s true that who Dave becomes is often a product of the dialogue I carry on in my own head. And how I see him affects so much of who he literally becomes, since words and perceptions have so much creative power in marriage. Am I conscious of what I’m thinking? Of what I’m noticing about him and any judgments I make? What have I seen about him today for which I’m grateful? This all could apply just as easily to the kids. But that could be a whole other post.