Speak of Temptation...

The books have beckoned Peter from the time he could crawl:




I kept hoping he'd get tired of them.

Not so much.



A couple of weeks ago, I'd decided somethings gotta give. Tomorrow: find out The Great Solution.

Sunday Brunch: Great Expectations

At a recent playgroup, the kids sat around a small table for a snack. One of the mothers put Peter in a chair, where he happily nibbled on a cookie.

I didn’t know Peter was ready for that. Not the cookie, that is, but the chair. I’d never tried it, since I pictured him flailing off the side or climbing on the table. Yet there he sat, calm as could be, as if he sat in a chair every day.

Maybe it’s a first-time mom thing, but I’ve always had trouble gauging Peter’s abilities. I’m just as quick to expect too much of him. When he wasn’t playing with his toys at 8 weeks old, I was nervous. Then I saw a normally-sized infant of the same age, and I understood: Peter could fill out a 6-9 month sleeper, but he was still a newborn.

Why does this matter? Discipline. When my 14-month-old goes to the forbidden drawer ten times in one hour, melts down for the fourth time in one day, and refuses to come when I call his name, I find myself asking whether I’ve asked too much… or not enough. A toddler’s life is one of temptation, and it’s my job to filter those temptations and to know when he’s crossed the line.

I want to parent like my heavenly Father, who respects me enough to expect my obedience—yet who also doesn’t allow me to be tempted beyond my abilities. As Paul says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (I Corinthians 10:13).

Am I doing the same for Peter?

Before I Get Off My Soapbox, One More Thing...

I’m wary of marriage advice that treats children as impediments rather than blessings. Thus I find myself defending things like the family bed or a lack of date night.

That being said: I do believe it’s possible to let children come between you and your spouse. I’ve seen it happen. Many times. Sometimes, I guess, it happens because the marriage was shaky even before babies. Other times, I imagine couples grow apart, and the kids are a nice distraction. Next thing you know you’re planning elaborate celebrations for your child’s birthday while your wedding anniversary goes by with little notice.

It’s easy to think “It could never happen to me.” Do people see the headlights before the train?

I don’t know. So I will watch my marriage with vigilance.

I want to honor my wedding vows in deed—and in heart. I want for Tom and me to have the sort of solidarity that our children can clearly see and, in that, find comfort and security. I want for Tom to still be my best friend fifty years from now. (Yeah, barf, but I mean it).

God, grant us health!

Marriage & the Family Bed

My grandparents were quite liberal. When they married, they were first among their peers to share a bedroom. Being decent folks, they slept separately in twin beds.

People in most parts of the world, though, practice the family bed. Mom, Dad, baby, and sometimes even kids! Countries that practice the “family bed” have divorce rates five times less than that of the US.

I’m not silly enough to think the US divorce rate would radically drop if parents just quit putting their babies in the crib, any more than I believe “peace begins with breastfeeding.” But I have to mention the statistics because I was raised to believe that co-sleeping “contaminates the marriage bed.”

As far as I was concerned, the family bed was the crutch of parents too weak-willed for sleep training or the shield for women wanting to avoid their husband’s touch. In fact, before Peter was born, I wanted to put his crib in the dining room. Tom thought that was strange and kept suggesting our bedroom. I kept saying, “Do you ever want to have sex again?”

Since Peter’s arrival, I’ve read most sleep books written in the past ten years. And then some. I’ll save that story for another time—but I will say this:

Tom and I and Peter now share a bed for a good part of the night. And you know what? We cherish our mornings together, especially when Tom doesn’t have to get up super early. With our little family all snuggled up, we wake to Peter’s pats and babbles. The three of us will laugh and linger in bed for close to an hour! We have decided that Peter is welcome in our bed for as long as he needs it, even if he’s five.

In the meantime, I’ve discovered that what can kill sex is not location but stress, working long hours, and sometimes even hormones. Our intimate life is feast or famine depending on Tom’s work schedule—which isn’t a whole lot different than before Peter came along.

So our marriage flourishes. It flourishes in a different room, but it flourishes.

Top Ten Ways to Retain Intimacy

in your day-to-day life.

10) Make eye contact when asking, “How was your day?”
9) Eat dinner together. At the table. Every day. Put on lipstick, or brush your hair, whatever it is you do to make yourself beautiful.
8) Turn off the TV. Better yet, turn off the internet.
7) Flirt.
6) Find out what makes your spouse tick (gifts? words of encouragement? touch? acts of service?) and do it.*
5) Fight. It’s better than the emotional distance created by festering wounds.
4) Make up before bedtime.
3) Laugh together. Laugh at your kid, laugh at a movie, laugh at a memory—just find something, anything, to laugh about.
2) Say, “I love you,” at an unexpected time.
1) Remember that sex is like Bible study: you may not always feel like it, but you’ll always be glad you did.

* I highly recommend the Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

Date Night

Every Friday night, our family of three goes out to eat. This means keeping a steady supply of crackers in front of Peter before the food comes, feeding him off our plates to keep the cost down, picking his sippy cup off the floor, and racing home to get him to bed before 7:00.

A few months ago, we bumped into friends at the restaurant. Dressed to the nines, they were eating out before the symphony. The symphony! I wanted to go. And I wanted a dressy dinner without the slobber monkey.

Why not line up a sitter and go? Well, Tom and I can’t afford disposable diapers. You think we can afford a sitter? Our families, meanwhile, live too far to help on any regular basis.

Then there’s Peter’s separation anxiety. He pretty much screams like I’ve left him with terrorists any time I walk out the door. Unless he’s with Tom, without whom it’s not date night. So there you go.

Maybe things will be different with the next child. After all, my Symphony Friend is a stay-at-home mom who breastfeeds on demand and wears her babies. Her girls just happen to have temperaments quite different than Peter’s. So she gets date night, and I don’t.

Date night is a luxury, not an entitlement.

You’d never know that, to read some of the advice given to married couples. “Need to save your marriage? Get a sitter!”

Boy, the divorce rate must have soared prior to the twentieth century. Before that, restaurants were for travelers (or for the superwealthy who might, if they lived in a large enough city like Manhattan, venture to a restaurant once or twice a year). Families ate at home. With their kids. Every night. Even pre-marriage “dating” took place in the home.

You know, I think my marriage is going to make it. In fact, if we had to have a date night to save us, that would only indicate a larger problem.

Perhaps what would help couples more than a date night would be to retain—or reclaim—intimacy as we go about our daily routines. It’s possible. Tomorrow, I’ll share my Top Ten ways to do it. No sitters required.

Child Care, "Spouse" Care: Friends or Foes?

Gently placing Peter in his car seat for the first time, I fought the urge to ride in back with him. Why? Symbolism. Convinced that our marriage should be the primary relationship in our newly-grown family, I felt that our seating arrangement should reflect that. Parents sit up front. Baby sits in the back.

When we got home, and I raced to retrieve Peter, he was curled in a ball. His head rested literally on top of his feet. I had forgotten to lift the chest bar to hold his torso in place. Knowing what I know now about positional asphyxia, I realize how tragic this mistake could have been.

The moral of the story (uh, besides the fact that symbolism is lost on the five-day-old newborn)? My marriage comes first, but that doesn’t mean I have to neglect my child.

In fact, the longer I’ve been a mother—and it’s been a whopping 14 months, so I’m an expert, right?—the more I’ve decided that you can be a total hippie mama* with a babe suctioned to your breast 24/7 and still put your marriage first.

For starters, your offspring is the product of your love. The more you nurture him or her, the more respect you show for your spouse. Like, if your spouse bought you a really nice car (which I wouldn’t know anything about), you would show respect by getting the oil changed, rotating the tires regularly, and not running it over curbs (something else I wouldn’t know anything about).

The problem is that I live in a society which tells me that childcare and “spouse”care necessarily, at times, conflict. “Don’t put the baby in the bed.” “Have a date night once a week.” “Don’t let a child disturb your dinner conversation.” Shoot, I even have a friend who didn’t want to nurse her baby because her “breasts are for her husband.”

Hmm… I want to take a closer look at some of these “conflicts.” Tomorrow, some thoughts on date night.

*For what it’s worth, I’m not a hippie. I don’t even own a pair of Birkenstocks.