The Secret to a Happy Marriage?

I recently read an article on MSN about the dangers of a "semi-happy" marriage. Since then I've been thinking about what the article said and decided to take a break from kiddie posts and do one about another topic I like to talk about. This is actually one of my soapboxes (you notice I don't limit myself to just one) but my only audience who hears me on my soapbox is Paul and he agrees with me and hears me go on about this periodically so I decided to expand my audience to you fine people. What's that? You thought I had some kind of fabulous idea for a happy marriage that hasn't been thought of before? Ok so I don't actually have a special secret to a happy marriage. That's what the question mark was there for people! Not that I don't have a 'secret' that the world could benefit from but it's not even mine. It's God's and He isn't really keeping it a secret either. But as far as I'm aware my readers are all Christians and probably know everything I'm going to talk about anyway. But you all love me and will read anyway because you don't want me to feel bad about myself....And now that I've guilted you all into continuing or bugged you enough to leave we'll move on.

So back to that article about those dangerous semi-happy marriages. What is up with that? The article was actually an interview with an author who wrote a book about semi-happy marriages and how risky it is to let yours get into that state. The author stated that even if you aren't fighting and constantly in conflict with each other or having issues like cheating or some other major breakup-causing thing going on, if you are really more just friends than anything else, your marriage is at risk. Sadly, that's probably true. I think a lot of people get to a point in their relationships where they do realize "hey wait a second! We used to be so giddy in love with each other and now we just do our regular routine, chase the kids, watch TV, whatever, but what happened to that huge "in love" feeling we had when we first got together? What's that you say? We lost it? Oh well then I'm out! Later!" And then they call this the "amicable divorce". Ugh. I hate that term. I swear, if something ever broke up mine and Paul's marriage (and I hate even saying that, it would have to be something seriously MONUMENTAL and I would feel like I had cut my body into two pieces if that happened) I would seriously have to do a ton of repenting every day because I would probably equally love and completely hate him. I don't know if I would ever recover from that and I know I would never be able to be in the same room with him. But I digress...So once the couple realizes they still care for and want the best for their spouse, why isn't the next logical step to start working to rebuild that passion they once had for each other? Why do they think it will be easier or even different to start over with someone new? Why don't people realize that we can't sustain that kind of chemical reaction we feel when we say we've "fallen in love" for years and years without actually consciously working to maintain it? I actually blame people like the author from that article. Now I'll give her the fact that in her book she does have tips for keeping the magic alive in a marriage and that's nice and all but why does she have to start it off by making people look at what is probably a very nice and maybe even wonderful relationship and doubting it just because they feel like their spouse is their friend and they feel comfortable with them? If she wanted to write a book giving people advice for keeping the love alive in their marriage she should have just started there. I feel like starting it out by saying "If you are in a relationship where while you feel like you are more friends with your spouse than anything else then your marriage is actually in trouble" is going to result in more broken relationships than might have actually happened without her interference. That is probably going to get two reactions. One is the one she was going for - they read her book and put into practice all the tips and maybe actually revive some of the original passion in a relationship. Or two, they say, "Oh, man! She's right! We are headed for Splitsville! Well, we might as well get off this slowly meandering train that might or might not have stopped there and catch the express straight into Divorce Station! I don't want to waste time trying to revive something with this person when I could just as easily find someone newer and shinier!"

Ok so I don't completely blame the author of this book for all future "amicable divorces". I'm positive that a lot of people get to those same conclusions without the benefit of a book. It just makes me sad and mad at the same time the number of people who choose the route of splitting up, especially when they have kids. And especially when their reasons are just that their spouse isn't making them happy enough. When people with children, especially kids still at home, divorce just because they aren't "happy" that is one of the most selfish acts I can think of. Those poor kids now have to endure the insecurity and fear and brokenness that a divorce brings into their life just because their parents were putting their own happiness above their kids' and weren't even willing to try to make each other happy. This is something that I've already started telling Riley and that I even tell myself if I ever find myself disappointed with something Paul did or said or even just with life: No one else is responsible for my happiness but me. That might sound kind of New Agey but in my own head and to Riley I always follow it up with this: If I'm not happy with something right now, how is my relationship with God looking? Am I going to Him for my happiness and joy in life and just to be fulfilled? If I'm looking to Paul to make me happy and fulfilled, he might be able to succeed some of the time, but to depend on him for that happiness constantly is unreasonable. He absolutely CAN'T make me happy all the time. Nor can he fulfill every need I have. And it's completely ridiculous for me to expect him to. (And I say all of that even though I feel completely happy in my marriage and still very much in love with my husband.) I for sure don't want to be entirely responsible for his complete happiness. I know I will fail. All we can do is continually renew our relationship with God and do the little things that help keep the romance a live in our marriage.

And now I've gotten that off my chest and stepped down from my soapbox. I promise not to use my blog to do that too terribly often.

Clothes Off, Clothes On ;)

So yesterday was a milestone of sorts for Tyler. It was his first time to completely strip all his clothes off and run through the house in only his socks. Yikes! Not my most anticipated milestone. :) Surprisingly he is my first child to do the whole stripping thing. My other two would take off their shoes and socks like most little ones do but I have no memory of looking up and watching as they ran naked to me when the last time I had seen them they had been fully clothed. Tyler has long been obsessed with taking off his pants though so I guess I should have expected this. He figured out that his shirt had a wide enough neck opening to pull it down his arms and off that way rather than going over his head. He couldn't have gotten it over his head anyway unless he had unsnapped the crotch. That is what I like about those shirts, they keep the kid clothed when they might otherwise be able to take everything off. But my kid decided he wasn't going to let those pesky snaps stop him from having some naked time. My biggest fear when I saw him was that he had peed on the carpet somewhere, but thankfully that didn't happen. Nap time will now be a little nerve wracking though unless I take to duct taping him into his clothes.

While Tyler has been busy learning to remove his clothes, Riley is starting to make her own choices or what clothes to put on. After discussing it with Paul, we have put into practice allowing Riley to pick out her own clothes without any input from me. It has worked surprisingly well and I have enjoyed my past three stress and argument free mornings. It just so happened that when we started implementing that, we had a cool front go through so she actually had to think about what she was going to wear rather than just putting on shorts or capris. She agonized about it more than I was expecting her to. Yesterday she wanted to wear a sleeveless tunic style top with some black leggings and her black boots that come to her knee. If I had had a say in it, I would have vetoed that idea from the get go. The high temperature for that day was supposed to be the mid-50s so the sleeveless top would be chilly. Plus the boots seemed like they might look funny with the top so I was concerned about that too. But I told her that was fine if it's what she wanted to wear. She asked me what I thought and I told her both that she might be cool and also that I wasn't sure how the boots would look with the outfit but she could wear it with no arguments from me. I think she wanted me to tell her what to do but I just said it was her decision. She ended up changing into jeans and a regular T-shirt that she wore a jacket over. I was actually kind of shocked when she didn't wear what she had really wanted to wear since she had the freedom to but I guess a lot of the conflict we had was she was free to want to wear what she wanted to but she knew I was going to stop her from wearing something that wasn't weather-appropriate. Now that it's entirely her choice she is going to have to actually consider how it will feel to wear what she would initially want to put on. She was glad too that she wore the jeans and t-shirt since it really was a cool day! It was still somewhat chilly today and she chose to wear capris but I didn't say anything. She'll learn what weather is comfortable for what kinds of clothes. Also, she has always been very hot natured so she may be completely comfortable in the capris today even though I'm wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a sweater, socks and my warm slippers and I'm still a little chilly. Overall I think she is going to handle choosing her own clothes really responsibly and I'm proud of her and her willingness to ask what I think and take my advice to heart even if she really wants to do something else.

Tomorrow my little Jakey graduates from preschool! I saw pictures this morning of my nephew, Garrett, at his graduation and he looked so big and cute! Jake has been singing the songs they'll sing at his graduation here at home the past few days and it sounds like it's going to be really cute. Riley remembers singing some of the same songs at her graduation too (she went to the same preschool). I'll be glad for school to be out for both of the kids and to get to a more relaxed summer schedule. I don't plan on doing any more sleeping in than I normally do but I always enjoy having all the kids home and no other priorities or places to go for a couple of months. Riley won't get out of school till June 6th though so we've still got some time left for her.

Next week I plan to start a jogging training program called "Couch to 5k". It's a training program put together by a site called coolrunnings.com that my good friend Rachel told me about years ago. She got started jogging and eventually running through this program after having her last child and she is now so addicted to running that she recently participated in a marathon! I tried doing the program years ago right after Jake was born and while I made progress with it the circumstances weren't conducive for me to stick with the program of exercising. For one thing, we were living in an apartment and I was working out at night in the exercise room while Paul stayed home with the kids. Paul was also in the middle of taking classes to be eligible to sit for his CPA exams so there were nights when he didn't get home till late so I wasn't able to be very regular with my workouts. Then we ended up moving out of state so that just disrupted the whole workout thing completely. But now we are coming up on summer, I have had my eyes opened to the benefits of getting up early in the morning and working out before my kids get up, and we just happen to live in a house that backs right up to a jogging trail! So I decided that while I have a perfectly good elliptical that I normally use, I have been feeling a little burnt out with that so moving my workouts outdoors while the weather is nice seems like a good idea. And though I am by no means an athletic person, there is something about jogging and getting through this program I'm going to use that I find extremely challenging. When I worked on it the first time almost five years ago now, I made decent progress and I can remember how proud of myself I was as I started being able to jog for longer and longer stretches. I don't know if jogging is something I'll want to do all the time or anything like that but while the weather is good and it's light enough at that time of morning, I might as well jog while I'm out there. If I start hating it I can always go back to just walking. But I already feel that sense of challenge and I'm actually looking forward to starting on Monday. I'm waiting till then because of weather this week and various other reasons. But come Monday, I'll be jogging my tush off (hopefully literally), at least 60 seconds at a time. :)

Maybe One of These Days...

So I guess six month absences are to be expected for me on my blog now. But I was inspired to write again by my cousins. One has started a brand new blog and the other asked me to do a guest blog for hers which got me thinking of my own. I was actually surprised that I had written in October last. I thought it would have been further back than that so I'm doing better than I had first thought. Though not as well as I would have liked when I first started this. The whole point was to have something to look back on that had lots of fun and funny things about my kids or just stories about them growing up and how the experience has been for me as their mom. Something for them to read when they are older and for me to look back on when my memory grows dim of what life was really like with little kids running around. But my faithfulness has been seriously called into question! If I think of my blog at all it's with the thought that one day here soon I'm going to write. But does "one day" ever arrive? Well apparently so since that day would be today. I don't want to keep being so wishy-washy with it though so I'm going to try for one blog no less than every two weeks here for awhile, maybe even more often than that if I can get into a groove.

It should help that my own personal routine has changed recently and we also have a very nice new computer so I don't have to guiltily slink onto the church's laptop we have at our house to access the internet. Now I can do it whenever I want without feeling bad. I've been on the computer much more often because of that lately too so I guess we'll just have to see how it goes!

The changes to my personal routine are that I am now what you might call an early bird. You might call it that if you get up later than I do now, or you might say I get up at a reasonable time for an adult and to stop whining about it already. Well, fine, then if you're going to be that way. AN-yway, I now get up at around 6 most mornings. And I even do this willingly, meaning no child is coming into my room to get me out of bed nor are they crying from their room, which also has the same result. No, I'm getting up at 6 AM in the MORNING to....wait for it....exercise. *GASP* I know, it shocks me too. Every time I do it I'm surprised that I'm actually up and exercising and until here recently it's still dark outside! And I have always been one of those if it's dark outside and I was sleeping before I should keep sleeping till the sun comes up people. But the guilt was starting to wear on me. The guilt from holing up in my room exercising and then showering and basically leaving my kids to fend for themselves for a hour every morning when I was doing all that after Riley got off to school. I actually know they were probably fine for me to leave them like that but I now have a dreaded and fearsome toddler who is capable of and regularly practices opening doors and climbing onto bookshelves so I figured I probably better be present and accessible just a wee bit more just for safety's sake. So now I get up at 6 when my husband gets up for work and I work out and shower before my kids get up in the morning. I've got to say, the idea of doing this had occurred to me before but I never went with it because I love sleep and would never volunteer to miss any but I should have done this a long time ago. For one thing, I can exercise in complete peace AND have a totally uninterrupted shower. Plus, by the time I leave my room, I am ready for the day! I was amazed how much more housework I got done just because I had those other things that seemed to take so much of my morning up done earlier. So anyway, all that to say, I should now have more time to blog because I get done with my housework so much sooner. Don't you wish I would have just said that without all the rambling and drama? He he...

So my kids are all still in the same grades they were in in my last blog but we are now coming to the end of their school year. Jake is preparing to graduate from Pre-K next week! We got his graduation pictures on Tuesday and I've just gotta say, I have one cute 5 year old. If you think you have a five year old who is cute...well I don't know. You need to see mine. I plan to scan his picture into the computer so maybe I'll put it on here in my next blog (next week? the week after?). Seriously though, Jake is just really growing up. He's an average sized kid as far as his height and all that but compared to his giantess sister, he has always seemed small to me but here recently he has really started to seem like a big kid. Physically speaking, I'll glance at him sometimes and do a double take because he'll look so tall to me all of a sudden or his face is turned in such a way that I'll think, "there, that is what he's going to look like in five or ten years". Those moments are almost scary to me because he seemed to go from this little boy who wanted to crawl on your lap or be carried to this big kid who wants to ride his bike all the time and can read an entire Dr. Seuss book by himself. Thankfully he still likes to climb on my lap sometimes so those days aren't completely over yet. Not so thankfully, he still acts like a little boy sometimes with his inability to suffer the most minor of injuries without screaming like his arm is half cut off from his body.

Riley is my teenager in training. I don't know who is in training exactly, her to be one or me to mother one but one of those things is happening. If I have to argue with her one more time about her clothes I might have to jump out the window. I'm seriously thinking I might just start letting her wear whatever she wants whenever she wants and not question her at all. She doesn't really own anything questionable in it's modesty so I know she'll be dresses properly as far as that goes. And that isn't our battle. The battle is we live in Indiana and with the exception of the past three days, the month of May is not necessarily shorts weather yet. And Riley has a deep and abiding hatred for jeans of all things. What is the deal with that? No really, I'm asking that as an honest question. Who hates jeans? I live in jeans. During the winter, all she wanted to wear were some skinny leg black pants she had, some brown corduroys (also skinny leg), or leggings with a tunic to school. If she had to wear jeans she would complain. I actually wonder if some of that wasn't just a skinny leg pants thing and if she'd had some jeans in that style she would have worn them without question. And now that the weather has started warming up, every day it's "What's the weather like today? Can I wear shorts or capris?" Thankfully it has been nice enough some days for capris and then three days this week we've had weather in the 80s so she's been able to wear shorts. I dread tomorrow when a cool front comes back through and drops us back to where our temperature is supposed to be and she can't wear shorts again. Oh, and lest you think that maybe denim is uncomfortable for her skin and that's why she doesn't like jeans, ALL her capris are denim and all but one of her shorts are denim. No arguments for wearing those though. So my consideration is to let her wear whatever she wants and learn on her own how uncomfortable it is to wear shorts when it's in the 50s outside. Not that my only experience with Riley right now is arguing, though. Don't want to leave that impression. She is coming to the end of her second grade year. She won't get out of school till June 6th though which seems nuts to me. She is really maturing fast. Especially physically. I'm going to have to have "The Talk" with her pretty soon just because I don't want anything to happen to her and have her completely freak out because she wasn't expecting it. She is so tall that I've always thought she was going to be an early bloomer and all signs are pointing that way. She may kill me for this some day but we recently bought her her first training bra. It was kind of a traumatic thing for me because I've sort of been in denial that I might need to get one for her until my mom pointed out that she thought she needed one too. And I was like WHAT!?! My EIGHT YEAR OLD needs a bra already?!? I didn't actually say that to my mom. But it's kind of how I was feeling at that moment. It's not all the time that she needs one but there are a few shirts she owns that fit a certain way that makes modesty demand a bra. She of course thought it was cool. What girl isn't excited at her first bra? But my feeling is still that this is my baby girl and she should not own a bra or wear one unless she is playing around with my stuff. But I guess this happens and I need to wrap my brain around it. She is so tall you wouldn't think I would be in such shock over this.

Tyler continues to fill his role as the dreaded and fearsome toddler with gusto. As the walls in our playroom attest, he is an adept door opener, pen or pencil sneaker, and wall colorer. To this day I don't know what pen or pencil he used but the walls have huge scribbles up there now. He must have gone into Riley's room and then put the pen back when he was done to hide the evidence. Needless to say, her door now has one of those door knob covers that he thankfully still hasn't figured out how to operate. But I'm sure that day will arrive before I'm ready for it to. He is now sleeping in a toddler bed, fully decked out in Disney's Cars bedding. He made that transition without the slightest whimper. We made a brief attempt at serious potty training recently but he's not quite ready for that so now I take him after naps and offer periodically throughout the day when I think of it. If he wants to try we try and if he says he's done I let him down even if he only sat there for a second. I want to keep the thought alive in his head so when he is physically ready for more intense training, he won't have forgotten all about the concept. He learns new words and phrases every day and surprises me with the things he'll say or questions he'll ask me. His "what dooing" question is very reminiscent of Joey on Friends' "How you doing?" The word "doing" comes out almost the same. And if anyone is gone from the house he thinks they are "a' work". We take Jake to school and then come home and he asks "Jake a' work?" That comes from hearing that Daddy is at work every day.

So our lives are mostly the same with some growing and changing and hopefully I'll be posting a little more regularly and hopefully not as lengthy. If you have stuck through till now in this blog, you are a trooper and you must really like me so thanks! :)