Monday, December 12, 2011

Not the Kids

I passed the 38 week mark this weekend! We are in the homestretch now! Noah and I were laughing earlier about the differences between a 1st baby and a 5th. With our first I had carefully packed a bag, the carseat was installed, we were ready at a moments notice.

With this baby I have no illusions of going into labor anytime before an induction date of 40 weeks plus 5 days. I know in my head that it could happen, but my heart says it is not going to.

Maybe it is not my heart, maybe it is my cynical nature.

Anyway, I had a lot of contractions at work last night and all day today. Noah wasn't home from work yet, and I suddenly realized that we have not made any plans at all for what to do with all the kids if I were to go into labor. I called my mom and asked what she was doing over the next couple weeks. I want to avoid the 17th and Christmas day, but other than that- I think anything would work fine!

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The other day I was reading my sister-in-law's blog. She said something about talking to her husband about stuff other then her kids. Now, it totally wasn't the point of the post but it did get me to thinking about my own marriage.

Noah and I have been married for 11 years, and "together" in some sense or another since jr. high. We have known each other since childhood. There is not a lot about our childhood memories that we haven't shared sometime over the last 27 years. And actually, we have a lot of shared memories from our past as well.

So what do we talk about now?

Even though we have a lot of children, we don't always talk about them. Sure, we do some but we do fit in other topics. Consciously or unconsciously, we have developed a system of staying in close communication. We talk a lot, we talk daily and we talk about a wide variety of things.

Talking about our jobs often leads to discussions about morals, ethics, other peoples perspectives on life and just plain funny stories. Obviously, I have constraints due to confidentiality, but there is plenty of coworker drama to lead into conversations about more serious underlying discussion topics. We both are familiar with each others coworkers- not because we are gossiping about them, but getting to know the people that we spend so much time with helps us know each other better.

I spend my days with such a variety of people with all different perspectives, personalities and interests that discussion topics are always coming up. Friends, co-volunteers, homeschool moms, speech teachers, neighbors, people at the Y- all bring new interest and stimulation into my day.

Noah is very good at keeping up on current events and paying attention to trends, culture and news. I hit the highlights and we spend time discussing politics, local news and national news. Noah keeps up with sports, and although it isn't as interesting to me, I make a point to have at least some rudimentary knowledge of what is going on in the major sports arenas. That way, if he brings up something he wants to talk about, I at least have a little background going into the discussion.

I don't read as much as I would like to, but I do read some. Noah doesn't read as much, but I summarize books for him and then we discuss them. Noah teaches the youth group some Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings and so the studying he does for those events also can lead to more serious discussions between us.

Sometimes I miss those days when we had nothing but time with just each other, but I am pretty happy with how we have managed to keep a measure of freshness in our interactions with each other. Looking back at my list, it is clear that having other people in our lives helps keep us on our toes and keeps us from getting into a rut discussing the same old topics.

But, all that being said, discussing the kids isn't all bad either :)



3 comments:

Unknown said...

why do you want to avoid my half birthday? You know I think I am more sad about not being there to take care of the kids when you go in to have the baby- then being sad about not being home for Christmas...

Jackie said...

We talk a lot about our students--the good and the bad. And when we're grading we read the worst and most hilarious answers to each other. We also summarize the books we've read for each other. Before we we had kids we'd read a lot of the same books and discuss them, but the summary method saves time. :-) But yeah, we do talk a lot about the kids.

Johanna said...

i like this post...i think it's a good thing to think about intentionally communicating with your spouse...and I think you should go for Karla's 1/2 birthday...how fun!! :)