We, the parents of our two beloved, wonderful children, were finally able to get a date night this weekend. A real one, by ourselves, where we had a trusted friend take care of both children while we left the house and did the things that remind us of who we are as individuals. Apparently, we are not just Mama's Milk Factory or Dad's Montessori Child Delivery service, but real, reasonably intelligent and dare I say likable human beings.
Spending an hour at a wine bar and paying a visit to Powell's Books probably sounds excessively pedestrian to most Portland folks, but if you have recently come through the well-worn path of childbirth while simultaneously wrangling a toddler, you know how important this is.
And for us, it is monumental.
Why the word monumental? As in, deserving of a public art installation or a commemorative plate from the Franklin Mint?
Here's the story.
In the course of preparing for childbirth, we received some of the best advice on child rearing and relationship maintenance from one of our birthing coaches.
"No matter what you do, no matter what challenges you face with your new little one, or how precious and delicate your newborn is, there is one thing you have to do: You have to have a date night at least once a month, with no children. And there is one rule that must not be broken: On that date night, you must not talk about the children. It is the single most important thing to keep you sane, and ultimately, together."
The, "no talking about the kids," rule might sound a little too black and white for some, but she elaborated that as parents you generally have ample opportunity to talk about your strategy for raising children when they are out of earshot, but still with you. Your date night should be about you as a couple, not the children, even if only for a few hours.
In our case, this is true - we do have those opportunities to talk about our parenting plan while in the relative company of our children. Discussions like our approach to virtual tag-team elbow drops at dinner time or reviewing newly learned techniques on guiding a child to the appropriate conclusion without telling him to, "do this - or else" (Toddler: "Objection your honor - leading the witness." Judge: "Objection overruled. You may continue Counselor") are possible at home; even self-confidence drilling-and-infusion tactics can all be addressed either with the use of spelled out code ("I am losing my M-I-N-D, how about you, darling?"), or when they are busy tearing apart a non-toxic house plant.
So why is the date night such a big deal? Without family close by, and being somewhat new to the area, we've been housebound for a while now. And its starting to show.
Bottom line: We've had 3 sets of 3 hours together sans children, outside the house, in the last 10 months.
Editor's Note: For the record, we are aware that this does not adhere to the once a month rule.
Can you hear me now? How about now? Now? Now? Is this thing on?
In our case, lately much of the constructive parental conversation that should occur outside of the company of our children could theoretically take place in the open air, as our oldest, young master Jonah, has entered a new, commonly occurring developmental phase:
I believe he is only hearing in what I am guessing is Esperanto, or perhaps a lost Norman dialect.
Example: "Jonah, sweet boy, put your pants on please. Pants on please. Pants. You know, pants? The ones you are holding? Pants? Pantalons. Pantouches. Pantoramas. Panty-wanties -- no that doesn't sound right. Pants. Put them on. On.On. Pants. Do you want to go to the park? Then put your pants on! Pants please? What did I just say? Pants - Pants - Pants - ???"
Jonah: "Que? ¿me habla usted?"
Curiously, to the best of my knowledge, Jonah does not speak Spanish.
At one point I actually thought a hearing test might be in order. "Oh honey sweet darling dear intelligent wife, you know I'm really wondering if maybe Jonah actually can't physically hear me - I mean, I say something, and sometimes he repeats the tones back as if he heard the sounds, but he's not picking up the words. What do you think, dearest love of mine and eternal true North of my very being?"
With a nice motherly stroke to the head which I can only characterize as a pat: "Oh, I think that is probably not the problem, charmingly naive husband. But we can get him tested if you like."
To prove my theory and reclaim my pater familial status, I conducted an informal, completely non-scientific test in which I whispered his name quietly from across the room to see what exactly he could hear. While I know this is far from comprehensive, I think the results speak for themselves.
Me, whispering: "Jonah."
Jonah: "Yeah Dad?"
Whispering, barely above a breath: "How old are you?"
Jonah: "3 Dad! You're funny!"
I am not a medical professional or a licensed audiologist, but clearly, hearing loss is not the issue.
Out of desperation I have resorted to trying other languages and my own pseudo-dialects in hopes that one of them will get through by the 9th or 10th repetition or rephrasing. In moments of frustration and sophomoric mental sarcasm I have been tempted, Tempted, to mimic sign language while speaking slowly in a fit of complete disregard for how wrong that would be, but I have refrained. At least, physically.
I also seem to be heavily influenced by those early Bill Cosby records that I listened to where he describes his mother saying, "Sit down sit sit sit sit sit sit sit sit! Stop it stopit stopit stopstopstopstopstopstopstop Stopit!"
I have the urge to do that, loudly, like you wouldn't believe. Even just the thought gives me that energized feeling I get when I solve a Rubik's cube or finish a Sudoku puzzle while our 10-month old screeches distractingly in pre-Christian Pterodactylian.
In those moments, Bill Cosby's voice rings in my head like a relentless echo bouncing around the Greatest and deepest of Grand Canyons, a dry, 5-mile-deep Marianas Trench if you will, encapsulated in a planetary echo chamber that looks like a giant snow globe being shaken by the hand of the Devil himself. Seriously.
Sibling Rivalry 101
I have also found that as I get stretched thinner (more evidence that we need a break), I am beginning to lose my grip on the positive parenting techniques that are supposed to replace the bad ones.
With emphasis on the words, lose my grip.
After a recent bout of sibling rivalry which the older of the two very obviously won, out of frustration I resorted to some "old school" guilt on our oldest (something we try not to do despite its commonality during our own upbringings). While firmly explaining to him that he needs to be gentle with his little sister - I suddenly and unexpectedly took a left turn at the overgrown corner of Guilt St. and Emotional Pressure Boulevard.
In essence I told him that it is a big brother's job to keep his little sister safe; his, "responsibility"; perhaps even, "the single most important thing that he MUST do, even if the world and its lesser-known brother are on fire...". To my way of thinking, maybe this is not so bad if it keeps him from using his little sister as an experiment for how fast his tricycle goes on broken glass. But somehow placing the entire burden of his sister's well-being on his 3-year-old shoulders doesn't strike me as an ideal parenting move.
Had it stopped there, I could have lived with it. I mean, we all at times are less than ideal parents, and its part of what makes us quirky and mildly stunted as adults, which can be charming (or so I tell myself. When I'm, you know, talking to myself.). But where things really went "old school," where things went awry as they say, is I may have elaborated on that concept for a while. A good, long, repetitive, while. In fact, it probably could be construed as what is known in some archaic cultures as, a lecture [Gasp!].
I'm not sure if you're familiar with that term, lecture, as it has gone out of fashion in today's attention-deficit driven world, but it comes from the Latin phrases Lec and Tchure, which were used as follows in ancient times: "Lec's see. Djou says somting to me to do? Tchure! I can do dat. What is dat ting again? Can djou say it again 8 million tines, because I no understand. No no - I can hear you over the headphones. Jus keep saying it. A lotta tines. K?"
Of course, as you can imagine it was amazingly effective. Because everybody knows that 3-year-olds respond incredibly well to lectures and diatribes in general. They are a very reasonable lot, those 3-year-olds. They obviously enjoy a good conceptual back-and-forth; a solid, lengthy give-and-take intellectual discussion that really gets to the heart of the matter; a tit-for-tat interchange that seeks the truth that binds us all together as 3-year-olds at heart, and that satisfies the soul with deep interpersonal reflection and contemplative spans of quiet recollection.
It is as effective as lecturing the dog on why a soiled diaper is not her best choice for nutrition or dental health.
But, it makes you feel like you're doing something about it, even though deep down you know it will make absolutely no difference - except that you are indirectly supporting the counseling industry 18 years from now, when what you have just said will be systematically dismantled by a certified professional.
So really, in a sense, bad parenting is a good thing. It's for the economy. And what's good for the economy, is good for America.
Not to mention, he's only 3, so technically I don't think that in the state of Oregon I can force him to be employed as his sister's bodyguard for room, board, and Thomas the Train pieces, but in the moment it seemed to make sense to me.
Like I said, Monumental
These examples are precisely why a date night can be considered monumental for us - we really needed the mental break, if nothing else to keep us from breathing life into the tyrants that we have the potential to become.
In fact, rather than just monumental, it might be more accurate to say our date night was monumentally Good for us.
In my opinion, given the need, getting a date night may call for a nice ceramic garden statue or some piece of public, permanent art commemorating the event.
But here's the best part: Our friend E., the one who watched the children for us, has volunteered to do so many more times in the near future (every other week to be precise). So the new statue, the Monument if you will, may very well be dedicated to our friend E. for saving us from ourselves.
Thanks to our imminent date nights, I may just survive yet. Although I have learned how to say, "Pants on please" in 13 languages so far.
Want to see it in sign language?
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Coming next: A review of our evening, including our impressions of Winestock (a local Oregon City wine bar).
