I have a daughter now. It still sounds strange to say. Every little girl pretends to have a baby. I am not a little girl anymore; I have a little girl. And my husband is a daddy.
What I have learned the most about having a baby - so far - is maintaining a marriage. So far I think we have gone through some lessons, learned from them and matured a little more each time. Steve and I have fought very little since we met almost five years ago. Since Amelia was born, we have fought more than we have in the last year and a half - which is not much, but still much more often than usual.
One time we had a fight while Amelia was crying. I told Steve no matter how big of a fight it is, I never want to fight while our kids are out of hand ever again. It makes things twenty times worse than they really are.
I do not know what it is about having a kid that makes fights more frequent, but in some ways it has been good. It has brought out new things about ourselves that neither of us realized were there - weather good or bad.
I think most of it has been for the better because I see us more in love than we ever have been. Maybe it is that we are becoming more real with each other. What other choice do we have? We need each other more than ever now because neither of us know how to raise a child. We cannot do it alone and not being vulnerable with each other is never going to help us help each other when raising our kids.
Dates mean so much more now. They are intentional and special. I cannot explain it, but dates are so much fun. It is like when we first met and started dating. We do not just go out spontaneously; we can't. We plan and prepare for it - like we would have if we were dating before we got married or even engaged.
And before we would have just gone to a movie or something. Now we have increased our dating budget and we have gone kayaking on the lake, gone to an improve theater, ate at a nicer restaurant and taken walks to burger joints and sat on the patio just watching people. Next I think we are going to the airport to get Starbucks and watch people again : ) We are getting creative, which is also fun.
We are beginning to see that a marriage is not just roses and butterflies. We are seeing it needs to be intentional and we are discovering that intentional does not mean the fun part of marriage is gone. It is so good.
On another note, having a baby has introduced more opportunities for interaction with our neighbors. People love new babies : ) Since then we have been planning a little cookout with the neighbors in our building. It is four apartments. We are excited to get deeper than "Hi how's it goin? How's your baby? What's her name again?" While friends from church are great who is close by when something happens in your life - whether big or small? Your neighbors. We want those people to know us and be concerned if something seems abnormal around our apartment. We want those people around for a cup of sugar or a way to spend a relaxed Friday night. There is bound to be someone home and not out partying or out to dinner and a movie.
We are going to start building that community around us with our cookout party.
Try it yourself and see what happens.
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