Check Up & Check In

Last week brought a reassuring sense of okay, of validation that the kids are doing really well overall. Libby had a dentist appointment and she was so brave and cooperative. I proudly watched her in the child-sized chair wearing leopard print sunglasses with her teeny little mouth cranked open liked she had practiced at home. The dentist praised her on brushing and flossing and being such a good patient. We were both pleased with ourselves as we left the office (her mostly pleased with her new ladybug lip gloss she plucked excitedly from the prize bucket like it was a winning lottery ticket).

And Isaac had his 6 year old doctor’s appointment. He was a particularly good sport as there was a nervous student nurse doing the things our familiar nurse normally does with grace and swiftness. It took a looooong time to get the blood pressure cuff on for instance and the one shot was an agonizing 1+ second instead of the lighting fast nano second that again, nurse Paige has perfected. But he did so well and he is chugging along precisely where he should be according to those grow charts. Today I was imagining out loud with him that a day will come when he’ll be taller than me and he looked up and smiled like I had told him a juicy secret.

And finally we had a conference with Libby’s teacher. She had such loving and positive things to say about our little preschooler. It was so satisfying to sit in a teeny chair and have this young woman tell us what we already know, that Libby has a kind heart and contagious joyfulness. I asked Libby how I got so lucky to have her as my little girl and she said, “Because you love me so much.” Indeed.

And just when it seemed everyone was blooming and sporting healthy gums, I was reminded that one person around here needed an appointment, a conference. My husband sat me down and laid it out for me. We have fallen into a rut, an everyday routine where we do a little dance around each other – me making dinner and him wrestling with the kids; him doing the weekly shopping one night, me going to a school meeting another night; us taking turns putting the kids to bed; me reading upstairs, him doing the taxes downstairs; me staying up much later than he does and him already gone by the time I am getting Isaac up for school.

It is so easy to fall into these patterns since becoming parents – a book I’m reading called life with small children an assault on a marriage. We aren’t arguing, we laugh, we exchange information so it didn’t occur to me that anything was wrong, but that doesn’t always mean it’s right either. I think there is a special intimacy that comes with that dance I mentioned but there is also a point where talking about a weird noise the car is making and when do you think you could get the tub chaulked isn’t exactly nurturing to a relationship. There’s a point when you need to reach out and actually dance right up close, touching. And kissing helps.