Baby and Marriage Snapshots & Lessons Learned

The other night, at 4:30 a.m., Nathaniel awakens. It’s pitch dark in the master bedroom, and I deliberately do not turn on the lights in hope that Nathaniel will fall back asleep. Instead, for a good 45 minutes, even though I’m crouched silently at the edge of the bed (so he doesn’t notice I’m there—because any sight of me will make him cry for milk), I listen to him suck his hands, excitedly kick his feet, and talk. Yes, talk (night time is usually completely quiet in the bedroom unless Nathaniel wants milk—never is it play time). And he talks loudly. And since he can’t see me in the darkness, or anything else for that matter, I have to wonder what he’s thinking all that time when he’s making all sorts of sounds. Normally, I would have been more stressed by his waking, but I found myself attentive and amused.

Even worse (grin), I decided to turn my “lemon” moment into “lemonade.” Nathaniel manages to turn his body all around, 90 degrees so that his feet are now kicking my back. I wind up edging myself closer to the bottom his feet, and I get a good twenty-minute massage out of it (he kicks pretty hard). After 45 minutes, when he finally starts to whine, I turn on the lights. I LOVE it. His big eyes gaze into mine. Blink. Blink. Smile. I melt. Okay—let’s not follow the rules of the baby care books tonight (no social interaction with the baby in the nighttime)—at 5:15 a.m., I’m talking back to the baby and tickling him, and having fun with him until six in the morning. Luckily, we sleep in that morning until eleven.

At the moment, I’m also breaking another rule. He’s sleeping on my lap right now (his fingers are twitching while he’s sleeping, it’s so cute). I know I should be hoisting him up and putting him in his crib and letting him cry until he takes his morning nap in his crib—but this morning, I don’t feel like doing that to him. I guess my mood changes from day to day. Sometimes I’m totally fine with disciplining him, and on some days, I can’t help but indulge him a little (often, this has a strong correlation to the amount of energy I have and how much I slept the night before).


Lee said something sweet to me the other night. During dinner, as I was serving him Beef, Potatoes and Carrots in Coconut Curry Sauce on Rice, he comments, “I have my chef back.” I smile. Month three was when I began to cook regularly again. I learned to split up my dinner preparation throughout the day to minimize Nathaniel’s crying (yes, he cries still every time I put him down to do household chores). First window: Wash and chop up vegetables. Second window: Marinade the meat. Third window: Cook rice, fill pots with water or what not. Fourth Window: Put dishes in dishwasher. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Now that I’m sleeping more, I’m back to taking joy in making Lee a nice, welcoming dinner. I know he works hard during the day, and I imagine it’s a great relief when he comes home and is greeted by the aroma of food cooking on the stove, slow cooker or oven. On my lazy days, of course, I’ve got frozen M & M’s in the freezer, frozen dumplings with instant noodles, or marinated meat for Lee to cook on the barbeque.

I heard a sermon in chapel last spring about the importance of looking for evidences of grace in our brothers and sisters. I have to remind myself quite often to do so with the husband. Sometimes, without knowing it, I wind up spending more time telling Lee what he should or shouldn’t do instead of raising him up. (The most popular phrase since Nathaniel came into the picture, “Shhhh… quiet, the baby’s sleeping!” It gets frustrating for the husband at times because he complains that it’s impossible to stay completely quiet all the time. Then I get frustrated at times because it takes so much effort to put a baby to sleep.) Of course, he says, now and then, he finds that I nag him, and I say, in my defense, that it’s “not” nagging, because if he remembered to do _______ (INSERT TASK) the first time around, there wouldn’t be any need to tell him again.

With a baby in the picture now, the frequency and need for both he and I to tell each other what to do (i.e., regarding household chores, errands to run, budget concerns, etc.) has increased—but we’ve learned better how to communicate to one another over the past several months—we express our wishes with much more courtesy, and have also learned to withhold our grievances when we realize it’s really not necessary to utter them.

During the first two months, for example, when Lee returned to work after two weeks of vacation, I became much more in tune with Nathaniel’s habits. Then, when Lee came home from work and I handed Nathaniel to him (while I began cooking dinner), I would hear Nathaniel crying and fussing. Lee would do his best to do this and that, but initially, at times, it was to no avail. During those months, here and there, I would give Lee specific instructions, thinking I was helping him (i.e., “No, hold him this way, not that way—he doesn’t like that,” or, “Don’t let him look at the television,” “Don’t diaper him too tightly,” etc.), until it came to the point when Lee snapped at me one night, “Stop criticizing me with everything I’m doing with the baby.” Then he had marched out of the room with Nathaniel in his arms.

I was upset at first, because I felt my intentions were good. But it was then that I had to learn to give my husband the freedom to learn for himself how to take care of Nathaniel. Now that Nathaniel is four months old, I realize even more the benefit of doing so. There is a special bond that Lee is capable of developing with Nathaniel that I cannot. First: a lot of the time, all I remind Nathaniel of is that I’m his source of food. Second: Lee can play with him in ways I cannot. I notice during his play with Nathaniel, that he’s a lot more “rough” with Nathaniel (at first, this scared me and I would keep telling Lee to be more gentle with him), but then I realized that it didn’t really bother Nathaniel (it bothered me more than it bothered him). Having learned this fact, I’m enjoying watching Father and Son play together a lot more. This was one of the crucial lessons that I learned these past months: keeping silent, learning to relax, letting the husband be his own when with his son. Since then, the doors have opened between he and Nathaniel—there are things that Lee does that makes Nathaniel laugh which I can’t do—and it’s that very fact that makes me enjoy watching them so much. (I'm in the middle of reading Dr. James Dobson's Bringing up Boys, which discusses the Father and Son relationship... more on this book when I'm done.)

Last night, as Nathaniel and I retired to bed at 9:30 p.m., I say good night to my husband. I say sweetly to him, “Can I get a hand massage before I go to sleep?” My husband, then says, “Say something nice about me first” (he likes to say that playfully to me whenever I ask him for services such as these), so I say, in an equally playful manner, “You’re really good-looking.” He shakes his head. “No, that’s not genuine. I want something genuine.” “Okay, okay,” I pause, and think about it. Then I say, “I’ve noticed in the past two weeks, you’ve grown a lot more patient.” When he begins massaging my hand, I know that he deems my statement genuine.