Little Parent on the Prairie
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stay united

9/1/2016

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Picture
Image Credit: Crista Ballard Photography
Originally published in the September 2016 edition of 605 Magazine

My husband and I recently celebrated our seven-year wedding anniversary. To commemorate, we simply ate an embarrassingly high-calorie meal and reminisced about our life together. During this rare uninterrupted conversation, we talked in length about one of our biggest challenges we have been facing while knee deep in baby-raising: Not turning on one other.


Last month, we were traveling (again) for a family event. The airline made a mistake and we weren’t allowed to sit together on a two-hour flight. We had two seats together and one a few rows up. By the nature of the children’s ages, it made more sense for me to take both kids and sit in the two seats together and for my husband to take the seat located a few rows up. As we settled in our seats, I immediately knew this minor seat debacle was going to escalate and be a major snag in our marital joy.


To kick things off, the flight attendant repeatedly visited our row and made sure I knew “I could not hand the baby off at any time during flight to the husband because my seat has the extra oxygen mask.” Ok, noted. She came back to also inform me the baby had to be facing forward during takeoff. Then she visited just one more time to make sure I also knew that my daughter would need to sit up for takeoff. She started to walk away and returned just to ask me if I knew that all of this was for “the safety of the children.” Also would I please push my purse forward one more inch to make sure it was completely under the seat?  My mouth agape, as that made four flight attendant visits in less than five minutes, I politely told her, “Yes. Thank you!” And shot my husband a look that clearly said – as wrong and unfounded as the accusation was –“This is ALL your fault.”


Then things really began to spiral.


My daughter had dropped her beloved stuffed animal under her chair and was begging me to get it. I awkwardly leaned over to try and grab it without crushing my baby on my lap all the while keeping him in the forward-facing posture for fear of further flight attendant rebuke. In this split second it took me to lean down strenuously – possibly tearing or pulling some muscle in my back  – my son had somewhere found a bottle of water, unscrewed it and unceremoniously dumped it all over the back of my person. (He won’t say “Mama” at his well checks for the doctor, but in an airplane apparently he is Houdini.) My hair, my back and my pants were immediately soaked through. I yelped and sat up straight, dropping the beloved stuffed animal in the process. Crying now, my daughter asked me to get it again. I tried again, unsuccessfully which was met with more weeping. All of this, 15 minutes into the flight.


Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I watched my husband take out his phone and slowly, without interruption, read the news. Having been served a nice beverage on his tray, he proceeded to put his beverage to his mouth and sip it leisurely. I then watched him set down this same drink, with no fear of anyone spilling it on his perfectly clean golf shorts mind you, and gently eat his bag of peanuts. Then, in disbelief, I witnessed him put his earphones in, recline his chair, cross his feet, and sigh a sigh of relaxation and snuggle down to watch a movie.  


Meanwhile in seats 20 A and B, all hell continued to break loose. There were dropped crackers, more spilled drinks, cries for daddy that went unanswered due to the aforementioned earphones, more sobbing, baby escape attempts, unscheduled potty breaks, and of course, more visits from the flight attendant.


And for some reason, as each minute of this nightmarish flight passed, I continued to make the very unstable case in my mind, that somehow this was indeed all my husband’s fault. Every time I saw him breathe a breath of relaxation, rage silently boiled inside of me. Did he purposefully book the seats apart? I know he can hear his daughter calling him. A SECOND bag of peanuts?!


I had turned on him. He was no longer my teammate. He was my sworn enemy. Everything stressful that was happening to me, I was taking out on him. At the height of the blinding rage, I envisioned myself, leaving the children unsupervised in their seats, with my clothes still soaking wet, ripping the ear phones out of his relaxed little ears and yelling “You’re watching a movie?! HELP ME!” to the stares of everyone on the plane. I’d really get it from the flight attendant then.


It was at that point that I believe God intervened. Because, it was just then that my husband took his earphones out and turned back and looked at me, smiled, and mouthed “What can I do?” And just like that, the (crazy unfounded) rage disintegrated. And in rage’s place, sanity began to creep back in. I began to remember how much he had done that day; all the selfless care for me and the children he had given. And all of a sudden, I was glad he was relaxing. He deserved it…Even if I did end up exiting the plane looking like I had visited a war-torn section of the aircraft.


Turning on each other is not an uncommon challenge. Pushed to the limits of exhaustion and stretched thin on many levels, parents sometimes, just sometimes, can forget that we are each other’s sole teammate, and we turn on each other as a survival mechanism. But in reality, when the inevitable stresses of life arise, the best survival mechanism we have is each other and the continual decision day by day to say “I’m with you.”

And as an added note, it also helps marital joy and morale if you make sure all your airplane seats are together.

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slowing down and giving thanks

11/1/2015

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Picture
Image courtesy Crista Ballard Photography 
Originally published in the November 2015 edition of 605 Magazine. 
​

We left on a jet plane. Unlike the song, we knew when we were coming back again. But, nonetheless, we left on a jet plane, to New York City, with two young children in tow. “Are we crazy?” we thought as we pulled into the parking lot at Sioux Falls Regional airport. Probably. But our bags were packed, we were ready to go. There was no turning back.
As we arrived at the airport, we unloaded our passel of belongings for a five-day trip — a stroller, a carseat, two large roller bags, three carry-ons, and as we would learn later, only about half of our brains. Huffing and puffing and burning off what felt like thousands of calories to get our little family of four and all our luggage on the move, we finally arrived ... at the ticket counter.

Whew. “Are we there yet?”

It was here at the ticket counter that we encountered a minor setback on our journey east. As we looked at our reservation, it appeared that we were not, in fact, leaving on a jet plane. We were leaving tomorrow. As in, we bought our tickets for the wrong day and there we were at the airport with all our bags and half of our brains. Parent fail.

We were meeting family in New York and already had our hotel reservations locked in. Arriving a day late would be a huge bummer and not to mention having to explain to our four-year-old her dreams of riding in an airplane that day were foiled. In a scramble, we tried to rebook and by the grace of God and an angel of Delta Airlines, we were able to snag a flight getting us in just two hours late. No big deal! Just more time for our preschooler to rub her face and hands all over every germ-laden seat in the airport, right?

Five hours and a used bottle of hand sanitizer later, we arrived in New York City.

We arrived near midnight and even after the long day’s travel, the beaming light of excitement could not be extinguished from our daughter’s face. As we traveled from the airport to the hotel, we could barely keep her in her seat as she gawked at the lit up skyscrapers and bridges. As we arrived at our hotel, she could not contain her glee as we let her press the number “32” in the elevator. When we arrived at our room, she squealed with delight as we showed her the tiny couch where she got to sleep.

When we woke up the next day, she looked down in wonder at the shockingly, sprawling city beneath her and screamed as she pointed out every last detail to us, the half-awake parents. Needless to say, the trip continued with equally excited wonderment. A taxi! A leaf! A rock! A building! A beautiful piece of TRASH! All laced with screams, jumps, and shrieking. As hilarious as every discovery of hers was, as a parent in the midst of it all, I will admit it was somewhat exhausting to keep up. I joked that I needed just ten minutes of silence staring at a wall to recover. And when I say ten minutes, what I really meant was two hours.

But, each night as we fell into bed exhausted from the adventures of the day; I stayed awake and replayed each and every thing that she sighted in gleeful delight. With every squeal, she made us see and experience vacation and the world in a whole different way. What we would normally do when visiting the city just didn’t feel as important anymore. Now, relishing every bite of a cupcake, craning my neck to take in a skyscraper, watching the mass of humanity walk by in wonder, hugging a lamppost, or spending several minutes admiring one fallen leaf were the new normal activities. And you know what? It all equated with making beautiful, lasting memories.

I suppose that is one of the greatest joys of parenting; the privilege of slowing down and  making memories together in the midst of adventure and discovery.
​

So, yes, we are still probably crazy for pushing our heavy, double stroller filled with children all over the busy, dirty streets of Manhattan. But, I don’t regret one second of it. I learned so much from my daughter that trip. And as we kick off this month where we think about giving thanks and being grateful, I want to take a page out of my daughter’s book and quit rushing around from destination to destination and taking for granted the wonderment this life has to offer. Rather, I want to feverishly celebrate, savor, and give thanks for every little discovery along the way.
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