Jealousy at My Children’s Laughter

Posted on October 1, 2010

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

As I was leaving the house this morning, I heard one thing above all else; the sound of my 6.5 year old children’s laughter. And I felt one thing in response.

Jealousy.

Here I was walking out the door to go to work and my wife and children are cuddling and laughing upstairs without me. It left me with a knot in my stomach.

What about me? A little voice in my head wondered. What about me?

The ironic aspect of all of this is that I was drained, utterly and completely wiped out (and probably why that little voice sounded louder than it normally would). I had spent much of my Labor Day weekend taking care of my little boy who was terribly ill with what turned out to be a nasty stomach virus. But first we had a scare that it was appendicitis, him writhing in pain with a fever, doubled over crying his little heart out.

I took him to the emergency room on Sunday and we spent four hours waiting between various tests and x-rays to find out that they just weren’t sure, but suspected it wasn’t appendicitis. As you parents know, the challenge of being in that situation is you want to be connected enough to your emotions to be there for your child, to be what he needs you to be, but you also need to be disconnected enough to not get scared and anxious yourself because he will feel that and feel the same way. It is a difficult balance and one that takes quite a bit out of me. Making sure he understood each test that was going to happen without getting him anxious about it. Making sure he had something to do (or a hand to squeeze) when the pain was bad or when he was scared. Trying to help him learn how hospitals and all of the tests work so the experience – and hospitals in general – wouldn’t be scary. For instance, the one thing he kept telling people about that day was that he got his first x-ray! He was real proud of that.

Keeping the balance in check was difficult because there were times when I just looked at him and felt the tears welling up. I was so proud of how he was handling the doctors and nurses, all of the different tests, everything, that every time I tried to tell him how proud I was I started to tear up and had to try to hold my emotions in check so as not to freak him out. My job was to keep him calm – not to get him agitated and overwhelmed.

And maybe that’s why the sound of their laughter felt more painful than joyful. I had just spent three days taking care of my boy at his worst, screaming in pain, doubled over and upset, frustrated and whiny, but my wife got him at his best, laughing and adorable.

I wanted some of that, too. Hopefully, when I get home I will have that chance.

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Do They Love Me?

Posted on September 1, 2010

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

You know that line from Fiddler on the Roof when he asks her after being married for 25 years??? “Do you love me?” They had an arranged marriage, but have been together so long they have grown to love each other. He knows it. She knows it. But he wants confirmation, he wants to put it on the table so to speak.

Lately, after 7.5 years in my life, I’ve been asking my twins if they love me, but for all of the wrong reasons and it is not working out so well for me…or them.

My kids do the same thing every night – or at least they are supposed to; eat dinner, take a shower, brush their teeth, put their clothes in the laundry, etc. And every single night they fight us on that – especially me it feels like. Inevitably, they start getting upset and crying and inevitably I get frustrated and start yelling, becoming the man and father I least want to be and most despise in myself.

I’ve been wondering why I am losing my patience so much. Certainly work is stressful, though much less so than it has been in the past year. I am not sleeping as much because I am waking up earlier to go bike riding, but shouldn’t exercising make me feel better? And our life is stressful, but no more so than it has been in the past several years. Basically, I don’t think I have a good excuse for behaving this way.

Except that I’m not really feeling like my children love me. My wife’s sister is staying with us and all of a sudden I feel like I’m ranked third or even fourth (sometimes they would rather be with themselves than with me) in my own house with my kids. Before I know it, they start acting out and I start getting so angry.

Even on the nights when I come home from work determined not to yell at them, something always seems to happen. It makes me feel so helpless, so hopeless, and I become so hateful of myself. Aren’t I a better man than this? I had always thought so.

Fundamentally, I think the problem is I don’t seem to feel loved by my on children. Maybe it is because my wife’s sister gets so much more attention and they would rather be with her than with me. Maybe it has a lot to do with my own childhood and not feeing loved there and it carrying over to my present – especially when you factor in Mother’s Day, one of the hardest days of the year for me because my own mother hasn’t talked to me in decades I can see how I would feel not loved and that when they pay less attention to me, it makes me feel less loved.

To make matters worse, when they behave badly it is confirmation to me that they don’t love me, that they don’t care about me. If they loved me, they would be behave better. If I loved them, I wouldn’t yell at them they way I do. It is becoming a vicious cycle with neither of us winning. If someone yelled at me frequently, I wouldn’t want to be with them either.

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Not When I Wear Dresses

Posted on August 1, 2010

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

This morning the Okapis woke up ridiculously early and I went upstairs to get them dressed and ready for school. I had already put Dorit’s tights and skirt on her and was putting her shirt on when Lucas said, “She’s going to look so beautiful.”

“She always looks beautiful doesn’t she?” I said.

“Except when I wear pants,” she responded.

It is so amazing how these things just pop up. Everything seems fine and then all of a sudden…

“Dorit you always look beautiful – even in pants. You’re beautiful without dresses, Dorit. You don’t need dresses to be beautiful.”

But I know she doesn’t believe me and this is why she gets so upset when she doesn’t get to wear a dress/skirt, I suspect (though the fact that she is immersed in the Tortuous Threes is also probably a factor).

Somehow us letting her wear dresses has fed this belief that she is only pretty if she wears them, that if she wears pants she is not pretty. Is she already experiencing the societal expectations of beauty? Are we somehow sending a message that makes her think she is only beautiful in dresses?

If we stop her from wearing dresses will we be punishing her and only make things worse?

One of my nicknames for both of my Okapis is Beautiful. I think they are both beautiful whether they are wearing dresses, pants, jeans, sweatpants, or pajamas. When she wears pants we shower her with extra compliments because we know it is a big deal when she wears them.

I know how important fathers are in girls developing high self-esteem and confidence, and a healthy self-image. I have been paying extra special attention to this and yet…she’s not even four and already thinks her beauty is dependent upon whether she wears a dress or not.

Before we went downstairs I tried one more thing.

“Does Mommy wear dresses?”

“No,” she said.

“Is Mommy beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“Mommy is beautiful and she doesn’t always wear dresses. You are beautiful without dresses, too.”

I feel like that had some impact, but I think I’m going to need to come up with something else to help her really believe me.

Because my little girl is gorgeous.

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Codeword Strawberry

Posted on July 1, 2010

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

I can’t explain how frustrated my wife and I were with our 6.5 year old daughter. It was a feeling of helplessness like I had never known before. Her…I don’t even know what to call them they were so beyond tantrums. It was almost like she had a mental breakdown and she just became this screaming, yelling, out of control being. And once she started there was no way to stop her or bring here back from the ledge. Gem and I were exhausted, drained, and losing hope.

We tried so many different things. We gave her timeouts. We took away privileges and toys and books, anything we could think of that she likes. We tried to reward her good behavior with treats and toys. Nothing really worked. We tried to cut her off at the pass, to prevent her from “losing it” but that worked inconsistently at best and was exhausting. We tried teaching her about her emotions, about “articulating” (a word she really enjoys saying), and while that had potential it also came up short.

After a particularly terrible couple of days when her behavior escalated to “losing it” for the first time in front of friends we had over, we sat down with Dorit and had a little chat. I’m extremely fortunate in that I have a very special connection with my little girl; she is truly a Daddy’s girl and I love pretty much every minute of it. We have always been able to communicate – especially about complicated emotions. But I had no idea she could communicate enough to help us help her.

‘Sweetie Girl, what’s going on with you?” I asked trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

“Daddy, I just have to let it out,” she said simply. And I knew we were on to something.

My little girl’s emotions were utterly and completely overwhelming her – especially when she wasn’t getting what she wanted. Essentially, her emotions were so powerful and had out-developed her development of tools to manage them. When they overwhelmed her, she lost all control. What we needed was to help her be aware at the moment she felt that churning of emotions inside of her and to give her something to articulate easily and quickly.

“You know what we need, Sweetie Girl? We need a codeword.”

Her twin brother went through something similar awhile ago and we gave him a codeword to tell us when he started getting upset, but before he threw a tantrum. It worked and he doesn’t even need to use it anymore. If Dorit had a codeword, a single word she could say out loud to let us know her emotions were getting the better of her, than we could help talk her down from the ledge. In the process, she would hopefully learn to be more aware of her emotions and learn how to deal with them in a healthier way.

After I explained to her my idea, I asked her what codeword would she want to use.

“Codeword Strawberry!” Since strawberries are her favorite food that actually made a lot of sense.

Dorit has been using Codeword Strawberry for over a week now. I asked her last night how it was going and she said, “It has changed MY LIFE!” in that lovingly melodramatic way she has. When I relayed that to my wife, she readily agreed. It has changed all of our lives.

When my little girl starts to get all caught up in her emotions, she almost always says “Codeword Strawberry!” to alert us that she is getting upset. Sometimes that alone, sharing her sense of being overwhelmed with us, is enough to help calm her down. Sometimes we have to talk to her and help her talk about her feelings. Sometimes we just give her a hug. Sometimes we just distract her and she relaxes. If she doesn’t remember to use it, either my wife and I reminds her, but even her brother has jumped in to say, “Codeword Strawberry, Dorit. Codeword Strawberry.” Amazing how two words can empower us all.

Now we have had many more days without her outbursts than with them and all of us feel something we haven’t felt in awhile….Hope.

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Sharing His Woobie With Me

Posted on June 1, 2010

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

“Like this, Daddy,” Lucas explained to me.

We were sitting on his bed and our heads were close together, looking at his woobie, a little bear with a small blue blanket attached to it. Then he took his woobie, and folded it over his finger so the satin band that wraps around the edge of his woobie was all that showed. The moment was so intimate, I feel like I need to write in a whisper.

Then he rubbed it against my lips, the way I have seen him do it so many times to himself.

“Feels nice,” I told him.

“Or you could put it here,” and he rubbed it against my forehead.

There’s a certain joy he seemed to feel showing this to me and I think I know why. His showing me what he does with his woobie is his way of showing me how he copes at night, how he deals with the dark when he can’t sleep, but doesn’t want to wake us up.

It is a sense of accomplishment, “Look what I did, Daddy.”

But I am slightly disturbed by the whole experience.

On the one hand, I think it is wonderful that he has taken the tools we’ve tried to give him and adapted them to what he needs. It is not just the woobie that makes him feel better, it is the feel of the satin rubbing against his skin. I also suspect it is not only the feel of the satin that feels good, but that the repetition of rubbing it against his skin that must also help calm him down, to relax him a bit so he can more easily fall back asleep.

On the other hand, Dorit doesn’t have anything like this. She does not have any coping techniques to deal with the night, because she is not scared by it. But he is and seeing him teach me, share with me how he uses his woobie to feel better, gives me a vision of him lying in bed, late at night, in the not so dark, but still too dark of his room, looking up at the ceiling, not wanting to bother us, rubbing his woobie against his lips to try not to feel so scared, hoping he will fall asleep soon.

He is that way because of my genes, because of my family traditions, and I wish I could make it so he never had to deal with it at all. But I have to console myself with the belief that though I can’t remove the anxiety from his life, I have done enough to help him live with it. He does go to sleep at night for the most part without any trouble thanks to his woobie, his Happy Thoughts and All The People That Love him. He sleeps through the night most of the time for the same reasons.

Still, I wish there was more I could do.

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Somehow This Was Forgotten In Parenting Class

Posted on May 1, 2010

By Jeremy G. SChneider, MFT

I have been sick (yeah, sick enough not even to write) and knew I was starting to feel better when for the first time in a week, a post began to write itself in my head last night. Lately, I have been thinking more and more about the benefits of being a parent – especially a father – because so many men only hear about the negative effects of becoming a father without hearing the positive ones, the little moments that make being a parents so special. Unfortunately, the last couple of nights we experienced one of those moments of parenting that makes it so difficult. We listened to Lucas cough and cough and cough.

He has been fighting the tail end of a cold for several weeks it seems like. If it wasn’t for the cough, he seems perfectly healthy – no fever, no congestion, no aches and pains. He has been running around and having a great time – except for the cough that won’t go away. Frustratingly, in the past couple of days the cough has gotten worse – even though he still seems to feel fine. But it means he has been having a lot of trouble sleeping. This for a boy who doesn’t, under the best of circumstances, like sleeping in the first place.

We’ve been drugging him up at night the best we can; we’ve been giving him prescribed cough syrup with decongestant. But his cough has been getting worse at night and, of course, if he has trouble sleeping, we have trouble sleeping. The lack of sleep also worries us that he could get more sick and is also causing Dorit to have less sleep, making her more susceptible to catching something herself. The constant cough also means we are nebbying (nebulizing) him 3-4 times a day, which is no fun for any of us.

Last night, his coughing woke him up again and after I had given him more cough syrup and some Benadryl, Gem and I laid in bed listening to him cough.

“Poor little boy.”

The thing is, he has been such a trooper about the whole thing. He hasn’t fought us on taking any of the medicine or all of the nebbys. He isn’t even complaining about the fact that he is coughing so much. I am certain his throat is starting to hurt because his cough is ripping it up, yet he is not complaining. He has been going about his day the best he can and trying to get as much sleep as his cough will let him. One night earlier this week, he was coughing so bad, I went in to check on him, but he was completely asleep. He was coughing but somehow it hadn’t woken him up.

Hack hack.

“Maybe I should lie down with him,” Gem suggested.

But when we’re in the room with him, he gets distracted and doesn’t sleep as well. She knows that. I know that. But we’re desperate to do something, anything, that feels like it would help him.

Lying in bed, listening to your child cough and cough, hack and hack, knowing he needs sleep, knowing his sister across the room needs sleep, knowing we’ve done everything we can for him and we just have to wait for the medicine to kick in enough to knock him out, is one of the most helpless and frustrating feelings known to humankind.

I know it is so difficult for us parents because we love our children so much and that is such a wonderful thing about becoming a parent – realizing that you can have so much love for someone so small while your love only seems to grow as they do.

But there are moments, like last night listening to him struggle with trying to go to sleep while coughing, that the powerful love we feel foments into frustration and helplessness.

I think that is something all non-parents can probably wait to find out on their own.

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Not Going To Be Like Me

Posted on April 1, 2010

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

Do you remember the scene in Forrest Gump where he finds out he has a son? Jenny tells him that is his son looking at the TV in the other room and his first thought is

“Is…Is he like me?”

“No, he’s just fine,” she tells him. And he starts to cry.

That part KILLS me every time I watch that movie, which I try not to do because…that part KILLS me. The awareness that something is not right about him and he doesn’t want his own son to have to deal with all he has dealt with…well, I know that feeling.

I write about my son much more than I write about my daughter. It is not because I love him more than I love her or even vice versa. I write about him more because I worry about my connection to him, my role with, my ability to be his dad much more than I do with Dorit. The issues with him challenge me more deeply than the issues with her and I tend to write about the things that most affect me.

Ever since my Okapis were born, it has been clear that he is SO much like me, while Dorit is much more like her mother. Both Gem and I could easily see me as a child when we looked at him, wondering if that was what I was like at his age, wondering how hard it must have been for me to be like that, to be so anxious, lacking in confidence, so easily upset and scared AND to go through all I did. With Lucas, we hoped to lead or gently nudge him down a different path, but worried about how there was much of me (in fairness to myself, I mean the negative aspects of myself I struggle with) that was already hard-wired in him.

Today Gem had a meeting with the Okapis’ teachers and it went very well. Our Okapis are doing extraordinarily well, are meeting all of their development expectations and are excelling in many ways. Plus, the teachers love them and are very happy to have them in their class. They went on to add that while both of them are pretty smart, Lucas is actually very intelligent and we were both pleasantly surprised at that.

Dorit has always demonstrated her intelligence more than Lucas has and so it has been easier to see with her. I wrote last week that Lucas has been talking a lot more lately and while Gem and I were discussing it on the phone today, I said to her he hasn’t been talking more because of some newfound verbal skills.

“He’s talking more because he’s more confident.”

And I started to cry, right in the middle of my cube, for the same exact reason Forrest cried when Jenny tells him his son is just fine.

He’s not going to be like me.

My little boy is gaining more and more confidence in himself and what he can do. We really are making a difference, helping him to break through his genetic restraints and he is blossoming.

I’m probably too neurotic to stop worrying about this forever, but for the first time, I believe, I can see, with my own eyes, by sharing my genes with my son, I have not doomed him to a life of struggle like mine has been.

The relief I feel is immense. My boy will be different, will have the chances he deserves, is entitled to. Even better what we’re doing, what I’m doing, is helping to make that difference.

Thank God.

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Laughter Like A Magical Healing Potion

Posted on January 2, 2010

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

Somehow, I managed to once again survive the day and night. I spent the whole day on the verge of tears, feeling on the edge of another terrible flashback, moments away from a crying binge that I didn’t want to happen in front of my colleagues at work. People noticed I wasn’t my usual self, but what was I going to tell them? “Just read my blog?” I don’t think so. But I listened to music, ate a chocolate croissant and a couple of big chocolate chip cookies (chocolate is almost always the key to surviving days like this) and I made it – despite the terrible nausea and anxiety gnawing at me all day long. When Gem picked me up at the train station, I we hugged and I never wanted to let go. I have never felt safer in my entire life than I do when I am in her arms.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Gem went to Yoga and there was a school meeting she went to so it was Los Tres Amigos time with the Okapis. We ended up going to McDonald’s where they had the Chicken McNuggets Kids’ Meal and I couldn’t eat anything at all. Thankfully, they ate pretty well and I had already decided that last night was a good night to be a bit more lenient than I am normally. No reason to get myself more upset than I already was – especially since when I’m like that I have no patience whatsoever. We had a nice chat and they behaved very well. At one point during dinner, Dorit – who seems like she has been missing her daddy the past couple of days – got down from the table and came over to give me a hug.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, Sweetie Girl.”

I held onto her for as long as she would hold me and when I looked up there was an older man sitting in the table behind us. He smiled at me, having seen my moment with my little girl – even though he had no understanding of what it felt like to feel pure love at that moment in my life.

The rest of the night also went smoothly though I just didn’t have the heart to fight with them to brush their teeth so we skipped it.

Because we were early, I picked two pretty long books to read them since we had the time. We read Three Little Pigs for first time, which was pretty interesting (that Goldilocks was just not a nice person – definitely did not use her manners and etiquette). Then we read Cat in the Hat (for those who don’t already know, I’m a big Dr. Seuss fan) and somehow I felt able to act out the different voices for the Cat, the Fish and the little boy, which obviously makes the experience much more enjoyable for my Okapis (for me, too, even though I constantly change the style of voice because I forget what I was doing). Those two books were almost 20 minutes combined and they were captivated. It was quite awesome.

Then I tickled them and tickled them. And then tickled them some more. Their laughter was like a magical healing lotion, covering my body with good feelings, with love, seeping into my soul where it has been so dark for far too long. After I read them Paddington Bear, I tickled them some more and they enjoyed it so much that they would roll away and then come closer and kind of lay there until I tickled them again.

It was truly a wonderful way to end my day.

As I was tucking them in and going through their Happy Thoughts, Lucas started his “And Daddy?” routine again and I couldn’t take it. Despite how positive the evening had been, I was not in position to go through this again.

“Lucas,” I said, trying not to yell at him. “I’m not going to play this game with you. I can’t do it. You want me to be nice to you, but then you only get more upset until I have to be not nice and I don’t want to be not nice to you, Lucas. I really don’t. Can we just be nice to each other and you fall asleep?” I don’t know if he heard the desperation in my voice or saw the tears welling up in my eyes, but he responded by saying,

“And Daddy?”

When I looked at him again, he blew me a kiss and then put his head back down on the pillow.

I blew him a kiss right back and walked out the door. They both slept all night long and were still sleeping when I left to catch my train this morning.

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Just Not Enough Time

Posted on December 1, 2009

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

Gem has just taken our Okapis up to bed and I can not get the following words out of my head, “Not enough time.”

There is not enough time for my family.

There is not enough time for Gem to do all she needs/wants to do.

There is not enough time for me to hold a full-time job while building a business and still be the kind of father I want to be while trying to take care of my mental health at the same time.

But we can handle that. The problem is the lack of time is now affecting our Okapis.

There is not enough time in the day for our Okapis to go to school and still get enough time with Gem so they still feel safe and secure in their attachment to her. This is why she is taking them up to bed instead of me. To give them more time with her.

Of course, that means I get even less time with them. But, though I’m not sure she would admit this to me, we both believe if they are missing time with her and they are missing time with me, it is more important that they get time with her. So much of their sense of safety, sense of security, sense of connection, sense of self is based on their relationship with the woman who has spent literally almost all of their lives with them.

Now with school, Spanish class, gymnastics, and ballet, they don’t get enough of Mommy. Lucas, as a result we think, is having more nightmares, more anxiety about going to sleep at night, more anxiety about going to school and to gymnastics class by himself. It seems the flimsier his sense of connection to Gem is, the more afraid and anxious he feels.

I’d like to think his reaction is normal, though it is a bit frustrating because we know he can do it even when he stops trying. But it seems too early for our Okapis to begin feeling the pressure of time, the stress of time. What happened to childhood? What happened to their sense of freedom?

Maybe we’re doing too much. I’m not sure. We really want them to learn Spanish and the idea behind having them each take a class by themselves is to help foster a sense of self separate from the other and to give Gem some one-on-one time with the one who is not in class. We even thought that would help “make up” for the lack of time because of school. But maybe all we’re doing is adding stress – at least for Lucas. And this begs the question all parents of multiples worry about.

“What does it mean if he doesn’t have his own class and she does?”

What if we stopped taking him to his class, told him it was over and that we would enroll him in the next one (so he didn’t think he had “quit”)? Even though Dorit kept going to her class?

I don’t know. But I do feel like this is one of those parenting situations where it may be time to adjust our plan because it might be causing more trouble than the benefits we had hoped it would create.

I believe our Okapis – all Okapis – should be protected from the stress and strain of time for as long as possible. When they get older and really are forced to deal with that stress and strain, we’ll help them develop tools to deal with it, but I would like to postpone that for as long as possible. They’ll have a whole lifetime to deal with this challenge, there is no need to rush them into it.

I think this is an example of something we tried to help him is causing more harm than good. It’s time to cut our losses – and his – and adjust.

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Maybe It’s Time For Special Mommy Days?

Posted on November 1, 2009

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

“Okay guys, it’s time to get ready for bed,” one of us says.

“Is Mommy going to take us?” one of the Okapis has begun asking.

“Is it night time? Who takes you to bed at night?” one of us responds.

“But we want Mommy!!” They cry out in unison as if they had planned it earlier in the day.

“You know Daddy takes you to bed at night. I already took you to bed today,” Gem will say.

“But we really, really, really, want Mommy to take us!” the boy will respond in his most desperate pleading voice as if me taking them to bed is akin to certain kinds of torture outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

Why do they not want me anymore? I can’t help but wonder.

This is not the first time I have been through this. Heck, it is not even the second or third time, sadly. In fact, you can read about several of those other times if you want (Part-time Daddy, Second Fiddle, Mommy Do It!). But this is different – even if the pain still feels the same.

It is clearer to me than it ever was before that this is not about me. In the past, when my Okapis have been like this it has been more like a test, a challenge to see if I was really up to the task of being their Daddy (thus why I call it the “Mommy Do It Test!”). Could I do the job as well, if differently, from Mommy? With my constant absence they needed to know if I would stick around when things got rough and when I did, the “Mommy Do Its” disappeared. Now they are back, but not because of something I have done or not done. They are back because they miss their Mommy.

Our Okapis started camp a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden, after having spent 3.5 years with Mommy and only Mommy, three hours a day, three days a week they are without her and they miss her (who wouldn’t really?). They already have to leave her three mornings a week and then to have to “leave” her again at night (when they go upstairs with me) is too much for them. This is, I believe, where their calling out for Mommy stems from.

One of the things to help them deal with camp and the three days a week concept was to explain that they have a four-day weekend. They know I have a (ridiculously measly) two-day weekend where I don’t have to go to work. Now they have a four-day weekend where they don’t go to camp. I’ve started referring to the Mondays and Fridays that they don’t go to camp as Special Mommy Days – days where they get Mommy all to themselves. Actually, when I told them about it last night they immediately started to feel better (I know, I know, marketing is 75% of parenting, that’s what I’m saying). This way their extra long weekend includes two Special Mommy Days (of course, when they start pre-school in the Fall they will lose one of those days, but we’ll worry about that then). Gem and I have also started trying to figure out if maybe she should put them to bed on Mondays and Fridays (to end Special Mommy Days) or Sundays and Thursdays (to start Special Mommy Days – we are Jewish after all and days begin at sundown the night before in Judaism). Thankfully, my wife understands how important taking them to bed is for me and my relationship with them and she doesn’t want to upset that in any way. It certainly makes it easier to balance all of the competing issues – their needs, her needs and my needs – particularly my losing the only special time I have with them.

Right now I put them to bed at least 6 nights a week and several of those nights can be very challenging to say the least. But last week, Gem put them to bed on Sunday night. When I put them to bed the following night, there was a sense of excitement in them, a pleasure at having Daddy take them to bed again, as if the one night respite renewed their appreciation for me guiding them through our nightly ritual.

Before I was a father, I had no idea how complicated it is being a parent. Just when we get into a routine, we realize that we need to make adjustments so it better meets their needs (or ours). Constantly having our feelers, our sensors monitoring how they are doing, how we are doing and then determining what our sensors are picking up (an aberration? a bad day? something more than that?) assessing if/how we need to handle it and then figuring out a solution if necessary. No wonder parenting is so exhausting.

If we make our adjustments and I end up losing a couple of nights with my Okapis, but the nights I do have become more special, more intimate, that’s totally something I can handle.

Especially if it means they feel better connected to both of us.

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