Breakfast Dates

Well, perhaps Breakfast Meetings is a more appropriate phrase.

Maybe this isn’t a practical idea for you and your spouse, but maybe it is.  Maybe it would be worth it to you.  It has become invaluable to us.  We get up together, make breakfast–usually just toast (for me) and a protein shake (for Shahram) and coffee.  We sit down at the kitchen table, across from each other.  This, now, is more developed than when I wrote about it last time.  Now, we talk about our business ideas, plans, what we’ve done for the business since the previous day and we actually accomplish a lot.  It’s a great start to the day for us and on those days we miss it because the baby wakes early or I sleep late from being up till the middle of the night watching LOST, we really do feel it.  For us, this business isn’t just about having a business, it’s something new we’re doing together.  If you don’t have a business with your spouse, and I’m betting most of you don’t, you have a world of other things to talk about, plan about, dream about together.  Even going over the day’s necessities would be a great activity to make sure you’re both aware of the other’s schedule and the children’s.

Another reason breakfast meetings are nice is that they occur before all the mind-clutter enters your day.  I’ve found that it’s much more cumbersome having conversations about the future at the end of the day than the beginning.  By the day’s end, I’m tired, Shahram’s tired and the kids are past their peak energy,  and often more needy, especially the baby.  And yes, the kids are awake then.  The breakfast meeting accomplishes connection, excitement, and nourishment.  It’s a great time to find out what your spouse needs from you to be supportive of him or her that day.  This is something new I’m thinking about.  I’ve seen it several times lately… How can *I* support *you* today?  I like it.  I feel good knowing I can help and exactly what’s needed of me.  I’ll write more on that in another blog.

For now, give it a try.  Arrange a breakfast date with your spouse.  Try it out for a few days.  How does it feel?  Do you feel closer at the end of the day?  I do.  In fact, the breakfast meeting makes me feel more loving all day. Since we’ve been having them, I’m more inclined to cook lunch for the family and to take lunch to Shahram.  And it truly is with a loving heart.  So, give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Getting to Know You

Isn’t it amazing how long you can know a person and not really know their favorite things?  I’ve always made it a point to know my friends’ favorite things and I hope my friends know mine.  However, between my mate and I, it seems we’re just getting to know each other.  Hey, better late than never. 

More than knowing ones favorite things, being a best friend and lover you should know your mate’s dislikes and avoid them when possible.  If you know she loves silver, don’t buy her a gold watch.  If you don’t know what your wife likes or doesn’t like, ask her.  Make a long list of everything you really should know about her and present it to her.  Tell her it would be an honor for you to have all that information because you want to know her deeply and better than anyone else.  Make your wife her own personal slam book.

Remember slam books?  A notebook filled with pages and pages and pages of questions, usually requiring only one word answers.  Make a notebook and label it, “All About My Wonderful Wife/Husband.”  You could even make the book together.  Make a page asking about favorite foods, favorite dishes, favorite fruits, favorite ice cream, brand of chocolate, coffee drink, soda… everything you can think of.  Ask for her sizes.  Yeah, you can’t buy her clothing if you don’t know her size.  And if you’re going to be intimate, you should be able to know those things, too.  And all through this “slam” book, find out everything you can about her/him.  Ask her what she’d rather have–a candle-lit dinner, or a picnic.  Ask about her fantasy vacation.  Ask her everything… and remember the dislikes.  You’ll want to avoid them. 

When s/he gives you the book back or you complete the book together, read the answers and really remember them.  Make them be a part of her/him in your thoughts.  This is a really good thing to do.  I’m going to do it for Valentine’s Day, when, actually we do not have a date scheduled. 

Do you think you’ll do it?  (You can do the same thing for your kids.)

Terms of Endearment

There’s something about someone telling you they love you, right?  Especially when it’s someone you love very much.  When your children say, “I love you, Daddy.”  When you’re parents say, “I love you, Sweetheart.”  Maybe I’m funny, but I want to hear my name when Shahram tells me he loves me.  He just started doing it after 9 years of us being together.  It gives me thrill every time.  He calls me honey through the day, but when he tells me he loves me and uses my name, I feel it.  It’s not just something to say when he’s getting off the phone with me, like it used to be.  I know he’s feeling it, and he’s giving it to me when he says, “I love you, Nichole.” 

I think he started doing this when, indeed, he was on the phone and told me he loved me.  I said, “I love you, too, Shahram.”  I felt it and there was a softness there.  He felt it and said, “I love you, Nichole.”  It was very good.  I could hardly wait until he got home.  Now he adds a very nice look when he says it, and I’m feeling it.

I’m not so much into terms of endearment.  They seem meaningless or for children, or for people who forget your name.  I do enjoy some, like jaan, beautiful, darling, and pretty much anything Shahram says in Farsi, but when he tells me he loves me, I really want to hear my name.  How about you?

Advice that Doesn’t Work

If you’re anything like me, you subscribe to a lot of daily emails about marriage, about prosperity, self-improvement diatribe.  Some of the advice works, but some just doesn’t.  When I read something I know right away if it will work.  I know if it will last more than a day and if it’s going to feel like a chore.  Notice this chore thing I keep bringing up?  We have too many chores in our lives–our marriage and its health shouldn’t be one, but it must be a commitment.  It must be full of love.  These little “promises” to spend 15 minutes a day together gazing into each other’s eyes, or talking deeply about our relationship.  Doing mini intimacy practice for 2 minutes and rating each other’s success in listening skills.  Those things just don’t work.  It won’t last, at least not for more than a day or two and then something will interrupt it–most likely, the kids.

What does work?  Dating!  Make those dates.  Don’t just say you’ll do it.  Get the calendar out and schedule them.  You need not write more than Date Night on the dates you want to have your outing with your life partner, but get it down.  Once it’s on the calendar, it’s going to happen.  You need it to happen. 

Kids are hard on a marriage and they’re even harder on a second or third marriage.  You pledged to love, honor and cherish your husband, wife, or life partner forever… it’s hard, really hard to do that without spending any time together other than passing each other on the way to your kids’ events or on the stairs moving laundry and heading to mow the grass. 

Take this advice!  It works.  Schedule your dates and you won’t regret it. 

Now… when is your next date?  Ours is Friday, January 29th, and we have the 29th of every month scheduled for the whole year because that’s the day we got married.  After that?  February 11th, just because it fits in nicely with our schedule.  You can, of course, cancel your date or reschedule/post pone your date, but that takes communication.  If you’re going to do it, go for the reschedule in lieu of the cancellation.  You’ll be so happy you did. 

Within the first 4 months, I know you’ll know your wife or husband better and feel closer than you have in a very long time.

Getting Over the Awkward

Seeing as how our last date was awkward, we’re looking forward to this next one being less so.  We’ve done a few things to start feeling more comfortable around each other.  The past three years have been difficult–not completely, but we’ve bounced back from a lot.  Though, up to now, only a few people knew that Shahram and I went through a separation during my pregnancy, we both feel like this was actually a successful one.  Most separations, it seems, end in divorce, but ours did not.  Shahram returned home after being out of the house for three months and was here for the last 4 months of the pregnancy.  We understand the value of what we have gone through.  It wasn’t immediately fabulous once we got back together either, but that is an entry for another time. 

When you live with someone who you don’t sleep with, which is the case in our family due to sleep problems, and there’s a new baby in the house, a preteen in the house and you home school, well… the marriage suffers, the relationship suffers unless you make it a point to avoid that very thing.  I feel the main thing that lead us to the separation was our focus on our child.  I think a mother feels obligated, and rightly so, to let the new husband know that the child will always come first.  I actually think this is a huge, indeed colossal, mistake. 

When I was a child, my Aunt Gail told me that love is a choice, and happy parents make happy children–not the other way around.  I didn’t listen.  I think, also, that Shahram never felt like he could ask to come first because of holding the bond between my first-born child and me up as sacred.  I know that I withheld love from him because I thought there was only a limited supply, but giving more love to him only makes more love for the kids.  But where was I going with this?  Yes, to feeling like work.

So as our date was awkward, and slightly disappointing, we decided to add kissing into our lives again.  We just didn’t make time for it before.  We both feel more comfortable around each other now.  We both feel more like friends and lovers and not just roommates trying to get our kids through the day.  Since our date we’ve also talked at length, and many times, about what we’ll do for our next date.  Dinner and a movie isn’t the best thing to do with your free time together, though it can certainly be fun.  We’ve come up with a few ideas that we’re excited about and really looking forward to and they are spawning more ideas.  We talk about this stuff frequently now and it’s fun. 

We’ve talked about renting a hotel room with a DVD player and watching LOST while having room service or a picnic on the bed, and lying together–with an alarm clock, of course so we can get home by 11.  Another thing we’re planning is having our arms and hands done in henna, a design that is complete when our hands or arms are touching.  We’re also going to learn new things together, maybe take a dance class.  We’re becoming the best friends we’ve always wanted to be. 

I don’t think awkward is going to play a part in our next date. It’s on Friday, and I can hardly wait.

Maintenance

Life is really about maintenance, isn’t it?  If you’re not growing you’re shrinking or maintaining.  Maintenance is not a fun word, sounds much like a chore, work, and unpleasant.  Home maintenance, car maintenance, health maintenance, relationship maintenance.  What is not maintained is lost, maybe not altogether, but at least some.  Take a day off from picking up after your toddler and see what your house looks like.

Since having Persia, my second child, 11 years after my first, so much of my life has suffered from non-maintenance.  From yard work and housework to fitness, friendships, and marriage.  All the time and attention given to maintaining these things and relationships poured into the new baby.  Though my friends are still my friends, they, of course, have not remained stationary for the last 20 months waiting for me to get comfortable being a mother of two.  They’ve gone on living and doing, developing, and maintaining, along with their children.  Sadly, perhaps the saddest situation of all in this, at least to my heart, is that when the friends went on, so did their children–and without mine.  Living 30 miles from our main group of friends is a hardship, especially for an eleven year old, now twelve and a half.  We tried to do as much as we could to help her maintain her relationships, but it wasn’t enough and they’ve all suffered.

Yesterday was a big deal in the maintenance development arenas for our family.  We ventured out together to a home school ice-skating day at the mall.  There were a lot of friends there, friends we’ve not seen, some of them, in 2 years.  Margaux felt very outside of the groups that seemed to form during that period, and we had a long talk about maintaining friendships.  She came out of it with a positive outlook and a plan for rekindling the relationships that have been so important to her for so long.  (Since writing this last week, she has had a sleepover, a study day with her closest friend, and has developed an email pen pal whom she plans on meeting next week…I know her mom.  So, Margaux’s fixed up. )

During ice-skating, Shahram and I took Persia down to a play area for toddlers.  We thought she’d hesitate and feel shy, but she was interacting with many of the children there and having a great time.  So now we know she is ready to start getting out regularly with other kids.

After ice-skating, we brought the girls home and got them ready for our evening absence.  We were going on our first date, a very important date, in years.  Persia didn’t want to nap and I worried that this would pose a difficult evening for Margaux, but if it was difficult, she must have handled it with ease.  She did change her first poopy diaper and was very proud for having done so, even if it did take her twenty wipes to complete the job.  Persia fell asleep on Margaux probably an hour before we got home and she earned $25 for her services. 

Our date.

Our date was slightly awkward.  We often returned to the topic of the kids.  I think this was the case especially because it was the second time Margaux watched Persia alone, and the first time we were out for pleasure and knew we’d be out for many hours.  We worried about both girls, but managed not to call them.  See, here I am still talking about the girls during the “date” portion of this blog entry.  I’ll try again.

We went out to The Cheesecake Factory, just because we wanted to do something quick and we like their Portobello burger, which we split.  Then we went to buy our tickets for It’s Complicated with Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, and Steve Martin.  Before the theater was open for seating, we sat in the walkway talking.  It was awkward again because most of our talking is about maintenance, or the girls, which is also part of maintenance.  How do we talk about each other and what do we talk about to get close again, to build our relationship? 

I think that a marriage needs constant growth and the maintenance  handled differently.  I don’t have a plan for that, but I think we really need to focus on growth for our relationship–because maintenance feels like a chore, like turning a big crank that’s heavy and rusted and takes a too much effort. 

Marriage, in general… do people really approach it with the knowledge of everything it entails?   I don’t think so, but that’s another blog.

Important Dates

January 7, 2010

Well, we’re on our way.  Got the new 2010 Monster Calendar and wrote down all the important dates to remember in it.  Among them, and new to our year is of course the very reason for this blog–DATES.  Not just dates on the calendar, of course, but dates, real dates with my husband scheduled twice a month beginning next Thursday night about ten days to 3 weeks apart, usually falling in the middle of the month and always falling on the 29th of the month (except in February).  The 29th is our anniversary celebration.  We’ve been doing the monthly celebration of our wedding day for 4 months now, and it’s very sweet.  Very special and each month gets a little more special.  We’re remembering better, not that we’ve skipped any, but we are actually doing something sweet for each other, and not just in the form of gifts, though Shahram has gotten me some very nice gifts along the way.  The gift giving is a bit of practice also.  We are learning how to be better gift givers through giving more often and receiving honest feedback.  It’s sweet to get an engraved piece of jewelry, but if you are only wearing it because it was a gift and not because you love it… well, it kind of encourages more gifts that suit the giver than suit the givee.  And, let’s face it, we all want to be known by our mate more intimately than by any other person.  So a gift to our mate should be very special, very intimate, unique–something that says, “I really know you, and because I know you, I love you.  And because I love you, I want to know you, and show you I know you.”  This doesn’t have to come in the form of gifts or cards.  A few words written down, a memory refreshed, a walk around the block holding hands.  It’s the way we connect, not just the quality, but the quantity that matters.  And the more often we connect lovingly and not just about whether or not the diapers made it to the trash can, the more likely we are to talk about even the diapers lovingly.  I want to light up every time Shahram comes into the room.  The fire is coming back.  I’m so excited about our date next Thursday.  I think we’ll probably go see that movie, It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin. 

I think that though things are rocky right now with my upcoming surgery, and not knowing whether we can sell our house and where will we be moving if we do… we can be each other’s refuge–we should be–we WANT to be, every few weeks for a few hours.  I love Shahram.  This is going to be lovely.  I’m even looking forward to just sitting in Barnes and Noble or some other little quiet place and just talking. 

While Shahram was on vacation the last two weeks, we spent every morning together having coffee and toast in the living room before the kids woke up.  It was so nice, so comfortable and I didn’t want anyone else around.  Wasn’t longing for a friend or other family members.  I didn’t want to be anywhere other than where I was, with Shahram, and my toast and coffee.  Now that he’s back at work, he’s still having breakfast with me, but he really does have work on his mind.  I appreciate any time he can share with me and I know he feels the same about me.  No iPhones allowed at breakfast.