The Jack Sprat Theory

So, we have all heard the saying "Opposites Attract"...I have to be honest, I never really knew if that is a good thing or a bad thing as it relates to human relationships.  There are so many examples of human relationships that have gone wrong that the hope for long lasting relationships originating from opposites attracting seems a bit hopeless.  Surely, compatibility is more a function of similarity that opposites, right? However, after 11 years of marriage, I think I might have started to figure out the key behind the opposites attract theory.  I think the key is that there is strength that is realized when two people can leverage their respective differences, where the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.  My theory is that the differences must be complementary, even if only on the simplest of levels.  

When I think about my "theory" above, I am reminded of the old nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat and his wife (everyone knows that one, right...he could eat no fat, she could eat no lean, blah, blah, blah...).  In that light  I think it is appropriate to call my theory the Jack Sprat Theory.   In the spirit of Jack Sprat, below are some ways in which my wife and I are opposites, but those differences actually are quite complementary...and actually serve as good cocktail party fodder or are at least good for a laugh...

1.  Cake v.s. Frosting

What is the goal when given a piece of cake, be it for a birthday,  wedding, anniversary, etc...?  Aside from it being traditional celebratory fare for particular events, I would argue that the main goal is to eat the cake and leave no trace of the sweet delicacy behind.  However, that is not my goal...to put it very simply, I generally do not like frosting on my cake, so my goal would be to eat the underlying cake without polluting any of the bites with frosting.  So, any piece of cake I eat will result in a glob of frosting being left on the plate.  Those two layer cakes pose a challenge with there being frosting in the middle.  I am usually forced to perform a little "cake surgery" to make sure the frosting component does not interfere with my cake eating experience.  I just do not care for frosting.  I find most frosting formulations far too sweet for my taste and I would prefer to just eat the cake.  My wife on the other hand, could care less about the cake part and will immediately go after the frosting, leaving nothing but the cake behind.  She has become very proficient at carefully removing the outer layers of frosting off a cake, leaving the inside cake portion almost completely undisturbed.  She also is very adept at securing the corner piece of cake as it has the most surface area covered with frosting. 

But, it is all good, for the combination of my dislike of frosting, and her dislike of the underlying cake creates a beautiful dance between the two of us where ultimately, the entire piece of cake is eaten.  Only together (or alternatively if one of our six kids is around to mooch our cake) can we hit the goal of eating the entire piece of cake...as weird as it sounds, I actually love this about my wife and I.

2.  What's for dinner...broccoli 

Few vegetables have the reputation that broccoli has.  You either love it or hate it, and I am not convinced there is any middle ground on this one.  Tiffany and I happen to both like broccoli.  I would categorize my wife as the more typical broccoli consumer, she would much rather eat the florets as opposed to the stems.  When she buys frozen broccoli in the store, were it not for yours truly, she would go for the bag of florets.   However, at my request, she buys the "regular" bags which are usually full of the stems and stalks, with a few florets mixed in.  If fresh broccoli is on the menu, I suggest that we do not waste our time picking the bunch with the smallest stems.  Why you might ask?  Is it to save money (the bags heavy to the stems are cheaper generally)?  The answer would be...No.  Actually, the real reason is that my preference is to eat the stems, not the florets.  I know, it sounds a bit strange, but hear me out on the advantages of the stems over the florets.  First and foremost, it is pretty hard to overcook the stems...they generally always remain a bit on the crunchy side and there is nothing worse than soft, soggy, limp broccoli florets (in fact, over cooked broccoli may very well be the reason that so many people do not like it).  Second, they have a slightly milder flavor and less "grainy" texture than the florets.  Third, and possibly of the utmost importance, the stems do not leave bits of green in your teeth the way the florets tend to do.  

All these advantages aside, and much like the cake and frosting scenario (except my children would not be mooching our broccoli), this is yet another example of a "collaboration" between my wife and I where our respective differences complement each other, albeit in a very strange, odd and possibly disturbing way.  

In all seriousness, my wife and I actually complement each other in much more meaningful ways (they are just not as much fun to write about).  Whether it is the qualitative versus the quantitative tendencies my wife and I have respectfully, or the differences in parenting style (Dad tends to be a bit more playful, and a bit more strict with discipline whereas Mommy is much more nurturing and even-tempered with discipline), the point is that these differences complement each other and produce an outcome that neither of us could produce alone and likely have a better outcome than we could individually accomplish.

Love Languages

My wife and I recently finished a book (for the second time) called "The Five Love Languages" (www.5lovelanguages.com). The premise of the book is that each of us communicate love in different ways (the author, Gary Chapman, has broken this down into 5 main love languages) and the key to a fulfilling, happy marriage is to make sure you are speaking your spouses love language.  Each of us has a "love tank", and when our spouse is showing us love by speaking our primary love language, then our tank fills up.  If love is not being communicated in the right language, our tanks remain empty, and as a result, we become unhappy, withdrawn, or worse.  Unfortunately, we usually tend to speak the love language that fills our own tank, the one that would be most meaningful to us, regardless of whether or not it is the language that fills our spouse's tank.  This is why a man, who thinks he is showing his wife that he loves her by mowing the lawn, painting the hallway, unloading the dishwasher, washing the car, etc... (the love language Acts of Service) is surprised when she tells him she does not feel loved (her love tank is on empty), that he never spends any time with her (Quality Time) or he never brings her flowers unannounced (Receiving Gifts).  The man was not speaking her primary love language.  
The five love languages that the author describes are as follows:
1.  Acts of Service - such as making dinner, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, paying the bills, etc...
2.  Words of Affirmation - saying thank you, saying how appreciative you are for things your spouse has done or is doing, compliment their appearance, provide encouragement, praise, etc...
3.  Receiving Gifts - gifts for no reason such as flowers, a love note, a small trinket, the gift of time, etc...there is no need for it to be expensive.
4.  Quality Time - spending one on one time together, focussed attention on each other, even if for only 10 minutes, talking a walk, going to the movies, going out to dinner, etc...
5.  Physical Touch - holding hands, a touch on the small of the back, a kiss, a massage, a foot rub and yes, cause I know what I thought of the first time I read the book, other "extra curricular" bedroom activities.

Perhaps the most interesting, and maybe the most surprising premise of the book is the assertion that love is not a feeling, it is actually a choice, an ability that is demonstrated by choosing to love our spouse in a way that fills up their "love tank" by speaking their love language.  It is a choice that we make every day, a choice that allows for personal growth and for us to affect the growth of another individual.  Alternatively, being "in-love" is a feeling, a feeling that does not contribute to personal growth or the growth of another individual such as our spouse.  Being in-love gives us the false sense, the illusion if you will, that we have no further to grow,that we have arrived.  

We have all experienced the in-love feeling, think back to when you first met your spouse.  Think about the flutters in your stomach, the undeniable feeling that you have met "the one", that you have met the person you were going to marry, the excitement and nervousness before a date, the anticipation felt prior to seeing him or her.  When in-love, we often times overlook or just cannot see some of differences we might have with our significant other.  Our sight is clouded by the in-love experience.  However, as most of us have probably experienced, the in-love emotion is usually temporary.  It is superficial, it wears off as the trials and tribulations of life unfold, as life's responsibilities take over in the form of children, work, a mortgage, bills, etc...  

However, in successful marriages, in flourishing relationships,  what replaces the in-love experience is better.  It is a deeper emotional connection with another human being that the in-love experience cannot even begin to touch.  This book provides a roadmap to finding that place, and the key is being able to identify what your spouses primary love language is, and then make the commitment to speak it. 

Loss...Part 2

My wife is a very sensitive person by nature who is extremely tuned into her feelings and emotions.  The extent to which this is true has become clearer to me every year that we have been married (going on 11 years).  When we experienced loss, there were so many different emotions that she was experiencing that, at the time, I just did not understand and frankly, was unable to comprehend.  I found it very difficult to appreciate and empathize with what she was going through.  Probably the most difficult emotion that I struggled with was the severity with which my wife applied her coping mechanisms for dealing with loss, the duration that these mechanisms remained in force,  even if we were actively trying to conceive again and despite the fact that neither of us were decided that we were done building our family.  

At the time I felt that her actions were avoidance tactics and while understandable when the pain of loss was fresh, after several months it seemed it was excessive and completely unreasonable.  I thought that she was just avoiding dealing with the pain, avoiding doing the "tough stuff" to get on the road to healing.   Looking now through more "seasoned" eyes, I am amazed and often feel ashamed that I had such a hard time seeing her actions for what they were, that I was so hard on her by condemning her for her actions, that I blamed her for her actions.   I did not realize the depth of the pain that she felt, I did not realize that some cuts are so deep, and so raw, that extreme measures are needed to slowly heal the wound.  I did not see that her actions were not avoidance, she was not putting off dealing with the pain or repressing her feelings.  She was surviving as best she knew how, she was using every tool available to her, even if only temporarily, to numb the pain of loss just long enough to start the tough climb out of the cavern that loss put her into.  

I would never want to go back to that time in our life, the feelings and emotions just cut too deep, but I also have regrets that I would give anything to rectify.  I regret that I did not listen more, and I mean truly listen to the pain she was in, and look for more cues from her for how I could have helped.  I regret that I contributed to her pain rather than helped her through it, despite the fact that I thought I was helping via my actions at the time.  At a time where she needed support, someone to back up the way she felt, I did not fill that roll. However, I take comfort in the fact that, despite the length of the road traveled, we got through it and are stronger people, a stronger couple as a result, and I think Tiffany would agree.

As a final thought on loss,  my wife and I were discussing this the other night and we both agreed that the pain of a loss never really goes away.  You do move on, but you never really fully get over it.  The cuts heal, but they leave scars that serve as little reminders of what might have been.  Following a loss you are a little less naive, perhaps a little more guarded, the experience forever changes you as a person.  You develop a different perspective, take certain things a little less for granted, and truly earn an appreciation for the miracle that life is.

Loss...Part 1

This is a very difficult topic, both for me personally, as well as for many couples out there, and especially my wife.  I would love to be able to say that our journey to build our family was without experiencing the feelings and emotions associated with loss, but unfortunately I would be lying.  I would also be lying if I told you I felt qualified to discuss this particular topic.  Nevertheless, having personally experienced loss with my wife, I have some thoughts and perceptions that I would like to share.  My hope is that somewhere in my ramblings another husband might glean some understanding about what his wife might be going through, or conversely, perhaps a woman might gain some insight into what her husband might be feeling.

This is directed towards my fellow males out there.  A loss very early on in pregnancy, regardless of how many weeks pregnant your wife is, be it four weeks, six weeks or more, you are still loosing a living being that is your baby.  This is not a religious, life starts at conception, argument.  The fact of the matter is that in a woman's heart, mind and soul, she knows that there is a child growing in her belly, and she is already formulating in her mind what life will be like with a baby, the dream that is a child has come true, even just days after finding out that she is pregnant.  In the event of a loss,  that dream has been violently disrupted, just a few moments prior your wife was on cloud nine, now she feels a void, like something is missing, like something has been unfairly or unjustly taken away.  She has lost something that was very real to her, she as lost her baby, and with that comes very deep feelings of grief, confusion and possibly even guilt.  This can be, for some males (me included), very difficult to comprehend, albeit understandably so, particularly with a loss that happens very early on in pregnancy.  While your wife is starting to feel changes in her body, she is making not only a mental connection, but a physical one as well to the new life growing inside her.  We as men are just observers at this point.  We do not experience the same emotional and physical connection that our wive's feel at this stage.  Those feelings of attachment typically come a bit later for us when we can see the changes in our wive's body, when we can see her belly has grown, feel the kicking and squirming, see the baby on the ultrasound.  If for only this reason, the emotions a husband and wife feel, are in my experience, very different during and after a loss.  And both husband and wife should accept that this is okay.  I think the key to helping each other navigate this difficult time is to understand the above reality.  With that understanding comes the compassion that will be necessary to make it through.

In my case, I remember feeling as though my role was to be the strong shoulder to cry on, the one that ensures that life moves on, and as such I did not take the time nor make the effort to share in the emotions my wife was feeling.  I thought that being the "voice of reason", being emotionally void, was the best way to help her. I was wrong. At the time, I did not understand or appreciate what I  wrote above, and as such we experienced not only the pain of the loss of our child, but also the loss of the emotional connection that a husband and wife share.  This was a difficult time, however we learned a lot about eachother, how we respond to difficult situations as well as what each of us needs to grieve. We got through it and I can say that we as a couple are stronger for it.

Ultimate Mom "To Do" List Song

Have to admit, I get an absolute kick out of this every time I see it...and according to my wife (and I generally agree), it is all true

Some Like it Hot...

A few posts ago I wrote about one of my wife's "super human" powers, aka her night vision abilities.  If that alone is not impressive enough to us mere mortals, she has yet another amazing ability which defies all odds.  

But first, allow me to digress.   We have all seen in the movies these people that are able to walk across hot coals.  Have you ever asked yourself how in the world do they do that?  Some claim it is all about mindset and attitude.  While that may partly be true, the ability is actually strongly rooted in physics.   The temperature of hot coals can often reach roughly 1000 degrees F.  While that is certainly much hotter than the melting point of a person's foot, the actual temperature of the coals is only one part of the equation.  Another aspect of what is going on is the relationship between thermal energy and temperature.  Basically, the human foot and the hot coals have two very different heat capacities.  Heat capacity, or thermal capacity, is the amount of heat it takes to change a particular substance's temperature by a given amount.  The human foot, which is mostly made up of water, has a much higher heat capacity than the hot coals.  So, the same amount of thermal energy that is flowing away from the hot coals will lower the temperature of the coals much more than that same amount of heat energy will raise the temperature of a human foot.  Now, if the foot remains in contact with the hot coals, energy will continuously flow to the foot until the coals and the foot are the same temperature, and will subsequently burn the foot.  However, this takes time and the amount of time that it takes is strongly correlated with  heat conductivity.  There are substances that are good heat conductors, such as water or metal (metal is actually a great conductor and has a very high heat capacity too), but there are also poor heat conductors (or insulators) such as air (think about how you can put your hand into a 450 degree oven without getting burned, so long as you do not touch anything metal) or in the case of the hot coals, ash.  So, as the feet are marching across the hot coals, they are actually cooling the coals (remember, coals have a lower heat capacity, so they will cool faster than the feet will heat up) and it takes time for heat to flow from the rest of the fire to the cool spots.  Additionally, the feet are mostly made of water, which is a good conductor of heat.  So the heat will quickly be conducted away from the contact points between the feet and the coals, thus preventing (subject to time, of course) the temperature from reaching the burning point. 

So, you might be asking yourself how is any of this relevant to my wife?  Well, she does not go around walking across hot coals (at least not that I know of...), but she does have an unbelievable capacity to touch and handle things that are really hot.  Now, there are certainly limits to this ability, after all, even Superman had his limitations, but we have been able to determine that my wife's personal heat capacity is greater than that of a typical human (for argument's sake, I will play the role of a typical human, although some might argue that I am anything but typical).  Through extensive trial and error we have discovered multiple things / situations that my wife is able to handle (without a flinch, grimace or any other usual reaction to really hot stuff) for relatively extend periods of time, without the aid of any typical kitchen insulator devices (aka pot holders) or other type of heat protection.  Here is a select, but not exhaustive list of the things we have discovered (in some cases on purpose, in other cases by accident, you be the judge):

1. Chicken nuggets freshly out of a 450 degree F oven
2. Fish sticks freshly out of a 400 degree F oven
3. A ceramic dinner plate that has been in a 350 degree F oven for 15 to 20 minutes
4. Hot candle wax
5. Walking across white beach sand at 2:00 PM on a sunny 95 degree F day in St. Augustine, FL
6. A shower with the cold water turned all the way off (FYI, our water heater is set to 140 degrees F)
7. Squeezing out hot tea bags (Bengal spice is her favorite tea)
8. Hot glue from a hot glue gun

Were I to attempt any of the above for the length of time my wife is able to do so and trust me, I have, I would find myself nursing my singed appendages with ice, cold water, basically anything that would dull the pain, but not Tiffany.  She would not miss a beat.

Disclaimer:  Please do not try this a home, or at least if you do, be mindful that when you smell burning flesh, let go.  

The Most Important Seven Words Ever...

There is never a lack of people out there willing to give parents, new or otherwise, advice on just about anything.  At the risk of being one of those people, I want to pass along a piece of advice that my wife and I were given very early on and it has stuck with us ever since.

When my oldest son was about a week old, my wife and I were at our wits end.  We were new parents, my wife was new to breast feeding, and our son did not seem to want to eat.  He would initially latch on to the breast very well, but would quickly pull off in an absolute flurry of anger and frustration.  The crying would start and would only end when he cried himself to sleep out of pure exhaustion.  The feeding routine was unpleasant, exhausting and  exasperating, and my wife and I were terrified because our baby was not eating, not flourishing.

We were at our one week appointment at our pediatrician's office and we were seeing the nurse practitioner that day.  She was a wonderful woman and was definitely one of the reasons we liked the practice as much as we did.  Upon telling her the challenges we were  having with our son, sharing with her the exasperation, the frustration, the feelings of being at a complete loss, she said something that we have never forgotten.  Her exact words were "A crying baby is a breathing baby".

These seven words became tremendously important to us and completely changed our perspective as parents.  No matter how bad things get, no matter how frustrated you become, no matter how at a loss you feel because everything you try to comfort and console your baby just does not seem to work, that baby being here is a miracle, and the act of crying means that your child is alive and well enough to cry.  It is with those seven words in mind that has made so many situations that would seem unbearable, bearable.  Those seven words have played a vital role for me, and particularly for my wife, on our journey to build our family.  Perhaps we would still have ended up where we are today had we never met with the nurse practitioner that day, but I can tell you that those words have made the journey infinitely easier, far more rewarding and if nothing else, they have made us far better parents for the perspective they gave us.