Month: October 2020

cooperating not completing

One of the principles I outlined in the post in which I outlined the themes of this blog was partnership. https://julewardwrites.com/committed-relationships/marriage/new-year-new-beginnings.  For me, partnership signifies that while Jay and I recognize that we are not meant to “complete” each other, we do realize our marriage works best as a cooperative. With two typically developing children and two children with special needs, working in partnership proved to be a key ingredient in creating a “good enough” family.

Siblings of children with special needs have many advantages, but they also shoulder tremendous burdens that are not easy to talk about. This is true not just because they are challenging and difficult, but also because they can be quite subtle.

Halloween: A holiday of contrasts

Halloween brought the differences between the two “halves” of our family into sharp contrast. Kristy and Johnny remained essentially remained toddlers in heart and mind all their lives. They didn’t quite “get” the rationale behind their costumes, but enjoyed the attention of “dressing up” on the night of

Halloween. They then accompanied their dad around the block. He rang doorbells and urged them to say “Trick or treat,” which they sometimes did and more often did not.  Neighbors smiled and complimented their costumes and dropped candy in their plastic pumpkins.  Often, Jay ended up carrying the pumpkins home and usually he rounded up the ritual after about a half dozen houses. That was fine with them because as soon as they returned home, they got to eat some candy, the one part of the whole rigamarole that actually made sense to them.

sanctioning breaking the rules

Carrie and Betsy, however, took to Halloween with a fervor that would have done their Druid ancestors proud. Of all the year’s holidays it was, hands down, their favorite.  Yes, they greatly anticipated Christmas. They loved getting a pile of new gifts and enjoyed getting together with the big extended family for dinner. But Christmas’s traditions lacked the mystique of Halloween. It was a time that sanctioned breaking the rules. Most of the year, we taught our children the expectations and responsibilities of the society into which they had been born. As they grew, the rules became more demanding.  Most parents do that, but Jay and I had to ask more. We expected them to be more empathetic, more responsible and more resilient than other children their age.

imagination fireball

Thus, a holiday that invited them to do all the things that were normally forbidden sparked their imagination and kindled their creativity into a fireball of activity. As much as they anticipated acquiring a huge hoard of candy, that wasn’t the main focus of their excitement. What really got them going was

planning to wear the best possible costume possible. They were quite dedicated to crafting their own Halloween attired because they valued originality.  They determined to take on a unique character, one entirely different than any other child of their acquaintance. It was a project that often began no later than October 1 as I mentioned in last week’s blog post. https://julewardwrites.com/committed-relationships/marriage/celebrations/celebrate-october

over the top creativity

The ambition led to the “Year of the Giraffe.”  Our daughter Carrie’s closest friend Thea matched her enthusiasm for creativity. They often turned our basement playroom into wholly other worlds from space stations to Sherwood Forest. So it was not surprising that for their ninth Halloween, they decided to be a giraffe. Their vision and zeal was astounding in two such young artists. They decided to create their giraffe from paper mache.

Making even a small object using this technique takes numerous supplies, careful planning, and enormous patience.  Yet these two little girls were planning to make a human-size (albeit child-size) animal with this technique, guided by a library book.

challenge of papier–mâché.

Thirty years later, I would visit the beautiful baroque town of Lecce, Italy. There I watched in fascination as artists fabricated beautifully intricate statues using the art of papier–mâché. Even a small piece took them several days to complete, and they had trained since adolescence in this craft.  I thought back to those two little American girls, once again flabbergasted at their bravado.

the giraffe

Carrie and Thea conceived a plan where Thea would be the front half of the giraffe and Carrie would be the rear.  Thea would work the giraffe’s mouth, begging “Trick or treat,” and opening its jaw with a lever. She’d hold a box for the candy to fall into. Carrie’s job was to hold onto Thea’s back and wiggle the giraffe tail in “thank you.”

Once their plan was complete, they set to work. Thea’s family generously offered their basement as a work space. The girls used chicken wire to fashion the head, the neck, and body of the giraffe, which would extend just past Carrie’s shoulders. With Thea’s dad’s help, they put the lever in place for opening and closing the mouth. Next, they dipped strips of newspaper into a mixture of flour and water and draped them over the form. It took several layers and they had to wait for each to dry.  The final piece really looked quite giraffe-like. They spray painted it and drew on the eyes. Their last task was the easiest. We had bought them gold-yellow turtleneck shirts and tights.  They drew, a giraffe-coat pattern on these with markers.

ready, set, go

They only just managed to finish the day before Halloween. They brought the costume to our house and practiced prancing from the kitchen, down the back hall, through the dining room, into the foyer, and into the living room.  There were a few glitches, but eventually they had it working like clockwork.

The next day by the time my children arrived home from school, it was pouring rain. Surely, Jay and I told each other, it would let up by dark. But it didn’t. We decided to pass on taking Johnny and Kristy out.  Betsy and Carrie were undeterred.  Thea came as soon as her mom would allow her.  With Jay and Thea’s dad holding umbrella, the two girls slipped into the costume and started down the sidewalk. Drenched children in dripping costumes trod up and down the steps of the Victorian rowhouses, a task that wouldn’t have been easy for a two-person giraffe under any circumstances, but one made almost impossible by the downpour.

dissolution

Still the girls pushed on. Slowly the giraffe dissolved around them, strip by

strip, it slid to the ground until they had to concede defeat. What was left of the giraffe was shoved into the trash can on the way into Thea’s house.  Her mom hustled them into dry clothes and gave them steaming cups of cider to drink. Both girls were too disheartened to even cry. Thea’s brother offered to share his candy. They didn’t hear him.  Finally, Thea’s mom called us.  Jay went for Carrie. She didn’t want to talk about it. After all what was there anyone could say?

Even now the memory churns up so many conflicting emotions – pride and sympathy, disappointment and admiration.  And, of course, the knowledge that there would be other Halloweens, other celebrations.  It’s a lesson the whole world is learning every single day in 2020.

Have you watched your child experience disappointment and defeat? Can you share the story?

winging it on oxytocin

Couples are often determined to keep the passion ignited in their committed relationship, but find it a principle more easily stated than lived by.

For one thing, our neurobiological system is a delicately-structured instrument that needs regular fine tuning to play its best music. At the beginning of a romantic relationship, oxytocin levels peak in our blood streams. This happens because couples falling in love open the dam so to speak on the flow of this hormone.  When they hold hands, touch the other gently, kiss, hug, and stroke, the floodgates lift. Oxytocin floods every each of their body and brain. Nothing feels as good as being with this other person.

Other responsibilities, other tasks, even other pleasures often get shoved to the back burners of daily life to make room for being together and being physically close. We know this is true from everyday experience whether we are in love ourselves or not.    But the phenomenon is also backed by careful scientific research.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3936960/

coming in for a landing

This high state of romance cannot last forever. Once couples set up a household together, whether they marry or not, the multitude of daily tasks confronts them willy-nilly. We get busy with work, school, household chores, childcare, and social engagement. A day can fly by in what seems a minute and the most “romantic” thing we did was kiss our partner briefly on the way out the door.

That’s what can happen. Luckily, it’s not what always happens. Scientific research has also discovered that couple who test for high levels of oxytocin in the early stages of the relationship frequently test high later in their partnership as well. Behav Sci (Basel). 2020 Feb; 10(2): 48. Published online 2020 Feb 2. doi: 10.3390/bs10020048   Interview with these couples revealed high engagement in affective behavior that had continued past the initial stages of their romance.

lots of ways to light a fire

In our relationship, Jay and I found many ways to re-ignite the passion that first drew us together.  One of the best ways is also a lot of fun as well.  We go back to school together.  Well, not actually back to the classroom although some couples we know have done that very thing with great success. Jay and I join the myriads of alumni returning each fall to campuses all over the United States for football games.

In general folks may be divided on whether sporting events constitute a romantic venture.  I sit on the fence on this one because although I can thoroughly enjoy a local baseball game and can get really excited at the chance of seeing the Trail Blazers play, only a trip back to South Bend, Indiana, to see Notre Dame engage a foe counts as a truly romantic journey.  For Jay and me, it serves as an almost, literal re-enactment of the days when we first fell in love.

in the beginning

To enhance that feeling, we begin the day by parking on the St. Mary’s College

campus. When Jay and I were in college, Notre Dame students were all men and St. Mary’s was a college only for women. It still is although Notre Dame is now coed. By stationing our car at my old alma mater, we can walk down the broad avenue, lined with giant elm trees, which leads from the highway into the heart of the St. Mary’s campus, put our lives at risk by dashing between cars across Highway 190, and proceed down the leafy dirt road that winds past the priest’s cemetery, between

St. Mary and St. Joseph Lakes, and around the Lourdes Grotto and onto the campus itself. This path retraces the one we took whenever Jay came to pick me up at St. Mary’s for a game or another Notre Dame event.  Every step of the way holds memories for us.  We, of course, hold hands the whole way and cannot stop by kiss several times before we actually walk up the stone steps past the Grotto and into the mayhem that is the campus on a game day.

one day’s journey

We wind through the white-stone dormitories and classroom buildings and across the broad green lawns. Even the newest buildings on campus, ones we’ve never seem before imitate the style of the ones we know from our sojourn as students. Outside every dorm, a grill is going and the students, usually still guys, are selling hamburgers and sausages.  They taste even better than they did decades before because they drip with nostalgia. Slowly we make our way east toward the stadium, the same one in the same location.

Along with a knowing segment of the crowd, we veer off toward the library

rather than continue on to the playing field. We mill around with a restless assortment of folks sporting the green and gold until we hear, “Here they come.” It’s the Notre Dame marching band.  The crowd splits apart, the band passes through. We reform behind them. They play. We sing. “Cheer, cheer, for Old Notre Dame. Ring out the echoes calling her name. Jay and I wrapped our arms around each other waist and let ourselves be swept along in the surge. At the stadium, the band marched down into a tunnel that led to the field and we turned toward the gate to our seats.

different, perhaps better

The fact that we were going to sit together diverged from our school days when Jay would have headed off the Notre Dame student section and I would find my seat in the part of the visitor’s section reserved for “St. Mary’s Belles.”  In those days, following the game, finding each other again in the crowd took strategic planning, but now we held tightly together as we pushed through the gates and up the steps to our bleachers. As soon as the game began, it demanded our full attention, but we celebrated every good move of the team with a hug, happy that, though our seats weren’t as good as they’d been in our students, they were together.

We wanted the team to win, of course, we did.  And, unlike in our student days, which had been marred by five losing seasons in a row, Notre Dame usually came out the victor.  But win or lose, we were high on the excitement of reliving a time when life was just opening up for us, when we had found the special someone with whom we wanted to spend whole our life. On the walk

back to St. Mary’s, on the ride back home and many days following our trek to South Bend, we once again ran on high octane (so to speak). The “real” us was still young and in love even if to the world we just looked like a couple of doting grandparents.

while in quarantine

Most of the time, we don’t have a whole weekend to devote to rekindling romance.  For those times, we try fun at home exercises like the ones on “For Better, Not For Worse” page of this website.  You might like them to. https://julewardwrites.com/radicalpromises-2/for-better-rather-than-worse-fun-fill-ins-for-couples

Also, I’d love to hear your special ideas for rekindling romance.

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
—Maya Angelou