Matt and I work together at this parenting thing. As dad's go, Matt rocks. he is calm, involved and lightens the mode when I get too intense (his word, not mine). I do get intense from time to time, say when we can't find someone's shoes for the 100th time and the bus is on the way. Matt keeps calm by making a joke or reminding me that it is not that big of a deal. I SOMETIMES accept his feedback and calm down, but most times I just keep the steam rolling machine of this family moving forward by finding that shoe (or coat, or baby doll or book bag or marker or hair bow) and staying intense.
I believe that as we parent together, we polarize each other a bit...the more intense I get, the calmer Matt gets. I have seen it go the other way too, where Matt becomes the yeller and I lighten the mood (it has happened, don't be so surprised), but most of the time we fall to our standard norms....Anna the dictator, Matt the cool guy.
One day when I was out for the evening with work, Matt sent me this text. He sent it in the middle of a time that he was managing all 4 on his own at the witching hour of kid pick up/dinner prep time, so I have ultimate sympathy. I know I read more into this text than he meant, but I took it a a deep-seated thank you for my crazy, intense way of managing the family hard times. I loved it so much, I kept the text. I shared it with everyone. Heck, I am putting it on a BLOG.
Matt, the crazy is always just a text away.
