The Wynning Team
If you are married, you are more than likely aware that your marriage relationship requires communication, compromise, intentionality, selflessness, intimacy, and work. If you are not aware of these things…well that is an entirely different blog post. Just to spice it up a little bit, let’s go from marriage status to parent status. Oh yeah. Things just got interesting! You just went from one person you had to share the last cookie with, to two plus people that all have their eyes on that last Keebler buttery fudge elf cookie. Game on, sir! It’s like the Hunger Games up in here trying to be the proprietor of that last cookie. Never. Under any circumstance. Underestimate a motivated toddler.
All joking aside, sometimes it can feel like you are living in some sort of dystopian society in this world of parenting. Especially if you are the stay at home parent of small children. As I type, I am sitting in the only toy free section of my living room. My hair is in a ponytail that has halfway fallen out from the baby yanking on it all day. I’m wearing a mismatched t-shirt and nike short combination because it was the quickest thing I could grab while the baby fussed (simply because I put him down) and the toddler was shouting that he was going to Mercury (As I heard the backdoor open). If you are, or ever have been, the parent of a toddler, then you know “Going to Mercury” could LITERALLY mean absolutely anything that your tiny human could possibly conjure up in that little brain of theirs. Honestly, I’m just lucky I had my shirt pulled over my head before grabbing the baby and chasing the toddler outside to make sure Armageddon didn’t fall upon us in the two minutes I took trying to change out of my jammies.
Oh how I laugh as the childless person reads this and thinks I am exaggerating. Or as the parent who has managed to spawn the calm, ever-listening, ever-obedient offspring rolls their eyes thinking the same thing. Listen up people, our genetic gene pool was responsible for reproducing a high energy, highly imaginative, strong-willed, yet very sensitive toddler. Followed by a fighter of sleep, won’t eat anything but a freakin’ baby puff or breast milk, and surprisingly particular little baby. The good Lord knows we love our tiny humans more than life itself, but I believe it is also why He created wine. “He witnessed the stressed out parent, and created a tart elixir of relaxation. The parents relaxed. And He saw that it was good.” ImaNeedMoreSleep 24:7 (NPV - New Parent Version)
I can still remember my days before I became a parent. All those sweet little ideals I had about how the parenting journey would go. Sure, the kids would get in trouble from time to time… And I’m just going to stop myself right there. The reality of it is that parenting is wonderful, and you really have never experienced a love like that of a parent for a child. But it is so stinking hard. And draining. And challenging. And before I go any further, I just want to acknowledge all the single parents out there. You are all amazing, and I don’t know how you do it. There should seriously be a single parent discount where you can have an overnight at a luxury hotel (or at least a free cocktail).
I cannot imagine a world where I do this parenting thing alone. My husband is the most amazing support and it takes the both of us to keep this crazy train in motion. We are a team and tackle things as a unit. (Because our 2:2 parent to child ratio is a facade. The actual ratio is 2:4 I’m sure of it. Or at least it feels that way during a double melt down.) We call it being the Wynning Team. You can call it whatever makes you feel connected and like a team unit. To be an effective team requires several things: good communication, aligned expectations, and a willingness from everyone to do their part. It also requires recognizing and appreciating what each team member brings to the table.
“I choose you
again and again
at the start and finish
of every single day
no matter the season
no matter the year
i choose you
to struggle & succeed with
to fight and make up with
to love and grow old with
i choose you
knowing there are still
trials we must travel
knowing there are mountains
left to climb
i choose you
to always be by my side”
Find a way to foster your marriage relationship. Find whatever pumps you up and encourages you to get through the trenches of parenting together. Maybe you and your spouse are the dynamic duo, the adventures of mamma and pop, or the parental units; the possibilities are endless. Find whatever makes you feel like a team and then insert whatever it is that y’all call it into your relationship. The idea here is simply to create something fun that can be used as a reminder that you are working together.
To be the Wynning Team (Insert your phrase here), you not only have to be willing to do your part, but to also be able to see the other’s role as valuable and important. In an effective team, both parents ultimately feel valued, validated, important, and necessary. It creates a bond and a feeling of support and closeness in the marriage. Someone has to make an income. We need things like food, a roof over our head, and living expenses. Someone has to keep the children alive (If you choose daycare, see the point about needing living expenses in the previous sentence.), cook dinner, do laundry, and keep the house in a state that you can at least walk through it. Or climb Mt. Laundry from time to time. It’s cool, this is a non-judgmental, safe space. However you decide to divvy up the adulting/parental responsibilities, let’s recognize the importance of each person’s role.
Shout out to all of the stay at home parents, I am right there with each and every one of you. The limited sleep, the feeling of never having enough hours in the day, the house and your person looking like a bomb went off, while your spouse gets dressed up for work and has lunches with other adults. Trust me, I get it. (There are definitely days I want to poke my husband right in the eye when he’s having chips and queso with colleagues while I have pureed mangos dripping from my hair). Yet, the supportive role of the working parent is not one to ignore. I do not want to even imagine my life without my hunk-of-a-baby-daddy support system. Bless that man’s soul. He keeps me grounded. He is my biggest support. He is my best friend. He is the reason I even committed to this blog thing. His words were, “Even if for no other reason than that you find it fulfilling, and that it gives you an outlet, (because he knows writing and making lists is my thang) you should go for it.”
My husband does an amazing job recognizing the things that I do at home. He may walk in from work, and the house in no way look like I’ve actually picked it up twenty times that day, and say something like, “the house looks great,” and be dead serious. He gets it. He gets that the toddler is a tornado and that the baby often times has to be held or he loses his little baby mind. Factor in a dog who has a sensitive stomach and potties inside during storms, and things can get a bit crazy. But my husband gets it. He recognizes it. He makes me feel validated in my efforts to keep everyone alive and the house from being waist deep in toys and other miscellaneous items.
I try my hardest not to envy my husband looking like a human and getting to have nice relaxing lunches with other adults. All while I’m trying to eat something (anything) as the baby cries and refuses food, even though he’s hungry, and the toddler is in the middle of his forty-fifth story in a five minute time span. (Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration but it sure feels accurate.) At the end of the whole ordeal, no one in the house has eaten and the toddler demands a snack fifteen minutes later. The comparison game is hard when you are in the thick if it. But, stay at home mommas, there will be a day when the kids are all in school and you can once again look human on a normal basis, have lunch with other adults, and have the option to go back to work if you so choose.
Though I can’t directly relate to the working parent, I do know how it makes me feel to have my husband’s support and genuine gratitude that I have chosen to stay home to raise my babies. (I definitely acknowledge that staying home is a personal choice and is one that is not right for everyone. No shame or judgement here, people.) I can one hundred percent relate to how it feels to have your spouse in your corner and cheering you on. So in the midst of baby poop being on my person (thanks to a blow out) for the third time that day and my overall physical appearance rivaling a Steven King character, I consciously choose to appreciate the grind my husband puts in at work. I cannot focus on everything I consider to be the positive of the working parent and not expect my husband to do the same. (Go ahead and read that last sentence one more time.) In other words, I can’t choose to be jealous of his adult only lunch but expect my husband to not be jealous that I got to have a fun dance party with the boys while he was stuck in a meeting late in the day.
It’s all about choices and mindsets here, people. If you read my Free Parking article, you know what I mean when I say, “Choosing to do hard things is a choice.” I’m not saying that choosing to support your spouse is a hard choice. I would dare to say that most people actually want to be supportive of their spouse. The difficult part here is to not subconsciously sabotage your relationship. Focusing on the “he gets to go to work” or “she gets to stay home” plants those negative seeds of relationship doom. The more you focus on the negative the more that it is all you begin to see. I’m not saying that it is always easy to find the positive in the middle of the struggle. (Because we are human and screaming children, for hours on end, makes you want to poke your own eye out.) Yet, we have to be able to appreciate the other spouse and what they bring to the table. Feelings of jealousy or resentment (Even if they start out small. Even if you don’t think they are anything more than a thought.) are so dangerous. Negative feelings fester and grow into much uglier things. No matter which side of the parenting scale you fall on, find a way to genuinely appreciate what the other person does. Remember that you are both part of the Wynning team.
Coming together as a team can only result in good things. Choosing feelings of love, appreciation, gratitude, and wanting to support your spouse will only strengthen your marriage. A strong marriage is one that has two people that love each other, are committed to each other, are willing to fight for their relationship, and makes an effort to fill the other’s love tank. A happy marriage consists of happy people. Happy people choose to be happy. They choose to see the good. They choose to see the positive. (Do you see what just happened there? It always comes back to being your choice.)
I’m not saying that a happy marriage is one that consists of rainbows, butterflies, and nothing but love one hundred percent of the time. There are most definitely times that I sit across the dinner table from my husband and plot his slow demise in my brain (and vice versa.) There are times I have to just walk away because nothing good will come out of me opening my mouth. We have our fights and disagreements. We have our moments that require both of us to catch our breath. We are not perfect. Yet, I would categorize us as having a great marriage. I am being completely genuine when I tell you that the love I have for my husband is ridiculous. He still gives me butterflies (16 years later). I still can’t wait for him to walk in the door at the end of the day. I truly love him more now than I did the day we got married.
We are a Wynning team because we choose to be. We are crazy in love (16 years and two kids later) because we have fought like hell to be. We’ve had the hard conversations, the uncomfortable moments, the yuck and tears of life thrown at us and are still together to laugh about it now. I am fully aware that if either of us chose to focus on the negative along the way, it would have cracked our foundation in a possibly irreparable way.
Choose your happy. Choose to focus on the good. Choose to love the other person and appreciate the value they bring to your marriage and your parenting team. Then choose laughter. Because in this married and parenting life journey we are on, choosing laughter is a valuable lifeline. Choose to see the positive. Choose happiness. Choose to be a Wynning team.
XOXO
