Excuse Me While I Slip a Sudden Intuitive Realization into Your Tuesday Morning

I was recently posed the question from a mother of a toddler:

How do you make yourself more interesting to your spouse when all that goes on in your day is kid related? I feel like I have nothing to talk about.

At the time it was asked, my Johnny-on-the-spot answer was something along the lines of there will be moments in your marriage when you feel you have nothing of interest to say and other times when neither of you shuts up. And unfortunately we've been conditioned to believe that meals shared in silence either signifies problems, or worse(?), that you're comfortable with each other because "comfort" has been given a bad rap. And heaven forbid we be comfortable with our spouse and who we are because "comfort" equals "boredom" and boredom breeds problems, real or imagined. And then we waste precious stress trying to become interesting. And ohmygod I could really go on for like three days about just being who you are and quit trying so damn hard.

Then I had an epiphany of sorts. If you're a married couple with children that IS a huge part of your life and who you are and it SHOULD be interesting to the person who helped create these people [however, this does not apply to other adults, like say, at a cocktail party with your spouses coworkers, where discussing the significance of the consistency and hue of poop might be met with...well, not the kind of interest you seek]. That equally important person in those children's lives should embrace the news of the events of the day that surround their child(ren). Ear infections, first words, finger foods, immunizations, and six wipe alarm blow-out diapers may not be SEXY or INTELLECTUAL, but they should damn well be interested in it. And if they're not then they should probably pull themselves aside and have a nice long chat about why that is.

Children are only children for such a short period of time before they're off creating lives of their own that may or may not involve you. And before you know it you're closing the chapter in your life entitled Parent to a Small Child. It should be a chapter that is relished, gobbled up, and hard to put down because it's the shortest chapter in the big book of life; and not treated as a void that needs to be filled until it passes.