My wife and I are trying to build a house. We have a lot of know how and raw materials. I have lots of hammers and saws, my wife nails and screws and fasteners. We have everything we need. But the house I grew up in flooded in the basement when it rained and my wife’s was cold and dark every winter. We know what we want to build, but we don’t have any blueprints. Our couples therapist, along with our spiritual practice, allow us to become the architects of a home in which we can flourish. Ilene helps us use our tools and resources to build something substantial and sustainable, with solid supports. Otherwise my wife and I would be like some kind of Three Stooges act, with me clobbering myself in the hand with a hammer while she spins around trying to hoist too much lumber. We still gets splinters and we screw things up but Ilene helps us remember why we put on our hard hats and come into work every morning.
Tuesday is one of the days when I’m Trixie’s primary care provider, so I get to play Mr. Mom, or as my wife likes to call it, “Dad.” Trixie and I spend the day together while my wife works. When she gets home around six we have dinner, give the baby a bath and put her to bed. Last Tuesday my wife had to work late which meant I was on my own for dinner, bath time and bedtime. I don’t get too flustered by the tasks required of fatherhood, so it was no big deal. In college, I babysat my three younger siblings during the summers. The older ones were 7 and 8 and the baby was 8 months old one summer and 20 months old the next, so I’m no stranger to changing diapers, making bottles or entertaining the endless monologue of questions which can come out of kids. Naturally, it wasn’t a problem to feed and bathe my daughter. In fact, when it’s just me and her, I kind of love it because I get to make all the decisions. I think of myself as Lieutenate DeWitt. LieuteNate ...
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