Marriage and diaper-related subterfuge

When Melanie and I went to Nashville to meet The Stalkers (who I really need to stop calling that because now I know how nice and unthreatening they are, but I still think of them like that in my head because they called themselves that for so long), we took time over lunch to just ask lots of questions of one another.

I asked Melanie, "What's something they wouldn't know about me from the blog that I can tell them about myself?" And Mel was like, "I have no idea. You talk about EVERYTHING on your blog."

Which is pretty much true. But then one of them (Gretchen? I can't remember who.) asked, "Is your husband a really private person?"

She wanted to know, because I don't talk about him with a lot of regularity of specificity here, so it's understandable that you guys might wonder. I think the right answer is, "He's not that private, but if he had a blog of his own, he certainly wouldn't use it as a platform to talk about his hemorrhoids." I think the main reason I don't talk about Grayson that much here is that in my mind, he didn't really sign up for this. I mean, he doesn't mind the fact that I blog every day, but I'm sure he doesn't want me to broadcast his every move like I do my own.

Out of respect for him, I try to include him in posts about the whole family (if he's with us, like at the pool or The Preserve), but I don't go out of my way to "out" him in any way. And also, you won't find me complaining about our marriage here, or airing our disagreements here. I find that disrespectful and inappropriate, and I'm quite sure you all don't want to hear about that kind of petty stuff anyway.

I WILL say that in this season of our life, with four young children, our marriage at many times feels a little "utilitarian." We do LOTS of mundane tasks every day; we spend most of our moments together just trying to muddle through the bottle-making, lunch-preparing, dish-washing, laundry-folding and diaper-changing, and we certainly don't have a lot of spare time for relationship building. However, we do make time for at least one date night a month, and we have a great amount of respect and love for one another. He's my partner in this, and I'm his. I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else.

HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT:

When I got home from the boys' karate class one night, Grayson was just finishing feeding Amelia.

Grayson: "Hey, will you change her diaper? I'm not sure if she's poopy or not, maybe just pee."

Me: "Sure."

[I sat down and changed her diaper, which was insanely poopy and had, in fact, leaked through her clothes. I was just finishing up when Grayson came back in the room.]

Me: "So, it was REALLY poopy. I mean, it was through her clothes."

Grayson: "Oh, yeah, I thought it might be."

Me: "So you said you weren't even sure she was poopy before. So which is it? Did you not know she was poopy, or did you know it and you even thought it might have leaked through?"

Grayson: "Uhhh ...."