Excuse Me, I Love You

article by Meredith McKinnie

For the last two months, my husband, my two girls, and I have been in relative quarantine. We make twice weekly grocery store runs and admittedly have had our fair share of trips to Home Depot for home improvement projects and to indulge our love of lush foliage for the backyard. I am the designated grocery shopper, while my husband and the girls sit idly in the car, as any means of escape from the house feels like a big event. My husband is managing most of the childcare duties throughout the day, as I am still teaching classes online. I do believe this newfound 24/7 home experience has been eye-opening for him. He is realizing how much actually has to be done while I juggle work responsibilities. And as our primary sources of childcare fall in the age bracket of primary concern for Covid 19 complications, my husband is given little to no reprieve from the constant chaos of life with a toddler, a newly crawling nine-month-old, and a wife quarantined to the home office inside our humble living quarters.

have more bouts of impatience. Little Wilder loves to wait for time alone in the bath to methodically transfer buckets of water outside the tub. Little Fable is fascinated by phone charging cords and manages to locate even the hidden ones behind furniture for random snacking. The girls require a minimum of one set of eyes at all times to save them from detrimental curiosity and mess-inducing behavior. Parenting is hard. Constant parenting in the midst of a pandemic is a new level of hard for working parents who are not used to solely supervising their children for weeks at a time. It requires a reset, a come to Jesus, an acknowledgement that things aren’t as they were, and children don’t accommodate our frustrations with our new reality. As adults, we bear the burden of understanding and the responsibility of shifting our expectations.

I can sense when my husband is at his breaking point. His footsteps down the hall become more pronounced and quicker in frequency. The refrigerator door is shut with more vigor than necessary. Bedroom doors are closed for little five minute spells of relief throughout the day. The girls are corralled on the living room floor and fed a towering mound of blocks to occupy their attention just so he can take a quick shower. In an idealized world, parenting is evenly split between two doting parents, who both relish their time with and away from their children. Some like to call this life balance. But the true reality is that parenting often falls to one half of a parenting duo due to work schedules, societal expectations, and the necessity of routine. This global pandemic has scooped up the normalcy of my household, tossed the remnants into the air, and forced my husband to pick up the pieces. Admittedly, a part of me takes solace in his knowing how much energy the children require, how difficult managing a household alone can be. Another part of me takes joy in my husband catching the little moments I related to him before when he would return from a late night at work. Now our roles have shifted. What I miss in isolation is fed back to me in anecdotal conversations before bed, as we are both tired, but for different reasons.

The two-hour meltdowns occur regularly each evening between five and seven p.m. This is the dinner, bath, bedtime explosion of everyone needing attention at one time, and even with the equal adult/child ratio, it’s the most taxing part of our day. Often I am mincing garlic, while my husband hooks the girls in their high chairs, feeds pureed baby food to Fable, and diced chicken to Wilder, while our dog LuLu barks for her dry food on the floor. My husband is pulled in three different directions while I take comfort in dicing vegetables and retrieving herbs with jazz music blasting from the kitchen speakers. I love to cook; it is my wind down each evening, and my husband reaps the benefits of each of my culinary creations. Somehow I am able to block out the chaos happening four feet away on the opposite side of the counter top by getting lost in the rhythmic sounds of a saxophone.

A few evenings back, I paused during one of these intervals, knife suspended in the air, and just watched my husband until he returned my glance. I mouthed “I love you” and smiled, knowingly. His shoulders relaxed, and he mouthed it back, and a sense of calm entered the room. I let him know I saw him, saw what he was doing, and realized his efforts. I want my husband to know he is appreciated, and reminding him that I love him, that our love is the core of this entire familial operation is crucial. The solace I felt when my husband was forced to take the reins and delve into full time parenting is just my desire to be seen as well, to be appreciated for my efforts. During this time of upheaval and financial uncertainty, the show must go on. The children must be fed and bathed and read books and distracted with blocks. The garlic must be sauteed and the jazz music should continue to echo throughout the house. But our connection, the me and him, should not fall to the wayside even if the world does. It’s easy for couples to get lost in the often mundane ritual of parenting. It becomes even more likely when the weight of the world seems to be bearing down on all of us. A simple unexpected I love you, a sentiment known deep in the soul but never quite shared enough, is one way to keep focus on what matters. My husband is my rock, the girls’ jungle gym, Lulu’s warm lap, and my quaranteam mate through all of this. This Father’s Day, I thank my husband for his diligence in caring for our girls, his concern for my mental well being, for being our source of refuge. Saying I love you will never be enough, but it reminds us both why we’re here.