I  know I am being incredibly, astoundingly controversial here, but I am just going to say it.

I really like my husband. 

There, I got it out. 

I know, I know, it is so much more edgy to moan and complain about your spouse, but I just can’t. A few friends were commenting on how their summer vacations are brutal because they can’t stand being together that much. I am the opposite: the more we are together, the more I remember how much I like him and  want him around. If we spend a lot of time together, it is actually painful when he goes back to being all busy and I am alone with the kids a ton.

So last week, a tearful woman who is struggling with her marriage said to me, “You seem so happy together, how do you do it?” Look, I am no expert but I can tell you four simple things have worked for us after 18 years together:

1. You cannot blame your spouse for your routine unhappiness, boredom or pain. You just can’t. It’s not their job to make you happy. (Notice I said routine; if they are cruel or an addict or sleeping around, that’s another story). As we say to the kids, “You are the boss of your emotions.” Keep a list of all the things you loved about your spouse when you were first together in your wallet and look at it from time to time.

2. If you aren’t having any fun, then you aren’t any fun. Stay fresh. Bring something to the table. Read, get a hobby, watch wierd movies, join a bocce team, just get a life outside of kids and work, however miniscule. An hour a week outside of your routine doing something you personally love can work miracles. Hire a sitter, trade time with a friend, beg your in-laws, just DO it. If you resist this, then, I have observed, you are on a slow slide to hating being married.

3. Share something besides the kids. For us, we cycle through different things depending on what phase we have been in. It can be paying sports together, it can be scrabble, it can be music, or, as it has been in post-baby exhaustion, Jon Stewart and Ricky Gervais. We try to laugh together every day for at least ten or twenty minutes, and these two guys give us a lot to laugh at.

4. A foot rub goes a LONG way. So do spontaneous, all-family, kitchen dance parties and racing each other around the outside of the house in the rain. At night.

Have some fun. Laugh. Force yourself to enjoy something. All else will fall into place.

So, it’s back to reality this week. Ramping up for school and sports –received the first ice hockey email this weekend, yikes — and the rush and grind of the school year.

Two things were made clear to me this summer, especially on vacation. One insight I had was how much I really love it when Tom is with the family 24/7. My day is a whole lot better when he is around. He is fun and energetic, which is great, but he also is useful, especially when he isn’t worn out by work. You know, when you grow up in big families, I guess everyone is trained to make themselves useful. We may have hated all those chores as kids, but at least you know how to take care of things when you are older. It’s a treat having two adults handling all the meals and childcare and driving an shopping and entertainment when we are on vacation. 

It’s also become important to me that my kids know how to be useful and flexible. It is awareness development more than anything else, to enter a situation and know you can carry your own weight. We had a series of visitors while were at the beach, and let’s just say these children were a lot of work. I am not a neatnick, let’s get that clear. But we were using someone else’s home, and I grew increasingly irritated with the wet suits and towels on the floor, the chip bags spilled on the furniture, the constant reminders to take muddy feet off the wall, and please, please, flush the toilet. One kid took multiple showers and made multiple changes of clothes every day, leaving the dirty ones like droppings through the house. I had to hide food so we could have meals. I found one kid reading my email, another one playing on my phone. At one point, I got snippy at one of the kids who had inundated me with requests. This kid asked me to make a sandwich. I said all the sandwich stuff was right there on the table and they could help themselves. They looked at all the choices and said, “I don’t eat any of that. What else have you got?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t a restaurant,” I said.

“Well, I want to eat. When are you going food shopping?”

I turned and walked out to where Tom was reading and sat down.”Help me before I say something really horrible.”

He turned a page.”Don’t worry,” he said. “They are leaving. I made the call.”

“Tom, are we going to have to start stating house rules or something? Don’t tell me have come to that.” I imagined a posted sign as people entered the door. In this house, we do not wipe snot on the doorframe . . ..

He shook his head in disbelief. “It’s been wild.”

Even Dex and Neve, who are hit-and-miss in the chore department,  fell onto the floor in mock exhaustion when they left. “Look at this place. It’s a mess.”

“Yeah, they were a lot of work.”

I held my tongue. They both looked at other. “I’ll get the broom,” Dex sighed.

My ultimate goal as a parent is to make myself obsolete. Really. I want to be out kayaking or hiking some exotic location when the kids are older, enjoying the fact that my kids don’t need me around at all. Oh sure, I’ll see them a fair bit and share their lives through phone calls and whatever electronic communication device we’ll have then, but I want them to sail their own ship. I was chomping at the bit for years in my parents’ home because I was an adventurer and traveller who happened to be born into a family that loved routine and tradition. No one, and I mean no one, could understand at all why I wanted to live abroad. It was like I had said I wanted to stick needles under my fingernails. Worse yet was when i really began to travel and decided to live far from home. Was I insane? Did I not love them? That I just enjoyed experiencing different ways of living was impossible to convey. Every alternate choice I made was regarded as a affront to them, and I never could get out from under that. Maybe I will have tradition-loving homebodies who want to hang out with mom and dad; who knows. But I recall only having a deep sense of what my parents wanted for me by the time I was an adult, and had never really given much creedence to what I wanted.  So, every day I work the kids away from me in tiny ways in the hopes that by the time they are on their own, they will have a fair sense of who they are, who they could be, and what is important to them.

Of course, this is all very lofty when you’ve got Colin running out in the street, climbing out of his crib at all hours and refusing to potty train, but you know, I can dream.

Colin’s sense of adventure and risk has certainly been affected by his broken leg. My fearless guy has, over the past few weeks, had to be coaxed back into a lot of activities — going to the park, bike riding, but especially swimming. Granted, a lot of two year olds suddenly grow adverse to water, but his terror was so out of character. Nothing like taking a beach vacation and having your kid screaming and clinging every time you try to go near the water. I sat baking on the sand with him, watching Tom and the other kids enjoy the waves, because of course he was terrified whenever I went into the water, too. I brought him buckets of water to play in. I made castles with moats. I pointed out all the toddlers enjoying the water around us. I sat in an inch of water until my hind end was raw. Finally, after multiple tries, I got him to lie on his stomach in a puddle at the edge of the beach and splash a little. I was feeling pretty good about my applied efforts when one of Colin’s uncles showed up, put a floaty tube in the water, and called out, “Hey, Col, I’ll give you a ride!” I watched in amazement as Colin shouts, “Sure!” He climbs in the tube and he and his uncle took off for a 20 minute ride out into the deep. 

Tom and I exchange a look and he says what has become our standard line about Colin’s behavior. “Clearly, dear, you are the problem.”

More and more, I keep hearing stories of what a different kid Colin is when I am not around. He is more sociable, confident, and basically happier when I am not an option. I am all about the village raising the kids, but it has really gotten to be sort of ridiculous, this Jekyll and Hyde mood swing.

I sighed. “Clearly, I am the problem.” Then I yelled out to Colin’s uncle. “You’re on it, now. Teach him to swim, okay?”

“No problem!”

“Oh, and you can potty train him too, while you’re at it.” 

We’ve been on vacation for a week, and spending all this time together as a group has been illuminating. I am glad the older two can keep themselves busy all the time, and they are seeming more independent than ever this week, but it leaves Tom and I alone with Colin a lot. And what I have noticed is that Tom has trained Colin to obey HIM, not us as a unit. Colin says stuff  like, “Daddy is the boss,” or “I am a good boy for Daddy,” and Tom is sitting there with this proud grin on his face. 

Uh, what about me? I told Tom I include him in any discussions of authority, can’t he do the same for me? 

“Hey, there’s only one alpha dog in the pack, honey, ” he teased, and I proceed to throw a bucket of water at him. But it hit home–I’ve never used Tom as the heavy or anything, but he seems to view himself this way. Are we regressing?