Paul and I have been married for almost 8 years and in that time, we have developed an excellent relationship based on great communication. For example, this afternoon, I heard Paul say to me: WE HAVE A WORKING LAUNDRY. TOMORROW, I WILL MAKE DINNER FOR NEXT WEEK AND PUT THE KIDS TO BED.<\/p>\n
And it’s part true. He said those words. I just didn’t hear what was in between them: WE<\/span> don’t HAVE <\/span>hot water in the back, but we are close to having A WORKING LAUNDRY<\/span>. I need to be under the house working on it all day TOMORROW<\/span>, so I<\/span> can’t handle WILL <\/span>with me in the back. Also, I’ll need you to MAKE <\/span>ahead some DINNER FOR NEXT WEEK<\/span> when you have your board meetings. Remember that I’m working tonight AND <\/span>you’ll be alone with the kids. I’m sorry that I can’t help you PUT THE KIDS TO BED<\/span>.<\/p>\n This may explain why he reminded me repeatedly that he needed to go to work when I insisted he put Kate to bed. He’s a very good sport.<\/p>\n Similarly, when I told Paul about us having a naked salad with no dressing and chicken breasts for dinner, I’m pretty sure he only heard the words “NAKED” and “BREASTS,” which is maybe why he looked disappointed when he came in for dinner.<\/p>\n So maybe it stands to reason that our children do not hear anything that we say to them. Perhaps hearing the words people say takes the same kind of time and practice required for something like learning to read or riding a bike. Until they develop those skills, maybe it’s unfair to hold them accountable for their actions. Maybe it’s not that they are choosing not to hear, but just absolutely cannot hear due to a completely underdeveloped skill not yet at maturity.<\/p>\n So when we tell Will, “Wash your hands and sit down for dinner,” maybe then it’s not that unreasonable that he would hear “DUMP OUT THREE MORE PUZZLES AND TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS.” Or when we ask him to “Help Kate put on her shoes,” he hears “GRAB KATE’S SHOES AND RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN. THEN TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS.”<\/p>\n It could be a completely developmental issue. So we can stop beating our exasperated heads against the wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul and I have been married for almost 8 years and in that time, we have developed an excellent relationship based on great communication. For example, this afternoon, I heard Paul say to me: WE HAVE A WORKING LAUNDRY. TOMORROW, I WILL MAKE DINNER FOR NEXT WEEK AND PUT THE KIDS TO BED. And it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[133,86],"tags":[84,107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3349,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions\/3349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}