Six Word Memoirs on Life Stories

Backstory

We had a 'family meeting' last night. It went pretty well for the most part, and in a way, I was really glad my mom went off because it gave my dad an opportunity to see that a great deal of the 'problems' we have while he's at work stem largely from the way she communicates - or doesn't.

We discussed a lot of things and then finally came around to Constantine. My mom doesn't want to feel like she has to tiptoe around the house all day, and I understand why she feels that she has to because even though Constantine is awake for a lot of the day, he's downstairs with us frequently and she doesn't always know that he's napping. So I told her, them walking around on the floor above doesn't wake him up, or anything they need to do - and if it does, I'll deal with it. The only thing that wakes him up is my brother playing piano.

Again, she maintained that he'll just have to deal with it. Again, she said my niece could sleep through it, so why can't he? Again, I told her that even my sister agrees that my niece wouldn't sleep through the piano and again, I reminded her that my niece has three young, loud siblings and has from day one, so she's always been used to more noise. I tried to tell her I'll just talk with my brother about being better about letting him know when Constantine is awake but just hanging out downstairs so that he can play piano but somehow at the end of the night, she came up with this - and I'm still not certain whether we agreed on it or not. Nathaniel seemed to want to so I'm not sure.

"He can have two hours. From eleven to one. We'll be quiet for those two hours."

Phenomenal. It's great, because that's how babies work. Never mind the fact that Constantine takes two naps, not one, and that he wakes up any time between 8 and 9:30 most days, and that he's growing and changing and staying awake longer one day than the next so that nap time these days could start at 10:30 or 2:00, depending. Doesn't she remember having babies? And how they don't have an automatic off switch?

It's really hard for me to understand the battles she chooses.