Know Your Role, Play Your Position

"Know your role and play your position."
I don't know if that was advice passed on to me from someone or if I came up with it myself. Either way, for as long as I can remember it's something that I've tried to apply to my relationships - romantic, platonic and familial. I think that life runs so much smoother when I know where I stand with someone and act accordingly and if I can't act within the confines of the role they'd like me to play, then it probably means it's time to bid that person farewell.
Todd and I had the roles and positions talk early on and were in agreement as to how things were supposed to work. And things went pretty smoothly. So when we got pregnant and made the decision to move in together, I wasn't worried. We knew were we stood with each other and we knew what the other expected.
I didn't anticipate how those roles and positions would change 1. once we moved in with each other and 2. once we added jobs and a child to the mix. It's amazing to me how much expectations and boundaries can change when you go from committed boyfriend/girlfriend to live-in boyfriend/girlfriend.  Things that were acceptable in one arena are no longer considered okay. Expectations that didn't exist before, do now. We struggled (and are still struggling) with our new roles. If we didn't like the role we suddenly found ourselves in, we refused to play our position. It led to a lot of arguments and fights and just plain stubbornness (must be the Taurus part of our parents' genes coming out).
Over time, we realized that we didn't have very many options, so we started accepting our new roles and learned how to play the position. There are very many ways to play the same position, but only a few ways work for each individual and each team. We're learning the best way to play our position for what's in the best interest of our team. And in those areas where we know our role and play our position, life is so much simpler and easier. There's a lot less fights and we run like that well-oiled machine from early on in our relationship.
We still have a lot of kinks to work out and there will be new positions and plays added as our life together changes and additions are made to our family and other aspects of our life (social, work, etc.). But I'm confident that if we stay committed to learning what our role is in the midst of it all and playing our position, the correct one, then we can create an all-star team.
After all, you can't spell Todd, Taija, Temi, T-Time or team without a "T."

Date Night

Saturday, December 3, 2011. That's the day Temmy spent her first night away from home.

Todd planned a date night for us. It was our first one since....actually neither one of us can remember the last date we had. I was pregnant and it was warm out. Baby's here and it's cold out. We both agree that we're long overdue for some Mommy/Daddy time so he got to planning a surprise night out for me.

I dropped Temmy off to her Nana's house late Saturday afternoon. Surprisingly, it only took 25 minutes for me to leave. Then I got teary-eyed walking out the door. I made my first turn, then I called to make sure she was ok. After that, I promised I wouldn't call anymore and proceeded home to get ready.

My mom called a few times while we were getting dressed. I missed all her calls (how could I forget to take my phone off silent? *SUPER Mommy fail*) and panicked when she didn't answer when I called back. She called back asking about the bottle and wanting to let me know Temmy gets angry when you don't move fast enough. *whew! Glad she wasn't calling to tell me to meet her in the ER* 

Todd and I finished getting dressed and headed out to dinner. We decided on this Italian restaurant called Topo Gigio on Wells. It was really nice. Nice atmosphere, excellent food. Kinda dressy. We will definitely be going back for a birthday or something.

After dinner we walked down the street to Second City for a comedy show. From the second it started till it ended, we were laughing. We ordered two Pirates of Navy Piers (adult apple ciders) and got two souvenir mugs to take home.

On the way home, we made a split decision to go to the new casino. We've been wanting to go since we heard about it, it's on the way home and we're baby-free for the night so why not? We decided on a set amount to play, sat down at a slot machine, played 3 times, won double what we started with, stared in disbelief, cashed out and left.

We came home and crashed. I woke up this morning and immediately texted my mom. 40 min later I called every number I had for her. Did Temmy sleep thru the night? Why hasn't she called me yet? Is everything ok? While I waited for my mom to call me back, we enjoyed our babyless morning by indulging in Hulu+ and leftovers. AAAAHHHH this is the life... When my mom finally called back, we got dressed and went to pick up Temmy.

It was nice playing Grown Up, but I'm glad to have my baby back. :-)

Thanks Todd for a LOVELY date night!!!!