Marriage Excellence: The Disclaimer.

Now in order to have a more honest marriage I've thought of some things that we could assign blame for. What inspired this thought? Danielle waking Mark up at one in the morning. She decided to forgo sleep in favor of the much more interesting coloring. She wanted to use her paints so she did. The Blue paint was not as desirable so she took the lid off and dumped it behind the toilet. The yellow paint was only worthy of the hallway floor. But the red paint- Oh the red paint! it was good enough for the bed and the wall and her hair and the toilet and the tub, sink, and the wonderful carpet. In order to tell future generations about the fun she had Danielle drew pictures in a permanent marker she found in my purse. Smiley faces all over the twin bed- and the wall. And oddly on her feet but whatever.
I was so overwhelmed by the paint that I woke John up. Mark was screaming but I thought we should clean his room out a little- you see everything had been emptied from his closet onto the floor, including the new toy bin for his usually immaculate room. John was dumbfounded. Why would someone do such a horrible thing? She has had access to bath paint in the bathroom and markers in her room for a LONG time. Why now? What is wrong with our child?
Then me being overwhelmed by the mess turned into something else: shame.
You see, I remember getting in trouble for coloring on- well, everything. The lampshade, the bed, the wall. John does not remember being in trouble for such blatant destruction of property.
I'm pretty sure he would remember if he had done it.
very sure.

I can't help but wonder why that never came up while we were dating- by the way we are liable to have children that color on things and climb on furniture in order to get objects they should not have. Also, they will probably try to hide food under their beds and hoard our stolen possessions. Let's not talk about what they will do when they are teenagers. After a little consideration of our children I thought of how John could have let me know that out children would have food allergies and probably have acid reflux.

So I thought of a way to make every marriage better. At least if you are planning to reproduce during that marriage. Or even other relationships where children will result- it is a helpful disclaimer to help your spouse know what they are getting into.
Here are some questions that would be helpful as an extension of normal illnesses that would be helpful to know, like epilepsy or diabetes:

During your infancy/childhood did you/ were you

1. have a serious illness
2. described as "colicky"
3. Have an allergy. Describe___
4. Have irregular growth
5. Bite other children
6. Hit other children
7. get kicked out of preschool/daycare/primary
8. Hurt animals (OK side note maybe don't marry the person if this is true)
9. Color on your walls
10. Color on other furniture
11. Color on other people
12. Steal things from your family
13. steal things from school
14. steal things from friends
15. break other kids' toys
16. hoard food under your bed
17. never go to bed
18. purposefully disobey your parents
19. throw temper tantrums
20. Break windows on purpose
21. sneak around while your parents were asleep to do things you knew you shouldn't do.
22. wake your siblings up.
23. try to hide the sheets you painted on.
24. lie about wetting the bed.
25. Lie about other things. Describe_____
    

Not all those things apply to me, but I would like to take this moment to say that my mom has a photo of me after we colored all over our bodies. Not to be confused with the time we colored all over the walls. Also we did it in the morning- not like when we colored on our bedroom furniture when we were staying up late. Like we did every night.
and I hoarded food under my bed. and stole all my dad's quarters. and some other stuff. Like the time I tried to steal my cousin's toys.

And all this before I even started Kindergarten.

sorry love.

I'm pretty optimistic about the way we cleaned everything out of Danielle's room so fast. No more toys, no more bookshelves. No more pillow pets. She was so exhausted during the process she fell asleep. at 1:30 in the morning. I know you thought that was a good idea earlier, and I'm glad we finally did it.
Less optimistic about: the carpet....

What should you have told your spouse about?