What? Huh?
My husband was in no way involved in the bridal registry process when we got married. I asked him about it, but he just brushed me off with a comment like, "Just pick out what seems best." So I did. I went around with the little UPC code gun and had a good ol' time.
We live in the house my husband bought years ago, before we were married. There's a guest room painted a medium blue color, and when we were dating, it stood empty. I'd decided that we would need to put a bed in there for my friends and family to use when they visited, so I set out to register for things to furnish that room. Of course I told my husband about all this; however, I don't think it really registered. *wink*
I chose a bed spread with different shades of blue, horizontal stripes -- I did not see the whole thing, outside the bag. I only saw the little sample through the window of the packaging. I couldn't imagine anyone actually buying us something that expensive, so I shrugged and thought, "Why not? Let's give it a whirl."
I went through the requisite round of showers and parties. I got most of the things I registered for, but the blue bed spread never made an appearance. Caught up in all the festivities, I forgot about registering for it at all -- until the day before the wedding.
My husband's parents traveled to our wedding location. When they got out of their car, they wrenched this huge gift bag out to of the back. Guess what was in there? The bedspread! My husband looked through the same sample window I'd looked through and said, "Hm, that's nice."
We tossed it in with our luggage and carted it home with us after the honeymoon. Then the day finally came when it was time to pull it out and put it on the bed in our lovely blue guest room. My husband stood by while I unzipped the package and reached in to pull everything out. First of all, the pillow shams were not the same as the part of the comforter visible through the package. They were dark navy blue with tan stripes. My first thought was, what?
My husband reacted the same way, scrunching up his nose. "Those are some ugly pillow cases," he said.
"I know," I responded. But we didn't give up. We pulled the rest of the set out of the package and proceeded to make the bed. As it turned out, the comforter was reversible. One side was the lovely soft blue, shown in the window of the bag; the reverse was the heinous navy, matching the shams.
First, we tried to use the lighter blue side. We loved the comforter but hated the way the pillows looked, so we flipped it over. That was better because the comforter no longer clashed with the pillows, but now the unsavory navy pattern was multiplied a thousand times.
My husband grimaced, "I guess we'll have to leave it like that. I wish they hadn't bought that for us. Then we could have picked out a different one."
"Right," I said," I had no idea that navy part was on there. I wish we could pick something else, too."
As George Bernard Shaw said, " The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred." We were both standing there thinking we were on the same page. We weren't.
A few years later, after I had bought some pillows to help mask the ugly navy shams, my husband and I started talking about the set one day in casual conversation. He said, "I still can't figure out why they bought us that," he said. "It just doesn't make sense."
My jaw flew open. "I thought you knew! I registered for that thing, Sweetheart. That's why they bought it; it was on our list."
"What?! No way!" He was gobsmacked. He shook his head, "That explains so much." We laughed.
Don't get the wrong idea -- my husband is a good listener. It's one of the things I love about him. Being from a loud family, I spent much of my time growing up competing to be heard. Consequently, it was refreshing to meet my husband, who has always made an effort to listen to what I have to say.
Meeting my husband and becoming a teacher showed me that I was, in fact, not the best listener. Since then, I've really been working on becoming a better at it because it's important.
Not many people are good listeners. Lots of times you'll feel like another person is talking over you or is pretending to listen to you. I don't want to be that person. In my pursuit of better listening, I've discovered that many people feel like they aren't being listened to, but they don't really think about it too much. They just react to the feeling by getting louder, frustrated, or angry in a general sort of way.
Learning to listen better has been great for all my relationships, for obvious reasons, but it is also one of the best things I do for my students. In the last decade I've seen that most children aren't listened to all that much. We ask them to listen to us all the time, but we rarely return the favor. Come on, communication is a two-way street.
If a student is giving me a hard time, I usually ask for a private conference in the hallway. When we step out there, the first thing I do is invite her to tell me what's going on -- not start telling her what I think. It's amazing what that does. Even if she lies to me or something crazy like that, at least I have heard what she needed to say.
I realize now what I missed all that time by tuning people out or pushing to have my say. My relationships weren't nearly as good, and I didn't learn as much.
King Solomon said in his book of Proverbs, "He who has knowledge spares his words, and a man of understanding is of a calm spirit. Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; when he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive" (17:27-28).
Of course, all this is still a work in progress for me. Sometimes I don't give others the attention they deserve or listen like I should. Maybe you understand how that is. Here's a brief video that gives pretty good advice about how to approach learning to listen better.
image credit: http://www.guy-sports.com/funny/funny_bride_cartoons.htm
We live in the house my husband bought years ago, before we were married. There's a guest room painted a medium blue color, and when we were dating, it stood empty. I'd decided that we would need to put a bed in there for my friends and family to use when they visited, so I set out to register for things to furnish that room. Of course I told my husband about all this; however, I don't think it really registered. *wink*
I chose a bed spread with different shades of blue, horizontal stripes -- I did not see the whole thing, outside the bag. I only saw the little sample through the window of the packaging. I couldn't imagine anyone actually buying us something that expensive, so I shrugged and thought, "Why not? Let's give it a whirl."
I went through the requisite round of showers and parties. I got most of the things I registered for, but the blue bed spread never made an appearance. Caught up in all the festivities, I forgot about registering for it at all -- until the day before the wedding.
My husband's parents traveled to our wedding location. When they got out of their car, they wrenched this huge gift bag out to of the back. Guess what was in there? The bedspread! My husband looked through the same sample window I'd looked through and said, "Hm, that's nice."
We tossed it in with our luggage and carted it home with us after the honeymoon. Then the day finally came when it was time to pull it out and put it on the bed in our lovely blue guest room. My husband stood by while I unzipped the package and reached in to pull everything out. First of all, the pillow shams were not the same as the part of the comforter visible through the package. They were dark navy blue with tan stripes. My first thought was, what?
My husband reacted the same way, scrunching up his nose. "Those are some ugly pillow cases," he said.
"I know," I responded. But we didn't give up. We pulled the rest of the set out of the package and proceeded to make the bed. As it turned out, the comforter was reversible. One side was the lovely soft blue, shown in the window of the bag; the reverse was the heinous navy, matching the shams.
First, we tried to use the lighter blue side. We loved the comforter but hated the way the pillows looked, so we flipped it over. That was better because the comforter no longer clashed with the pillows, but now the unsavory navy pattern was multiplied a thousand times.
My husband grimaced, "I guess we'll have to leave it like that. I wish they hadn't bought that for us. Then we could have picked out a different one."
"Right," I said," I had no idea that navy part was on there. I wish we could pick something else, too."
As George Bernard Shaw said, " The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred." We were both standing there thinking we were on the same page. We weren't.
A few years later, after I had bought some pillows to help mask the ugly navy shams, my husband and I started talking about the set one day in casual conversation. He said, "I still can't figure out why they bought us that," he said. "It just doesn't make sense."
My jaw flew open. "I thought you knew! I registered for that thing, Sweetheart. That's why they bought it; it was on our list."
"What?! No way!" He was gobsmacked. He shook his head, "That explains so much." We laughed.
Don't get the wrong idea -- my husband is a good listener. It's one of the things I love about him. Being from a loud family, I spent much of my time growing up competing to be heard. Consequently, it was refreshing to meet my husband, who has always made an effort to listen to what I have to say.
Meeting my husband and becoming a teacher showed me that I was, in fact, not the best listener. Since then, I've really been working on becoming a better at it because it's important.
Not many people are good listeners. Lots of times you'll feel like another person is talking over you or is pretending to listen to you. I don't want to be that person. In my pursuit of better listening, I've discovered that many people feel like they aren't being listened to, but they don't really think about it too much. They just react to the feeling by getting louder, frustrated, or angry in a general sort of way.
Learning to listen better has been great for all my relationships, for obvious reasons, but it is also one of the best things I do for my students. In the last decade I've seen that most children aren't listened to all that much. We ask them to listen to us all the time, but we rarely return the favor. Come on, communication is a two-way street.
If a student is giving me a hard time, I usually ask for a private conference in the hallway. When we step out there, the first thing I do is invite her to tell me what's going on -- not start telling her what I think. It's amazing what that does. Even if she lies to me or something crazy like that, at least I have heard what she needed to say.
I realize now what I missed all that time by tuning people out or pushing to have my say. My relationships weren't nearly as good, and I didn't learn as much.
King Solomon said in his book of Proverbs, "He who has knowledge spares his words, and a man of understanding is of a calm spirit. Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; when he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive" (17:27-28).
Of course, all this is still a work in progress for me. Sometimes I don't give others the attention they deserve or listen like I should. Maybe you understand how that is. Here's a brief video that gives pretty good advice about how to approach learning to listen better.
image credit: http://www.guy-sports.com/funny/funny_bride_cartoons.htm
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