Broccoli & Cauliflower

This might come as a shock to anyone who knows me, but I'm often sarcastic in my conversations. I'm told that I have a pretty good "serious face" during these moments, making it rather difficult to figure out if I'm just joking or not. One teacher once told me that they believed I disliked them with a passion because they couldn't get a read on my thoughts. The irony here is that I only have positive opinions about this educator and they're probably one of the best I'll ever work with in my career.

So you can imagine how challenging it must be for my wife to know if I'm serious or not, as she's around me quite a bit.

While some would offer the advice to just not be so sarcastic (and that's great advice), my wife and I instead decided that we would have a "truth" word that I could add to my conversations that would tell her that I was being serious. The word we chose was Cauliflower.

There is one main rule regarding Cauliflower: my wife can't ask for Cauliflower; it can only be given. If there is a moment where she's unsure if I'm serious, she can't say "is this Cauliflower?" Instead, if I'm serious about something I'm saying, I'll just simply add the word "Cauliflower" to the conversation.

For example, if I've purchased her a spa weekend for just her and her friends and she doesn't believe me that it's actually happening, I'll simply say "honey, Cauliflower" and she now knows it's true. This is incredibly helpful in our relationship. I even utilize "Cauliflower" with some of my staff members. I suspect they appreciate it.

Tonight, my wife and I added a second word: Broccoli.

As previously shared, our daughters have significant special needs. We're trying to make things work in our home, but it's increasingly challenging every single day. We have had more than one therapist recommend a residential placement for them. We just can't envision placing our daughters in such an environment; could anyone imagine doing that to their child? That said, we recognize that it's something that is approaching fast on our family's horizon, if only for the safety of our sons and selves.

Given the special needs of our daughters, of which reactive attachment is a huge component, we don't travel anywhere as a family. Every single time we try, we fail. Breakfasts outside of our house (and even at home) turn into a chaotic mess. I can't think of a single car ride that's gone on for more than 10 minutes with all six of us in the car that didn't involve a significant issue (such as vomit, hitting, yelling, throwing, etc). If you ever want to know what torture feels like, imagine a flight delay with all four kids coming back from a family trip. Please note I said "trip" as we don't ever have vacations.

This is our life now.

The challenge as parents is how to raise our age-appropriate sons with as many wonderful experiences as possible, as our daughters cannot attend these events (too loud, too far, too many people, too few people, animals, Santa Claus, wind, cheering, music, etc...). So we, as parents, either have to split up and only one parent goes with the boys... or we don't go at all... or we try to go as a family, even though we know it won't work.

Tonight, we went as a family. It didn't work.

For those local to the Bay Area, there's the Niles Train of Lights in Fremont. My wife heard it was a great experience and wanted to go as a family. I pushed against the idea (see above) but acquiesced as I share her desire to provide these experiences for our kids. To the surprise of no-one, it was a complete failure.

Horrible weather. Rush hour traffic. Disregulated daughters. Hangry sons. Exhausted parents. Crowds. Lines. Noises. Santa Claus.

During the event, I looked at my wife and said that we needed a new word. If either of us came to the other with an event for our family to attend, their spouse could say "Broccoli" with the understanding that we'd take a step back from the idea we were really excited about and figure out if it really made sense for our family. I shared the example that I wanted to take all four kids to a baseball game this Summer and how my wife kindly expressed all of the ways that it could go wrong with all four. I shared how horribly traumatic our attempt to take the four kids to a sensory-friendly Nutcracker performance last week went. It's just how things are for our family right now.

So now we have two words; one that helps our conversations and one that helps our solidarity in best supporting our family. We hope that things will get better in the future, but for now, it's just a lot of Broccoli.