We have both species living in our house. As a lizard, I could happily lay in a California desert sunning myself on a rock. My husband, on the other hand, wants to start opening the windows when it is 55 degrees out.
Our children have species preferences, also. Ben would like to wear shorts (or nothing at all) through the year and has definite yak tendencies. Jake on the other hand, leans toward the lizard side, snuggling under blankets if his clothes or pajamas are too thin. To be fair we added another category, the Lizaks and the Yazards, for those who fall somewhere in the middle.
Why do these species differences matter? Ask any yak-lizard couple and they will tell you, it is just one more cultural difference that needs to be negotiated in this Happy-to-be-Stuck-With-You journey.
And it’s just not yaks and lizards. Another species conflict comes when night owls marry early birds. John could happily go to sleep every night at 9. I actually have a sleep specialist’s recommendation NOT to go to bed before 11-11:30. Even that is early for those most entrenched in the night owl tradition!
What about you? Are you a yak or lizard, night owl or early bird, or maybe you have your own species delineations needing to be crossed.
On a previous post, Dianne commented that marriage is “more like a business than anything else.” We actually negotiated the bedtime dilemma. John agreed to stay up until 10 if I agreed to go to bed then. Fortunately we didn’t sign it and make it legally binding. I am thankful for my husband’s patient grace, because I regularly renege on my end of the deal!
I agree that marriage can be more like a business, but it makes a difference if your partner doesn’t hold you strictly to your part of the deal and if you let them slide on a few things, too.
This all came up because our wood stove is still not working. In this snowy weather, the lizard in me declared that I was not going to get out of bed all day. The boys were welcome to come up and watch tv, play games and read with me, but I was not planning on leaving that warm, snuggly goodness for our cold, poorly heat managed environment.
My husband promptly tried to get the stove going, smoked up the whole house and I had to take action to get Jake (who has asthma) bundled up, out of the smoky air and playing outside in the snow (which he really wanted anyway, not truly being a full-grown lizard).
Good thing we hadn’t written out a snowy day clause, granting me warm, snuggly bed privileges, because I might have had to call a lawyer.
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