Tag Team

I have never purposefully watched professional wrestling. If I have the remote, that's not what's on the television. But sometimes, at a friend's house as a kid, or in a bar or dorm lounge somewhere, I've seen some of it. From what I have gathered, there's a special flavor of it, called tag team, that allows a two-on-two fight, where most of the time, only one member from each team is in the ring at a time. But, occasionally, if a wrestler gets in trouble, pinned down by his opponent, he can "tag" his teammate outside the ring and the teammate can enter to smash something down on the opponent to let the defeated teammate exit the ring to recuperate. Also, sometimes there are special moves that require a two-on-one scenario, and for those the outside-ring guy can be tagged to come in and assist for a move or two before it returns to a one-on-one fight. Or something like that. I don't really know the rules, this is just what they appear to be to me.

Anyway, caring for an infant is a lot like that. We learned very early on (the first night?) that it was a bad idea for all three of us to sleep in the same room. When Nora cried, we both lost sleep and got nervous. We had to split up and only have one teammate in the ring at a time. One of us sleeps soundly, knowing that Nora is well cared for, and the other dozes restlessly and attends to Little Miss Needy's every whim. Then sometime during the night the "tag" happens and we switch bedrooms. This strategy has been absolutely invaluable.

And it works during the day, too. The person that is not with Nora is cleaning, or doing laundry or other household chores, or working (in my case). Otherwise nothing ever gets done. Only for certain specific maneuvers, like baths, or when one of us is really getting beaten down hard (e.g. changing table explosions), do we both enter the ring and double-team her.

Though my understanding of the sport (?) may be flawed, the tag team wrestling metaphor, as it exists in my mind, really works well. The relaxed time Marga and I spend together is virtually nil. I'm assuming this will improve over time.