David and Brynn Ginsberg may be comfortably settled in their role as parents, but they are honest about the fact that they don’t know it all. The stay-at-home mom and her husband, finance director for Sewell MINI of Plano, welcomed us into their Dallas home to talk (and laugh) about life as a family of four. The busy parents to 3-year-old Dylan and 1-year-old Marin say they rely on love, mutual respect and a healthy dose of humor to navigate this thing called parenthood. Some might call the duo oil and water; we call them the perfect pair.
What makes you a unique couple?
D: She uses all of the power tools. She’ll ask me, “Will you go get me a molly bolt?” And I’m like, “OK … what?”
B: David got a screwdriver one year for his birthday, and I was so excited.
D: We’re totally backwards.
Did you always want kids?
D: I always wanted two.
B: Two kids, three years apart. That’s what he kept saying until we had one and he realized how difficult it was. It took me a while to convince him for kiddo number two.
Tell me about finding out you were expecting your oldest.
D: I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I came back, there was an EPT test taped to the shower door with a big plus sign on it.
B: I was up from 4 in the morning waiting for him to wake up!
Did you have any new-parent fears?
D: How the heck are we going to afford it? Typical father things. I was like, “How am I going to pay for all of this?”
B: I think I was just excited with Dylan. It was a total role reversal with Marin. I wanted to have a second baby and then all of a sudden I was pregnant, and he was excited and I was petrified.
David, what kind of dad things did you dream of doing when you found out you were going to have a boy?
D: I bought him a baseball glove when Brynn was six months pregnant. I wanted him to do all the sports. Teach him how to drive. Teach him how to play golf. Teach him how to play tennis.
B: He loves to play golf, and now he loves to watch football with David because that’s what David loves.
Tell me about having a little girl.
B: I was convinced I was going to have two boys. I was like, “I already have a boy. I have all the clothes. I know what to do with a boy. I don’t know what to do with a girl. I don’t do bows. I don’t do dresses. I don’t do princess.”
D: You do now.
B: I do now. It has totally sucked me in.
How is day-to-day life with small children different from what you expected?
D: I think you idealize it. “We’re going to have two kids three years apart.”
B: “And life’s going to be easy.”
D: “And everything is going to be simple.” But nothing goes the way you plan. When you’ve got something to do with kids, you’re either going to be late or somebody is going to have a meltdown. It never works out the way you plan.
B: You go to your birthing prep classes, and they tell you what it’s going to feel like to be in labor. They give you the mechanics of all that. They don’t tell you what it’s like to go from zero children to your first outing at the grocery store.
D: There’s no roadmap at all. You just have to figure it out.
David, what advice would you give a dad-to-be?
D: Take it one day at a time. You’ll surprise yourself. You’ll do fine. You figure it out day by day, and it will be OK.
Brynn, what qualities do you hope the kids take from David?
B: He has an incredible work ethic, and I hope that we can instill those traits in my children. I hope that they get his foresight and tenacity for doing an excellent job at his work.
What about you, David?
D: I want the kids to take her sense of spontaneity and creativity, and just always being silly.
You’re Mom and Dad now, not just Brynn and David. How have things changed between you?
B: We put in effort to make sure we don’t become roommates. There’s so much chaos with the kids that your focus becomes completely on them. It’s really easy to forget each other. What happens when those kids grow up and you have no idea who this person is after 18 years?
D: Yeah, you don’t want to become ships that pass in the night.
B: We try to get a date night once a week. We have to make an effort. If you don’t do that then I would say you can kiss your marriage goodbye. That’s probably how things have changed – whereas before it was a no-brainer to focus on each other.
Are you done?
D: We get asked a lot, “Are you done?” We’re done. Two hands, two kids.
B: That’s what he thinks … I’m kidding.
Published March 2013
