As someone who says she is as natural as possible, it would seem like a given that I’d try to make everything in my life natural — spontaneous, easy, and free. Except for one thing: very few things in this world are, actually, natural. Marriage, in particular I think, is one of the least natural states you can find.

Marriage, in my experience, takes work. A lot of work. If I were to compare it to something in nature — a plant — I’d have to say it’s not a set- it-and-forget-it kind of vegetation. Marriage is not a spider plant, which grows even if you neglect it a bit. No, marriage is more like a orchid. Beautiful, but only when tended carefully and lovingly.

This is annoying sometimes. Not the work part. No, I’m willing to put in the work. No, what’s annoying is forgetting that it takes work. Finding myself coasting for a bit until smack, it hits me that we’re neglecting our orchid, which is losing its luster and drooping over begging for care and love.

For us, begging for care means that we’re both falling into crappy old habits. Mostly, I’ve stopped giving him positive feedback, hugs, and support. He’s stopped talking and stopped picking up after himself. As a result, I’m nagging and angry, and he’s snippy and defensive. Marriage starts feeling like drudgery. Work without benefits. (Since, let’s be honest, when you’re nagging and angry and snippy and defensive there’s no “benefits” going on.)

The good thing, of course, is that with a little tending, love, and care marriage can sprout new shoots. All the nasty bugs can be vanquished. The marriage can and does regrow to its old lushness — and then some.

Right now we’re working on weeding our marriage bed. Pulling out all the bad stuff (like me being nasty when he forgets to deposit a check and him being defensive when I ask him why he forgot to deposit a check), and feeding it the good stuff (me thanking him for putting away the dishes and him making an effort to put away the dishes). It’s amazing how quickly things can change for the better. Naturally.

The first, out of the Society for Research in Child Development, looks at how early childcare affects someone as a teen, linking childcare settings with academic achievement and behavioral issues. The second — out of the National Institute of Mental Health — found that a childcare provider’s behavior affects a child’s stress levels and behavior.

As a mom these studies make me upset. And worried. My kids have always had sitters. Yes, they were usually family members or people from our community who came into my home, but both kids have always been in some type of childcare. After reading the studies I had one pervasive thought: I hope that I made the right decisions when I picked my sitters. (For example, getting rid of the one who told me Big Girl required “too much attention,” when she was only three-months-old, and firing the one who just gave me a bad feeling.)

The first study gave me the biggest problem — and the most hope. It says that teens who spent more hours in early child care (four-and-a-half years and under) reported more risk-taking and greater impulsivity than their peers who spent fewer hours in childcare. It also says that teens who participated in higher-quality programs had fewer behavior problems defined as “rule-breaking, arguing, and hanging out with peers who get in trouble.” Just as important: teens who attended programs with “higher-quality care during early childhood scored higher on tests of cognitive and academic achievement than teens who attended programs with lower-quality care.”

The second study didn’t really apply to me since my daughter was never in a home-run daycare between ages 3 and 4, but it’s still interesting since she did go to preschool five days a week during that time. It says that kids have an increase in cortisol levels when they are placed in a childcare setting that is more rigid than what they experience at home. Too much structure such as learning letters and too little playtime and free time stresses kids out.

I think the take away from both of the studies is simple: Trust your gut when it comes to picking a childcare provider — even if it’s a group setting or at a preschool. I hated the first preschool I tried. Hated it. Hated the teachers, too. I ended up pulling Big Girl out of that program and putting her in a program that certainly wasn’t as fancy or expensive. (It was only a third of the cost of the first program.) But she thrived there. She loved it. (And I liked the moms better, too.)

Were your kids ever in childcare? If so, how did you select the right one for your family?

My older daughter was born when my husband was working a full-time job. He was making a good living. At the time — as a freelance writer — I scaled back a bit. I still worked full-time but I did a lot of work at night and on weekends. As a result I was able to play every day. Three days a week I played from 9 until 1 or 1:30. I’d get to work from the time Big Girl went down for a nap until 6. (I had a sitter from 3:30 until 6 those days.) My mom came Tuesdays and Thursdays. She stayed until Big Girl went down to sleep. On those days I played from 3:30 until 6.

It was a glorious time. My happiest time, really. I had a huge gang of mommy friends. I did playdates and lunches and days at the beach. Yes, I cried sometimes when I left a playdate early so I could get Big Girl in her crib and start my workday, but still, I had it great. I truly, truly had the best of both worlds. And I knew it.

Little Girl was born almost ten months to the day after my husband started his own business. Soon after he got sick, and I became our family’s sole breadwinner. That meant I no longer had the luxury of being a best of both worlds kinda mom. Chris, even when wracked with pain and bleeding from his injury stepped up to be the stay-at-home parent. He took Little Girl to mommy-and-me classes, park playdates and along on errands. He was the one who did all the fun things (and the not-so-fun things) while I, thank goodness, was very, very, VERY busy at work. I worked from 8:30 until 6 every day (still do), and worked at night and on weekends to handle the overflow.

If I tell you that my heart aches when I think of all I’ve missed it still doesn’t begin to convey the loss I have suffered not being with Little Girl during her babyhood. Yes, I did take an hour here, a few hours there to bond with her and take her to a playdate or class once or twice a week. Plus, I’m usually the one who puts her in for her naps and puts her down at night so I can read to her and chat with her about her day. And thankfully I was with her a lot when she was first born — the first six months or so when Chris was bringing home some money. However, it was Chris who cared for her during the day from the time she was about nine-months-old until now. My mom, too. While I know I am blessed that at least one of us was able to be with her during the day, I am still sad since I know what I missed all those months. Thousands of blissful, lazy hours watching her delight in her ever-growing world. The warm embrace of a solid mommy group. The excitement of wondering what new favorite thing we’d discover while out and about.

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my job. It’s wonderful. I have amazing editors and supportive colleagues. I am very lucky that I do what I do and was able to ramp up my output and support my family. Still, next month Little Girl turns two. I have been strangely sad. I have missed her toddlerhood. I can’t bring it back no matter what I do. That said I’m hoping that, as we go into her third year, I will get more time with her because while I can’t capture what was lost I can still revel in what’s to come, right?

There’s been so much made of the mommy wars and whether women should stay home with kids. What was your choice, and did you ever regret your decision?

A friend just e-mailed an article to me and a few other friends. The Washington Post has a story written about some time management stats out of the University of Maryland. According to John Robinson, a researcher and time management guru, moms and dads have plenty of free time. More than 30 hours a week, to be exact.

I’ll bet a lot of parents would balk at that number, as the Washington Post writer did, too. How could that be? We all work so hard. Kids make us crazy. Housework, bills, yard work. Where does 30 hours come from? You know what? I think Robinson is right. Even in this house, where we work really hard, we have downtime.

I go to the gym. I go to yoga. I see friends. I’m in a book club. I read. I watch television. I go to playdates. I take my little one to classes. I play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. I read blogs — lots of them. I write this blog. I read to my girls. I play with my girls. I laugh with them. I am on a bowling league. I go to volunteer meetings at my local beach club. I go out for coffee or dinner with my husband. We play board games. We have our alone time. All those things add up in terms of hours. Just last night I went to an hour of spin and, when yoga was canceled, ended up meeting two friends at a local coffee house. I got home and watched an hour of TV with my husband. That was almost five hours of downtime. Granted, I stay up way too late, and I work a lot, but I’m still getting in plenty of me-time.

If you take the time to read through the entire Washington Post article you see that the author, who was resistant to the idea in the beginning, slowly comes to realize that she has more time than she thinks she does. When she first starts out, some of the folks in the story — including the author herself — bemoan the fact that a good portion of so-called “leisure time” is actually spent exercising or spending time with kids, which doesn’t always feel like leisure. But as the story unfolds the folks that she interviews help her to realize that to-do lists often don’t need to get done, and leisure time is what we make of it. The author wrote that she, as a working mom, did actually have close to those 30 hours of time — she had about 28 — but that it didn’t feel like leisure because she was too busy worrying and thinking about other things that needed to get done. “Even during a so-called leisure activity, mothers are more likely to be worried about something, planning what to pull together for dinner or strategizing. Sociologists call that ‘contaminated time,’ ” she quotes Rachel Connelly, a labor economist at Bowdoin College in Maine as saying.

I think this story is pretty interesting, and hopefully something that will give readers hope. As someone who has always been selfish and self-centered when it comes to taking me-time, I can say it helped me re-discover the fact that it’s a wonderful thing that I do take that extra time for myself. That it’s important. That it helps me feel like me and be a better journalist, wife, mother, and friend. How about you? what have you done for yourself lately? What do you count among your 30 hours of weekly leisure time?