Differences

Tonight is one of those evenings where husband and wife have limited contact and/or conversation in our home. No matter who says something, the other seems to take it the wrong way. We're both tired and a teensy cranky, which is when this usually starts to unfold. He's been working some extra hours and feeling pressure for a project at work. He went into the office to work today. Wonderful. He comes home in time for playoff football, and sits on his ass all afternoon/evening with the occasional moment with a child or folding of the kid's clothing. That leaves me taking on heavier house & kid duties. Waaanderful.

The thing that set me off this afternoon was him not wanting to take Ariana outside to play for 20 minutes. He wanted to watch football. (Football is a sore subject in this house at the moment.) I, of course, got bitchy and said I'm sick of football coming before other things. Like your children, who haven't seen you all day, and want to spend time with you. He suggest I take her outside. Sure, me who has no snow pants and has this beautiful chest cold. Thank you so much for thinking beyond yourself. So, I fall into my pig-headed stubborness and get Ariana dressed and then myself, at which point he comes over to put on his stuff. A small tiff ensues with me continuing to be stubborn and pissy, and him saying, fine whatever. He got to go to a f'in Packer game last week while I stayed home with sick kids. I had sick kids all week. On New Year's I got a couple of hours for myself. I said I was going to try out my new scrapbooking tool, a Cricut, some. Well, I spent a bit too much time of the computer for his liking and he comes downstairs with this f'in tone in his voice, "I thought you were playing with your Cricut." Um, if it's my time...shut the hell up. I can spend it how I like. It's just adding up this week.

I get that he's tired and stressed. I appreciate the fact that he goes to work M-F to earn a living to provide for us, I really do. And I know that he appreciates me being home with the kids and doing the majority of the housework. He is a wonderful help with the kids, most of the time. Hell, he's ten times more involved than some of the husbands I know. I went into marriage and parenthood knowing that our partnership would be as close to 50-50 as possible. I'm an equal opportunity parent. It's give and take.

But there occurs these moments when I'm pissy about doing 18 f'in loads of laundry over the last two weeks, shopping, wiping butts, figuring out what's for dinner, looking at the scummy toilet and saying, gee I better clean that...moments where I'm just tired of doing all that crap. He can say thank you for taking care of all the things I take care of all day for days, but there's this level of deeper understanding that I don't think he gets. Yes, I understand the constrains of a full time job with pressure and stress...I use to work full time. There's more to being a stay at home mom than playing with your kids and putting dinner on the table. Yes, I understand I perhaps have more time to clean and do laundry. But, if you've ever spent an entire day with our children, you know that the extra time isn't what it seems to be. I typically start to get pissy when he slacks off some. The slacking could be due to illness, work, whatever. I try to understand some of it, but eventually I'm so frickin' tired of keeping everything running that my mouth seems to shoot off. I attempt to keep things running smoothly so there are few bumps along the way. But that gets exhausting after a while.

We are different in many ways. We do lots of things differently. We worry about different things. One shining example is me going through the kids clothing, putting aside the items that no longer fit and pulling out the next size clothes we have. And making sure each child has enough clothing. I take care of that, I always have. And I made the moronic decision to work on that this week when I'm in a peaky mood. Not my best decision. So, of course, I get pissy and we have slight words about it. I'm pissy cuz he never has to worry about stuff like this and I ask what he'd do if I wasn't here to take care of that particular task. He laughs and says, well the kids would be wearing clothes probably way past when they no longer fit. Funny, very funny. This causes me to roll my eyes and slowly back into the bedroom again where my eyes start to tear up. These are the types of things that he does not understand. And unless I, for some reason, wouldn't be here to do it...he'll never have to worry about it.

We're both tired. He allows himself to sit his ass on the couch watching TV all evening. Me, I have problems allowing myself to do something like that. There always seems to be something to do, dishes to wash, clothes to fold, toys to clean up, etc. I have a more difficult time relaxing in situations like that. And I know it, it's incredibly frustrating for me.

I can appreciate our difference, but there are times when I loathe them as well.