My Helpful Husband...Continued

My husband didn't have to be in the office until later this morning, so he slept in a bit. I woke up at 2am when Crazy Plates peed in her bed, and again at 4am when Little Bear woke up and needed help falling back asleep, and again at 6:45 when both girls were up for the day. I got out of bed, made breakfast, broke up a fight over a doll, packed their lunches, broke up a fight over crayons, got them dressed, did their hair, broke up a fight over hair clips, brushed their teeth and took them to school. But, at least my husband got to sleep in.

When it comes to household chores, I don't ask too much from my husband. In fact, I only have two requests. 1. Don't tell me you're out of underwear when you are literally out of underwear. I can't wiggle my nose and have the laundry done in an instant. If you wait until you're out of underwear to tell me you're out of underwear, then you're going to work without underwear.  2. When you're done eating, put your dishes in the sink. Not next to the sink, in the sink. And if there is something sticky or messy on the plate, rinse it off. Is that too much to ask?

I've heard it said that marriage is getting to have a sleep over with your best friend, every night of the week. This is true, except for the nights he's away on business, or asleep on the couch, or at an 11pm men's league hockey game. Or in the dog house. And then there are the nights when you have two crazy kids crashing your sleep over. But, yes, other than that, this is exactly what marriage is like.

I find it funny that my husbands fingernails on his fingers don't gross me out, but if I find a clipping on the bathroom counter, I throw up a little in my mouth.

My Helpful Husband...

This is our laundry room / mud room. It's a pretty small space, so to ensure that organization reigns supreme in this room, I have implemented an ingenious system of hooks, baskets, shelving, and shoe cubbies. A couple of weeks ago I went into the laundry room to find that my husband had done this. He took off his running shoes, and left them there, instead of putting them in his designated shoe cubby.  He then would have come back a second time wearing sandals, and he would have had to have stepped over the running shoes to slip off the sandals.  Stepping over the running shoes suggests he was aware that they were there, right in the middle of the floor, yet he continued over them and left yet another pair of shoes in the middle of the floor. The kicker is I found these shoes after he had left for work, which means he hop scotched his way over both pairs to get to the garage to leave. Sigh...

Just a couple of days ago, I wandered into the laundry room to find that my husband was at it again.  Only this display of organizational defiance baffles me.  The sandals were left at the bottom of the step that leads from the hallway to the laundry room, and the sandals are facing away from the step, which suggests that he was wearing them in the house.  Then there is the coffee cup and newspaper by the garage door.  The mug would have come from the kitchen, and the newspaper from the front porch.  This suggests to me that he put on the sandals to get the paper from the porch, and went into the kitchen to make a coffee.  Then he took his coffee and the newspaper to the laundry room, slipped of his sandals and walked over to his shoe cubby to put on his work shoes.  Now, why are the newspaper and mug on the floor?  My best guess is this.  Little Bear's sandals are on the floor beside the newspaper.  I think she went to the laundry room with him to say good-bye.  He reminded her not to wear her shoes in the house and asked her to take them off.  She reminded him she can't undo the buckles.  He put down the newspaper and coffee mug to help her with her shoe buckles, gave her a hug, and left, forgetting his coffee and the paper on the floor.  Yup, I think that's it! 

I went to University for criminal justice, and one of my favourite knocks on stay at home motherhood is that I'm wasting my degree.  Wasting it?  As it turns out, I use it quite regularly.


For more on how I, and other stay at home moms, are not wasting their university education, check out this blog post I wrote on the subject.