TheMommyBlog

Saturday, April 17, 2004 Me, Me, Me

Hello, everyone, I’d like to take it all back. I am no longer confused as to why people are coming here on searches about bitchy wives. I am the blue-ribbon holder in this year’s county fair.

Today’s workday was not especially difficult; routine tasks, wire transfers, financial stuff, a little legal policy work, some stupid shit to send to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (I managed to do this inbetween IMs with Jilbur--thanks hon! You made it MUCH more bearable!).

The antibiotics were finally starting to do their thing and today is the first day I hadn’t wanted to crawl under my desk in tears and curl up into a little ball. So I was as surprised as anyone when I came home and completely blew a gasket.
When I pulled up, there was some guy in the front yard, rototilling. Wonderful. Can only be progress. I came in through the garage and said hello to the children. They all wanted to know where Daddy was.

Yes, I know you told them you were in the front yard. Yes, I know they actually saw you go out there. Yes, I know that if they had put two brains cells together they could have told me this. And yes, I know you would never leave the children alone. This does not mean that the primitive part of my mom-brain did not register the words, “Mommy! Where’s our Daddy??” when I walked in the door.

I popped out the front foor and let Gil know I was home, and offered to feed the kids so he could stay out and help with the tilling. I put bread and PB& J out for the kids to make sandwiches. They love this, and it takes a while. Ideal, really.

Next order of business: get drinks. Logan needed something potent to take the yucky peanut butter taste out of his mouth from tasting one of the cookies I brought home, so I opened up a special treat, a Diet Cherry Coke, which immediately had to be shared three ways. Only there were no sippy cups. Actually there were plenty of lids, just none of those cuplike receptacles to screw under them. Arrrgghhh. Pet peeve… must ignore… must stuff down…

Anyone want to sing the first chorus for me?

Cherry coke: served in regular cups and immediately spilled all over the rush seats of the barstools, all over Daphne, all over the floor.

Peanut butter: smeared all over Dylan’s forearms (both!), his chest and his face.

Raspberry jam: same, with the addition of his hairline.

Cereal milk: all over kitchen table, where Logan had retreated to get away from peanut butter smell. (Go on, ask me how the Nutter Butters went over.)
When I knelt to clean the floor, the first swipe of the babywipe came up black. Then I noticed my knees were sticking to the floor. Aaarrrggghh.

Kitchen table: loaded with recycling items that made it half way to the recycling bin. The dinner table has become the purgatory of all things plastic, aluminum, and paper. Sure, they may be at the end of their useful life for us, but they often get to spend the rest of the day hanging out with the relevant folk until someone decides to walk them the next 10 feet to the garage.

Every frickin’ day I come home and move the recycling garbage to one side so I can sit down and scarf my dinner.

Can you see what’s coming? Can you say hallelujia?

“… [deep breath]… I have resisted the temptation to say anything for a long while because I know how hard it is to be home with the kids. I know how crazy-making it is. Which is why I know I’m going to sound totally out of line here, but for Christ’s sake, why is the floor always filthy, why are the kids always filthy, why is Daphne’s hair always matted, why is there always garbage on the kitchen table, why do I always have to move the garbage to one side so I can eat, why are we always scrounging dinner up all of a sudden at 7 p.m., why are the kids always eating with dirt-encrusted hands, why are the cups and the lids never within the same 12-foot radius, why is the sink always full of dirty dishes, why, why, why???”

Oh, man, I wanted to take myself out with a BB gun: I can only imagine what Gil was thinking. But honestly. Honestly.

Go on, hate me. But when I was home with the children on maternity leave for six months at a stretch, and even when we both worked and I arrived home first to relieve the babysitter, although the place was more often messy than not, there wasn’t garbage on the table, and there was dinner coming. Now will someone please come over here and shoot me for sounding like a such an asshole 60’s dad?