Who We Are

I hate housework with a deadly passion. I'd usually rather grade than clean. Seriously, a deadly passion, I know. Here's a credit shout out to the Jane, who taught her children how to do housework, the boys as well as the girl. Because this means that...

...Ben knows how to do things like laundry and dishes. But if there's any particle of housework that I "like" to do, it's laundry, and now that I'm on maternity leave, I've really taken that over 100%. We used to share it but since the beginning of the school year, Ben has started one load. I have done every other, probably-3-7-loads-of-laundry-a-week-depending-on-how-much-bedding-needs-to-be-washed-oh-my-gosh-one-little-kid-produces-a-lot-of-laundry. This also means that...

...Ben sometimes gets my most hated cast offs. And when I say sometimes, I mean pretty much always. When we got married, we had a 5 minute discussion about who was going to be responsible for what job, and really so far, over 4 years later, it's still a rock solid system. He gets dishes. I get floors. He gets bathrooms. I get pretty much everything else like running errands because he's "stuck" at school and I'm somehow way more flexible even when I'm teaching full time and taking two graduate classes but that's okay because I get out of school 1/2 hour earlier than he does so that means I get to go to the bank and the credit union and take the cars to get serviced and everything else plus a bag of chips. Which means that...

...I have a hard time being calm about things that are his responsibility when they aren't done on my time schedule. It makes perfect sense to me. I do 100 billion things during the day and try to be done by 9. Ben does 100 billion things during the day and then comes home and plays video games or watches tv (to his credit...fits it around helping with Abby). This is a fundamental difference between us. He drives me crazy by starting to do his jobs at 9:30 at night. I drive him crazy by asking him if he's planning on cleaning the bathrooms tonight. All of this means that...

...over 4 years later, we still drive each other crazy and our rock solid system of doing things is really only rock solid 5 out of 7 days a week. Those other 2 days sometimes involve me muttering craziness about dirty dishes, and oh my, why aren't the dishes washed, and seriously, are we going to start the dishes yet, and I can't take it anymore, please start the dishes, thoughts to myself. Dishes are probably the #1 source of discontent between us. I think that we're cumulatively getting better about accommodating each other while still getting stuff done, but sometimes I wonder. And when I feel guilty about sitting on the couch reading the newspaper while he's in there doing dishes, which incidentally our couch is 10 feet away from the sink so it's rather obvious that I'm sitting doing nothing while he is doing something that I could be helping with, I remember--it's his own darn fault that he's waited this long. And then I sigh a bit, snuggle deeper into my cushy couch and rattle my paper just a bit. But this also means that...

...I really have to be careful about holding up my end of the bargain before I criticize his. For example, I find it challenging to get the floors swept around Abby's schedule, partly because it's such a low priority for me that I just plain forget when I have the opportunity. And now that we have considerably less carpet in the house, and I (imagine) hate sweeping, it doesn't get done on any sort of regular basis. Next time I get overworked up about the dishes, maybe I'll remember that Ben never comments on my lack of floor sweeping. But that might not be entirely truthful either. This boy never looks at the floor. Seriously, he doesn't notice anything below the horizon. Somehow we get things done, and really, it's the kind of house that I'd rather have. My mom is a bit of a cleaning nut, in my opinion, and it always bugged me to no end that we had to sweep and dust and wash and wipe everytime someone like my grandmother (who is absolutely not a cleaning person!!) came over. I always used to mutter as I dusted (big surprise...another job that I hate) that I would have a house that looked lived in rather than a house that looked sterile. I give you credit, Mom...I understand your position now. There's no bigger incentive for me to clean that to have someone come over to visit. Don't expect me to dust, though.

Fact of the day: if you leave the door to the bathroom open even the slightest of smidgens while you are taking a shower, you can absolutely count on having a furry little cat face poke in on your showering self at some point.