At least until my wife hits the road again, there’s not much reallygoing on in this area of my life, so I’m not blogging it. I may return to it at a later date. I’m spending a lot of my spare time learning cello, and I’m blogging it here.
Thank you for reading!
I did in fact call my wife and all is calm now.
Well, I’m watching the new Fairly Oddparents movie with my kids. We had dessert of ice cream and chocolate chip cookies. I took the day off of work today because the kids have off, and I want to expose them as little as possible our local YMCA’s childcare offerings. But that’s a whole different stories. In principle, I am working from home, and I could get some stuff done. In fact, I plan to. But, in fact, I don’t want to abuse the ‘Work At Home’ system by making it nearly synonymous for Wasting Away Happily’. I want to keep this option available for others, which means not abusing it.
Tonight the wife is in transit to another time zone, so it’s pretty much a ‘boys rule’ kind of night. I really do miss having a female presence in the house, though. Even though we constantly face off about what gets done, and whether or not help should be solicited or unsolicited, it definitely feels unbalanced when she’s gone. Part of the issue is the lack of role model. The only role model I have is my old favorite from childhood (which was already in syndication by then) “My Three Sons”. But Alas, I don’t have Charlie around.
I’m really not going to use this post to gripe, although if I note something amusing, then I’ll certainly post it.
Right now, I’m thinking about putting up laundry.
Why? It’s one of the most uninspiring tasks to do. Simply stated, why do it? If I put it off, it’s already clean, so it doesn’t make matters worse. The kitchen or picking up a particular mess has a much higher sanitary priority. On the other hand, if I wait for my wife to return from one of her business trips, I’ve cut short our potential for lovemaking because she’s spending time doing Laundry. So, I guess I found my incentive….
From a results point of view, my performance metric is – can I get the kids off to school on time, with lunch, clean clothes, and their homework ready. Therefore, any task that is directly related to attaining this goal is more important than putting up laundry. But the more I think about it, if I want the kids to be more self sufficient, I’ve got to make sure the clean clothes are always in their room ready to go.
This blog is about the murky between-world of a husband whose wife travels. It’s not quite the same as being a stay-at-home-dad,since both of us are working. It’s also not quite the same as having a wife at home, since she’s often at home primarily on weekends. It has some similarities with couples who are both on shift-work, although without the circadian rhythm busting.
But today, I went overboard, basically saying [not in these exact words but kids know] that I was ashamed to have kids who did not enjoy reading as much as I did.
Sigh. Parenting is not for idealists. Every fine noble notion you will have will be dashed at some point, and more than once most likely.
Then it got worse. My younger son raised up a blunt object towards me, and did not let go when requested. This necessitated my taking it from him by force. The only time it is permitted to use our bodies to solve problems is when there is a physical threat occurring. His hand was injured in the struggle. Then he says ‘wtf is wrong with you’ and got a swift smack on his rear end.
Sometimes all I need is a few kid free hours and I can be back to normal. I hate to imagine what single women go through with boys this age. For my kids, it’s doubly scary because they live in a home with a potentially raging enemy.
But all I want is a little respect. I’m not marching them off to war, I just want them to take a shower at night, learn good hygiene, and get to school on time. OK, I want more. I also need them to be high achievers, especially in a society where the middle class is steadily eroding. The number of life paths that are promising is diminishing rapidly.
I really didn’t get into this so that I can terrorize kids. I just need a safety valve – somebody I can call and vent to when I want to wring their stubborn necks. And I just realized who I can call.