Daisypath Anniversary tickers

January 27, 2008

The Battle Has Begun

Well, BB and I lasted exactly 7 days, 4 hours, and 47 minutes (give or take some seconds) before we had our first disagreement about anything with the new baby...

He decided that while he was home on paternity leave to help me, and to take care of both Captain Chaos and myself, along with helping take care of the Tiny Princess (soon to be Empress if we're not careful), he was going to frame and sheetrock a portion of our basement, to close in our storage shelves, the dog's kennel, and the cat's litter boxes. Not a problem, except that since he bought materials Wednesday, he's rapidly knocked together the necessary frames for the walls, and is even now "tacking" up the dry wall so that he can just screw it to the studs, and make the necessary cuts on the tricky parts tomorrow. He'll have a door to hang, and that's about it. Not a problem right?!?!?

Well, he decided that I should be the one to go through all the things that are currently on the shelves, sort out what stays, what goes to "garbage", what goes to "donate/garage sale", and then sort the "stays" things into the appropriate sub-categories. Again, not a problem...except that he wanted me to start tonight, which would require an extra trip on stairs, and lifting boxes and items that are much heavier than the Tiny Princess, which is strictly verboten by the doctor.

Add to that the fact that TP (hmmm...may have to change her name so she's not associated with bodily functions after all) was up about every 90 minutes last night, so I only got bursts of about 45 minutes of sleep at any given time, and then had people coming and going...Point being I'm exhausted today. It's hard to turn away well-wishers, family members, and people bearing free food for your family...

I told him I'd start tomorrow, but he'd have to help me move boxes, and that I'd then sit and sort through things. I hope he realizes how ruthless I will be with trashing things...I mean, do we REALLY need to keep 3 boxes of 3-inch 3-ring binders with his college projects? He did lots of work with computers...how relevant is that 10 years later??!?!!??!?! And, do we really need to keep his high school cap and gown? I'm totally willing to let go of the box with my Cabbage Patch Kids and their acoutrements if he's willing to let go of the collection of gross bottles from various flea markets...

Which leads me to my next pondering question for you...why in the world, would ANYONE want to collect bottles?!?!?!!?

I understand Farmie's elephants, or my mom's blue willow ware, or my father-in-law's antique tools...but BOTTLES?!?!?! We're not talking the original Aunt Jemima here folks, we're talking 1975 Miller bottles...or random green glass bottles that are most likely early day 7Up bottles...not worth anything, certainly not my time to keep them clean and shiny...we've sorted through them numerous times, and we've culled the herd so to speak, but he's still got half a dozen boxes with bottles in them...ugh!

So my real question is this...why do collect things in the first place? If we know that someday, someone, most likely our children and/or spouse will have to sort through them, and guilt will make someone take them and clutter up their own home, why in the world do we do it?!?!?! I hate to dust the darn things that we have...so why would I want to add to that?!?!?!?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

uh oh...spagehetti o's..

My husband was very upset with me when we went through all his collections..He had almost 500 cd's. Tell me when was the last time you listened to this one..400 movies..When was the last time you watched this one? Or how many times have you watched this one? (It's on tv like once every 2 months) And about 600-700 books..If you read them and have no intention of reading them again why keep them? Why not trade them in..His apartment was wall to wall shelves and cabinets..I'm not kidding you couldn't see his walls..I felt clostrophobic (sp) when I walked in there..It was overwhelming. But it finally got all worked out..

Sending you love and prayers and hopes that you get some sort of sleep tonight.

Inkling said...

Why is it that men think helping out looks the way they think it does?! The last thing I'd want while enjoying the benefits of paternity leave would be for him to do a reno project. Oy. You poor thing. And I thought I had it bad when one of my husband's best friends sent me a book excerpt as a tough love gesture after he read my "Struggles" post the other day. Men. Can't live with them without conflict and misunderstanding, cannot shoot them, and have to admit that we do love them.

Kork said...

OK...I must admit, that I'm excited about the basement. I am not, however, excited about the fact that he is only half-joking about being "anti-work"...and the whole thing about not putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher?!?!?! I mean, how much more obvious can it get???

I do love him madly though, and know that he is not deliberately trying to cause me angst and distress...he just does that because he's a man, and it is genetically inherent in their makeup!