Who Said Fridays Are A Blast????

Assuming I didn't run everyone off with ranting yesterday...

Fridays at my house are tough. How is that? you might ask...well, you see, BB has it in his head that it is cheaper for him to not commute the 5th work-day of the week, and therefore "works" from home on Fridays. This generally equates to his rolling out of bed, throwing on a t-shirt, and either shorts, or sweats (depending on the weather), brushing his teeth, and wandering downstairs for some breakfast around 8:30. He has a teleconference meeting from 10 - 11, and at least 8 phone calls from co-workers, as well as his normal workload of running jobs, solving cases, and whatever else it is he does. In between actual work, he watches the History channel, gripes about how our 27 month old son and almost 8 month old daughter are too loud and get in his way, goes into his office, and sits for around 2 hours. He comes out around noon, asks where his lunch is, eats it, and heads over to the couch to sit for 2 hours watching more History (sometimes we vary and watch the Military channel), and finally around 3:30 or 4 heads into his office once again to finish out his day.

Now, you may ask what makes this tough...let me just tell you how my days normally go:

5am - wake up, have my quiet time and work out
6am - shower, dress, fix hair and make-up (yes, I actually do this every day), brush teeth, clean up bathroom (hang towels, wipe counters, put trash in trash can), make bed, pick up husband's dirty clothes, and snotty tissues and put in appropriate place
6:45 - change and feed Tiny Princess, try to get her to go back to sleep (usually fail, and she comes downstairs with me)
7:15 - feed animals, feed Tiny Princess her cereal and fruit, chat with BB while he eats his breakfast
8 - clean up BBs breakfast dishes from sink/counter bathe and dress Tiny Princess and Captain Chaos
8:45 - feed Captain Chaos, try to feed myself
9am - put Tiny Princess down for a nap
9 - 11ish - do the "light" housework (laundry, sweep, vacuum, dust, empty trash, clean off counters)
11ish - change Tiny Princess, and bring her downstairs to play for awhile as I fix lunch
noon-ish - feed Captain Chaos, and Tiny Princess, sneaking bites for myself off my plate
Lunch until 1:30ish - play and read with kids
1:30 - put children down for naps
2 - 4ish - do "heavy" housework (scrub toilets/sinks/showers, wash floors, iron) and most of my computer work (pay bills, balance checkbook, read/answer emails, blog), prepare dinner, set table
4ish - 6 - change Tiny Princess, feed her dinner, put dinner on table for Captain Chaos, BB and myself, eat, do dishes
6:45 - get Tiny Princess ready for bed (bath if it was a "bad" dinnertime), nurse her, and put her to bed.
7:45 - get Captain Chaos ready for bed (bath if it was a generally messy day), and have him in bed by 8
8 - 10 - finish laundry, finish cleaning kitchen, care for animals again, close up house, and head to bed

On a Friday, that also includes :
make BB's breakfast, and lunch, run him coffee, try to keep the kids out of his hair, and generally out of his line of sight/earshot
try to plan something "fun" for weekend
tune out tv blaring in background
keep Captain Chaos from talking louder than said tv
try to do normal things

Somehow, though, the children know that BB is home, and therefore, must have his undivided attention whenever they are awake, and not eating food, or having their pants changed.

If I run the washer or dryer, I must close the door to the laundry room, as the sound is "too distracting" to BB. I must also not use certain cleaning products on those days as the scent of them bothers him, and in the case of my Swiffer wet, make him nauseous.

We then head into the weekend, talking about all the things I'd like to do as a family. You know, the things like "take the kids to the park", "take a picnic lunch somewhere and go for a long walk", "go to the museum", "have you watch Captain Chaos while Tiny Princess takes her morning nap so I can color my hair, clean my MK office, take a nap, make cookies"...Inevitably, it somehow turns up that Saturday morning, the kids and I are up, dressed and ready to go out the door, with the cooler packed, the car gassed up, toys and beverages at the ready, the backpack carrier and sling on top, the daypack loaded with the necessary items like clothes and diapers, and BB sleeps until 9am, isn't ready to go until 11, and then is cranky that we got such a late start. However, if I wake him after I've got everything but the kids ready to go, he gets cranky that the kids take so long to get ready to go, and we always have an argument about something stupid and unrelated, such as the way I don't move the seat back so he can drive.

Never mind that I've done my usual weekly things like laundry, ironing, cleaning, grocery shopping, breaking up fights, feeding animals and children, bathing children, doing more laundry, planning and packing for a trip somewhere, loading up the car, harvesting and preserving produce from the vegetable garden, planning and executing meals that don't repeat themselves each week (a la Peggy Hill), dealing with being pulled, climbed, sneezed on, tugged at, poked, prodded, called a million times, answered 27 phone calls, loaded and unloaded children into car seats, made 50 trips to the potty to read the same book 4 times while we wait for Captain Chaos to acutally pee in said potty, changed all the diapers, changed the dirty and often wet sheets, wet towels, scrubbed toilets, washed floors, vacuumed, and somehow still managed to feel physically energetic enough to be intimate with BB, let alone have the mindset that being intimate with my husband is the perfect way to end a day...he always somehow finds the one thng that I haven't managed to squeeze in, and harps on me all weekend long.

We haven't been to Church since Father's Day. There is always something that comes up that keeps us from going. Even though I know that BB is still harboring his resentment that God has not magically granted us a box of money showing up on our doorstep in the exact amount of our debt, sent us a winning Powerball ticket, or even just sent us a cash gift to pay off the timeshare in Breckenridge, he manages to come up with "reasons" to keep us home. "The kids might not be awake in time for us to go." Or "I spent all day outside in the yard and shop, I want to rest." Or my all-time favorite "We'll get up and go in the morning."

I know that a wife's place is as her husband's helper, but how do you manage to convince your husband that there is a huge difference between "helper" and "slave" or "you do it all, while I sit on my butt in my chair and channel surf" without sounding like a nag, whining, or flat-out losing it and throwing the remote control, a coffee cup, or any other item at hand in the general direction of his smug smile?


I didn't start this post to complain about my husband, but today was just the proverbial straw that broke this camel's back!

I was awake "late" at 6:30, showered, dressed, and amazingly, somehow knowing I needed the sleep, Tiny Princess and Captain Chaos slept in late as well. I had done 2 loads of laundry start to finish (except putting the clothing away), swept and mopped my floors, dusted the rooms where no one was sleeping, and cleaned all 3 bathrooms before BB came stumbling downstairs at 8:30 looking for his breakfast. I went ahead and made breakfast, and had just sat down with my coffee when the phone rang. I answered, and we were immediately plunged into the world of "BB didn't get logged in early enough because he chose not to set his alarm, and I was a mean enough wife to not wake him up, so now he was behind the 8-ball, and had people upset with him". He inhaled his breakfast while logging in, and then had the audacity to be angry with me, when I was using my cell phone to make calls for my Moms' group while the kids were playing in the other room. I put Tiny Princess down for her nap, fed Captain Chaos made BB's lunch, ate a quick bite, put the kids down, and said "I have to run to Wal-Mart, I'll be back in less than an hour, the kids are sleeping." and he was upset with me that I'd leave him while he was working to take care of the kids.

I felt like smacking him, as he's been gone almost every night this week for something to do with work, of which, I learned that 2 of the 3 events were "families included", and the one night he wasn't at work, we went up the road to a going away party for my friends that left for California this morning.

I had a batch of tomato sauce finished, and am now deciding if I should shred and freeze the remaining zucchini today, or if it can wait until Monday...

The only saving grace is that I know that Sunday we go to a birthday party for my friend's little girl, and that my cleaning lady comes on Tuesday...Hallelujah! I can do the picking up and putting away of things on Monday while I put up my last zucchini and the current load of squash, finish the laundry and ironing. Then, on Tuesday, I have 4 entire hours in which my girl and her assistant will be here to do the scrubbing and the mopping and the dusting and the vacuuming...

I can take the kids to the library and the grocery, maybe even do something like have lunch with the folks...and then, while the kids sleep, I can nap!!!!!!!