Can I Take A Breather Please??

I don’t know what happened this week.   I blinked and it was Friday (sort of good because the week flew by, sort of bad because I feel like I lost a week!)

Work has been crazy, baby prepping/planning has started, I celebrated a birthday (officially old – as my body is reminding me!) and I spent a day driving through a monsoon – the weather here has sucked this week!

Anyhow, while I have plenty to blog about, I’m hard pressed to grab the free hour I need to get something real posted.  I am certainly looking forward to a 3 day weekend to catch up a bit.

So, in light of wanting to tell you to all enjoy a great Memorial Day weekend……….

 

I should be able to grab some blogging time this weekend… and with the pool opening, gazebo construction and summer starting, there will undoubtedly be hubby stories galore!

Avoidance Tactics?

Sorry I’ve disappeared…. I’ve been traveling for work this week and that always screws up my free time….. dang job!

 

Anyhow, here’s what’s on my mind this week!

 

I’m truly surrounded by absurd male behavior.  I mentioned last week that I was worried about a having a “mini-hubby” when we found out we’re expecting a boy.  But now, I think I’m coming to realize that due to the mere fact that it will be a BOY, even without hubby’s “mini-me” training, I’m just plain screwed.  Because men…. pretty much all men….. are just absurd!

 

I’ve given examples of my father-in-law, my brother-in-law and even my own father.  And today, I’d like to share one more story that might help illustrate the crazy world I live in.

 

As if it’s not enough to have tons of material from my own husband to blog about regularly, the other men in my life seem to love to “step it up” to keep me on my toes (or maybe they are all just hoping they’ll get a blog mention??)

 

Here’s a little back story.

A few years ago we had a new fence installed around our backyard.  We had some challenges with getting our gate to automatically close to ensure that our pool isn’t accessible to little ones and our dog can’t escape.  But my Dad, who is a wiz at stuff like this, swept in and fixed the problem for us….. voila…. problem solved (or so I thought).

 

Fast forward to the end of last summer.

My hubby is doing his summer chores and he goes out to mow the lawn.  Afterwards, he comes in and says… “Did you do something to the gate?”  “No why?”, I respond.  “Well, the closing mechanism is all different than it was last weekend”.   Hmmm… well, unless the fairies have now taken on mechanical tasks, there can really only be one explanation.

 

So, I call my Dad…..

 

Me: “Dad, do you do something to the gate this week?”

Dad:  “Yep, I was wondering how long it would take you guys to realize it!”

Me: “Well, it’s not like we go into the backyard every day….. we do have jobs you know.  So anyway, hubby just mowed the lawn and he noticed that it’s not closing right again”

Dad:  “Not closing?”

Me: “Yeah, before, Maggie (our dog) couldn’t run away but now it seems that she might have free access to the outside world”

Dad: ”Hmmmm, ok I’ll look at it again”

Me:  “Uhm, Dad?

Dad: “Yes?”

Me: “Why exactly did you mess with our gate at all?   It’s been fine for quite a while, and we didn’t ask you to fiddle with it?”

Dad: “Well, I didn’t like the way it looked.  When I fixed it a year ago, I wasn’t totally happy with the closing mechanism, so I came back this week to improve it”

Me:  “Interesting….. you didn’t ‘like the way it looked’ and so you improved it???  ”But it was fine… AND more importantly it was closing…. and now it’s not.  Not so sure that’s an improvement”

 

So the next week my Dad was back at our house fiddling with the gate.  You see, my Dad is a “fiddler”, and he’s also a perfectionist – a potentially lethal combination for a man. He’s always got some sort of a project going on and he likes to tinker around the house (ahhhhh… the joys of retirement!).  So, after a few tweaks, the gate is closing again – HOORAY!

 

Thank you Dad… for fixing a gate that we didn’t know needed any fixing.

 

Fast forward to this summer.

Hubby goes out to mow the lawn.   “Hon” he says, “I think your Dad is at it again.”  “What do ya mean?” I reply.  ”Well, the latch on the gate is different again”

 

Oh boy… I thought we were done with this.

 

So, I’m at my parents house.

 

Dad:  “You guys aren’t very perceptive are you…..”  he’s taunting me

Me:  “Is this about the gate?”

Dad: smirking “Ah, so you did notice”

Me: “I noticed that you are once again messing with a gate that’s working perfectly fine..”

Dad:  “Well, it may have been ‘fine’, but now it’s ‘more than fine’.  I have improved it!”

Me: “Are we done with this one?  Can we move on from creating projects out of things that are not projects?  I mean if you’re looking for things to do, I’d be more than happy to make you a list of things that actually need doing!”

Dad: “I think we’re done.  I’m pretty happy with it now.”

Me:  “Gee thanks, I’m happy that you’re happy…..”

 

Mom: she pipes in from the background  ”Well, I’m not happy…..   He keeps leaving the projects he should be doing here to go and mess with your gate!!”

 

And there you have it.   Yet another man trading off his time to create projects from thin air just to avoid doing projects on the To Do List!   This procrastination, avoidance, prioritization by men is just simply mind boggling!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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A Mini-Hubby (somebody please help me!)

Well, I’m 1/2 way to having a mini hubby around the house… we have confirmed our new baby will be a boy (Lord help me!).  And, as you can probably imagine, my actual hubby is thrilled to have a young impressionable little boy to mold into a 2nd version of himself.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m already surrounded by alternate versions of my hubby with both his father (here’s an example) and his brother (here & here are examples).. each seem to exhibit many of the same qualities.  And yes, his mother and I do our share of commiserating!

 

So here I am wondering how I can stop the madness and ensure my cute, innocent, little munchkin learns to put things away and to help with chores and to… well… uhmmm… just not be hubby (or at least the annoying version of hubby… he can totally be the part of hubby that I love…)  I have long term visions, WAY down the road, of commiserating with my own poor daughter-in-law about my son’s inability to wipe up crumbs and toss his dirty clothes into the appropriate basket… long into adulthood.

 

So what’s a gal to do?

 
Well, I’ve started by vetoing just about every insane baby idea hubby comes up with like:

 

Making the NURSERY into an outer space room with aliens -  yes, this is a REAL idea.

I’ve tried to explain to hubby that the baby comes out as an INFANT, not a little boy (I’m not completely sure he understands this). And that a black ceiling with glowing stars and alien spaceships doesn’t really feel very baby-like.  And, could quite simply ensure that the little boy is scared of his own room and moves permanently into our bed.  I’ve told him that by age 5 or 6 he can discuss this idea with our son and if he chooses to have an alien outer space room, we can redecorate.

 

Buying a bigger dog crate that can fit both our dog AND our baby….. so “the dog can babysit”

Ok, hopefully this isn’t a real idea, but with hubby….. how can anybody know for sure??

 

Having the whole family live on baby food (since he doesn’t want to cook)

There will undoubtedly be days when I have to work late or entertain clients, where hubby will need to be the care giver for dinner.  So, he’s basically already declared that he, himself would happily eat baby food with our new child rather than (god forbid) cook something.

 

Starting poker training early… let’s say at 5 years old (No, I didn’t mean “potty training”… POKER training, as in a full house beats a straight…..)

Since we have a poker man cave, hubby has already said it will be important for our son to “be adept at playing at an early age… so he can beat all his friends in a poker game” (That’s ever-so-important at elementary school).   Yeah, just what I need, a note home from the 2nd grade teacher:  “We caught mini-hubby in a heated poker game at recess today.  He had accumulated a couple of PS3 games, 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a little girls hair band before we stumbled on him.  Please address this ASAP”

 

As you can see….. I’m probably in over my head.

 

I can only hope that our little one has some of my qualities too and that maybe some day, he can start The Daddy Diaries and you can hear all about hubby from his point of view!!!!!

 

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It’s A Closet… No, A Coat Rack….. Uhm, No, It’s A Kitchen Table

It’s Springtime. The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming and yep, it’s raining.  This should be the time of year where you start stowing away your winter clothes and transitioning your drawers to bathing suits and shorts but this year it’s been oddly cold.  And, given the mild winter we had, is pretty dang annoying.

 

BUT, you know what else is more dang annoying?

 

The fact that both my kitchen & dining room tables have been showcasing their multitasking ability as coat closets for WAY too long.

 

Here’s the kitchen.

Please note the one coat dangling on the floor……  And please also note, the repair kit for the lawn mower that’s been sitting on the table for upwards of 2 weeks now.

 

Here’s the dining room.

Yes, that’s 2 more of hubby’s coats.  Resting peacefully until the next time they might be needed.

 

Much like the mind-boggling phenomenon of passing the dishwasher to put dirty dishes into the sink OR the mystifying 1/2 job of putting items on top of the counter, above the drawer where they belong OR the difficult task of placing empty soda cans into the trash,  hubby must walk at least 15 feet past our coat closet to put his coats on these chairs.  And then, they seem to live there for the season.  Even when I finally cave and put them away, while cleaning for the cleaning lady, they eventually find their way back to the chairs.  It’s a never-ending, no-win, battle for me.

 

I can’t wait until it’s warm enough to put the coats away for good…. at least I’ll have coat-free tables for about 4-5 months!!!

 

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The Ever Supportive Husband

One of the best (cough, cough) things about being pregnant is all of the things you get to give up.  I mean really, who needs a drink every now and then, or a ham sandwich, or a tasty piece of sushi.  Not this pregnant lady!    (lies… all lies…..)

 

I’m actually convinced that you are only forced to give up so much for the time you are pregnant so that when the baby actually arrives, all the additional things you need to give up come as less of a shock, since you’ve already been living without a ton of things that you really want.

 

Your husband on the other hand, needs to give up nothing.  And, if you have a wonderfully supportive and loving husband, like I do, he will sneak in opportunities to remind you of this.

 

Take for example, the kegerator we have in the basement.  Hubby and I have debated buying “better” beer for the kegerator for years and we almost always wind up settling for a middle-of-the-road type that is “appealing to the masses”.  This way we don’t have friends come over, pour themselves a way-too-expensive pint of beer, and then pour it down the sink since they don’t like it.   Hubby & I tend to lean towards craft beers and we like to try new things but we pretty much always wind up with something like Yuengling due to cost and general appeal…. that is of course…..UNTIL I got pregnant.

 

We announce we’re expecting then, as if on cue, we need a new keg.  To my surprise hubby comes skipping into the house after a trip to the liquor store… he’s singing some sort of song about brown dogs or something.  So, I have to stop and ask..”What are you singing about?”  “Oh, I’m just excited because I bought a keg of Smuttynose Old Brown Dog!” he replies, grinning ear-to-ear.  “WHAT??   You waited for me to get knocked up to fill the kegerator with something special??”  Then the grin begins to fade as he realizes what’s he’s done… but hey, the damage is already done. “BASTARD!”  I lovingly reply, with my own grin on my face.   “I hope you realize you’ll be sleeping in the basement…………….”

 

So, after this horrible mishap, or perhaps well orchestrated father-to-be reward he gave himself (I’m still not sure which), you’d think he’d be automatically attuned to making sure he’s more sensitive to my current state.  BUT, you’d be incredibly wrong, remember this is MY hubby we’re talking about.

 

So one night, not long after the keg incident, he’s out to dinner with a bunch of our friends (I wasn’t able to be there ).  And, this is the picture message he sends me.

 

Now, in case you can’t quite make out what that is…. it’s a scrumptious plate of swordfish.   And, just in case you are wondering, swordfish is my FAVORITE meal when we are out to dinner.  And, in case you don’t know the rules of pregnancy… swordfish is an absolute No, No.   

 

My smart ass hubby thinks he’s funny, sending me pictures of food items that I cannot eat. Yes, my ever sympathetic husband… rather than sneaking food items that I can’t have, in order to make me feel better, is rubbing it in my face via text messages.   He’s awesome isnt’ he?!   He really is lucky that I’m a good natured person and can appreciate the humor in his ridiculous behavior (even in the midst of my pregnancy hormones). And, rather than cry and accuse him of not being supportive I can just shrug it off and put tiny little pins in his toothbrush, or fill up his car with all his empty soda cans (DANG IT!  – I’ve just given myself away………… )

 

Yes folks, our lives are a laugh a minute…. that is of course, until I stab him in the eye.  What on earth will I do if I wind up with two of him???

 

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¡No Pantalones!

Hubby and I vacationed this week…… it was sort of like our last hoorah before the baby comes and our lives are forever changed.   If you were to ask hubby, he would insist that we will NOT give up vacationing like this.  I tend to err on the side of caution and recognize that we won’t have a clue how our lives will change until they actually change…. but I’m sure that our ever-changing lives (just like my ever-changing belly) will undoubtedly be the topic of future posts!

 

Today’s post however, is not about any of that – it’s about pants…. or perhaps more accurately, the absence of pants.

 

You see, an ever-occuring battle, argument, discussion prior to each vacation is whether or not hubby needs to pack pants.  We tend to like all-inclusive trips that offer of a number of restaurants on property.  Many of these restaurants have a dress code.  Which could loosely be described as “pants required for all men”.   In all honesty, not that hard to comply with…… right?!  Well, unless you are hubby and you need to debate the need to wear pants at a resort, in 85 degree weather.   Ok, maybe debate isn’t the right word…. other words that come to mind are… whine or complain.

 

I generally win the debate and pants, however despised, make their way into his luggage.

 

Then, after we make it to the resort, hubby grumbles the entire first night as we get dressed for dinner.  Once we make it to the restaurant, hubby scours the crowd for any men who are in non-compliance with the dress code… then he says to me…..”¡No Pantalones!” as he nods his head in the direction of someone.  ”¡No Pantalones!” as he walks past a couple at a table.  (yes, in case you have guessed – we are in Mexico. Thus, hubby’s limited language skills come out as he tries to make his case  – now in Spanish – about why I didn’t need to force him to wear “pantalones”).  I guess I should be happy that he’s honing his Spanish vocabulary since, to date, he can probably say maybe 15 words in this language.  What I’m not enjoying is his need to over-use his new favorite statement.

 

We get ready for bed and as hubby removes his pants he merrily declares:  “¡No Pantalones!”

I put on my bathing suit in the morning and hubby smiles and says:  “¡No Pantalones!”

He swims up to the pool bar and from across the water, I can see him mouthing:  “¡No Pantalones!”

 

Yes folks, this has become the catch phrase of our vacation so hubby can remind me like 1564 times a day that he really didn’t need to pack pantalones… since no one seems to enforce the pantalones rule at dinners.   At this point, I’m starting to think about hiding all the pantalones when we get home just so I can continue to use this new phrase every time he gets ready for work……  He steps out of the shower, opens the empty dresser drawer with a quizzical look on his face, and behind him he hears me whispering…..   “¡No Pantalones!”  

 

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One Small Step Towards Marital Harmony… Or Not?!

Last night hubby & I were watching tv and we saw a commercial for toilet paper without cardboard rolls…… how ingenious!

 

So, I happily say to hubby….. “Wow, that’s great.  It’s like they made toilet paper specifically for men.   They’ll be saving marriages all over the country”.

 

And, without hesitation hubby replies.  “No, not really.  Now, rather than finding an empty roll, you’ll all come into the bathroom to find nothing at all……………….”

 

One small step forwards….. and two back.

 

 

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