“Multi-Purpose” Spaces?

Did you ever wonder how one area of your home slowly gets taken over by so much stuff that it eventually assumes the responsibility for the new stuff more than the old stuff?

 

And then one day, you realize that you don’t know what has happened to your house.  And you wonder how your sewing room became the exercise room, or your exercise room became the laundry/ironing room.  Or perhaps you had a great den where you used to snuggle up and watch movies and now it’s become the kid’s playroom and is constantly littered with toys.  I’m sure many of you can relate.  And, you probably think that this post is about to outline all the ways our house has been overcome by baby crap (which it has) or that my family room no longer resembles an adult space (which it doesn’t) or that my office has become the staging area for baby baths… and the permanent home of a bath tub (why wouldn’t you keep a bath tub in your office??).  Anyhow, this post is about none of those things.  And, it’s NOT about how the baby has impacted our space.  It’s all about how hubby likes to “re-locate” items to places where they don’t belong and leave them there so long that they adopt the new-found space as their permanent (inappropriate) home.

 

You may recall THIS POST where I first started talking about this phenomenon and how it impacts every-day life and the relocation of items around my kitchen .. over .. and over… and over… and over…  That post is worth a read if for no other reason than to commiserate, if you find yourself constantly wishing that items would be Put Away at your home.

 

Well, be careful what you wish for… because sometimes, Put Away, doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

 

I present to you Exhibit A:

This is one of our closets.  In all honesty, it would probably be defined a “catch all” closet.  Hubby keeps some suits in here.  I keep extra purses, some hats, some of our travel items and other misc stuff.   It’s a closet filled with things we don’t really use regularly……………………including, apparently, a good deal of our “regular-use” tools.

 

Hmmmmm, you may be thinking……  Screwdrivers and drills in your suit closet……. Interesting use of space.

Ahhhhhhh, you may say…… easy access tools upstairs for quick repairs……. Smart storage.

Oooohhh, you may utter…. That’s a mighty nice vest hubby has…… He’s quite stylish.

Yikes, you may be judging…. They REALLY need some professional closest storage help…. That’s quite a disaster.

 

And to pretty much all of these…. I would say you are correct…………… well, sort of.

 

Until you think deeper about it.  And realize.. we have a full basement at our house.  We have a 2 car garage at the house.  Read this as:  MANY other, BETTER, permanent home locations for all the tools.  But alas, they are living happily in my upstairs closet.  I suppose there’s a part of me that’s happy they are not sitting in the hallway (which is likely where they started) … They were probably relocated to the closet when I forced hubby to pre-clean for the cleaning ladies, or maybe when we were having house guests, or quite possibly after I tripped over them with the baby so many times that I BEGGED him to move them out of a regular walking path.  To be totally honest, I don’t actually remember how they wound up in this closet…. Because it’s been THAT LONG that they’ve been living there.

 

Out of sight, out of mind for hubby…. So I’m pretty sure these items could stay in this closet until the baby leaves for college or until hubby needs his drill for something.  At which time, he will undoubtedly scour the house for tools that he cannot locate only to declare that he’s “looked everywhere” and they must be “gone” and he now needs to go buy everything new.   And, then of course, as we wives always do… I will ask him to re-confirm that he has indeed looked “everywhere” and then I will promptly go to this closet, pull them all out and remind him that the reason he cannot find anything, EVER, is because he never puts things back in their proper place…………   and the cycle will continues, as it always does………….

 

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Maybe You Should Get Your Ears Checked (or maybe I should smack you upside the head….)

As we approach the 4 month mark of having a little one in our lives… I have learned quite a few things.

 

• I have learned that when you think he’s done pooping… he might actually not be done at all
• I have learned you will go many places and interact with many people, with spit up all over your clothes…. and you’ll be quite smelly but you won’t care
• I have learned that the amount of laundry you need to do can, in fact, rival the amount of linens cleaned at a 500 room hotel
• I have also learned that you can indeed function with virtually no sleep and that the # of times you can put a pacifier back in a mouth borders on 962 times in one night.

 

But, perhaps the biggest learning of them all can best be outlined by a Top 10 list.  So, here goes…………

 

The Top 10 Things a Man Will Hear (while he’s asleep) BEFORE He Hears A Baby Crying:

 

10.   A car alarm 6 blocks over, in the middle of hurricane force winds, through double paned windows.

9.    The “splitz” sound made by a can of beer opening at the neighbor’s house, during a party with a live band

8.    The low hum of a sub-woofer turned on in the basement man cave when he’s 3 floors above it

7.    A bad call made by a referee at a football game, 60 miles away

6.    The rumble of a motorcycle 6 towns over

5.    The *bleep bleep* of a text message, from the pocket of a coat that’s in the closet

4.    The crinkle of a package of Oreo’s opening

3.    The bubbling of cheese on a hot, fresh pizza

2.    The zipper of a woman’s pants coming off

 

And, the #1 thing a man can hear, while sleeping….  The sales clerk changing the shelf price of a 72” tv at the local Best Buy to be “on sale”

 

What does this all mean??  It simply means that unless I kick hubby in the middle of the night while I’m holding the screaming baby up against the side of his head… he will not hear him (or so he says…..)

 

And, just to prove a point, I googled this phenomenon.  And, found THIS article.  And holy crap, it actually justified all of the above (DANG IT!) And, since you know how things go in my house, it’s probably no surprise that hubby likes to refer me back to this article anytime I start to complain……………

 

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I Put That Shit On Everything!

This post is about poop.  So, if you don’t like stories about poop, if you’re easily grossed out or if you have a weak stomach, you may want to pass on this one.

 

Or, if you happen to be on a lunch break and have a sandwich in your hand, you may want to come back later.

 

Consider yourself warned.

 

Babies poop.  Yep.  They poop a lot.  It’s messy.  It’s smelly.  It’s gross.  And, sometimes it’s explosive.  Now, this is not necessarily new information.  For centuries new dads have been avoiding poop as much as possible.  They miraculously disappear the moment a slight odor permeates the air.  They have all of a sudden remembered that the tires need to be rotated on the car, or the lawn needs mowing or (GASP!) the laundry needs doing.   Yes, I do believe many men would rather take on the dreaded task of laundry rather than change a poopy diaper.  But this post isn’t actually about poop avoidance tactics, although I’m sure you could each share stories of your own.  This post is about hubby’s participation in poopy diapers.  And yes, I’ll repeat it for those of you who think you misread…. Hubby does, in fact, participate in poopy diapers.   And that, my friends, is where the funny  comes in.

 

Our little one has had some gastric issues. He’s on formula that causes constipation… and medicine that, well, let’s say, eases the constipation…….  All this being said he can go 48+ hours without having a bowel movement.  The poor little guy pushes and pushes for hours and never seems to get anything out.  Now, this medication doesn’t just help get things moving, it helps set up scenarios that no parent ever wants to witness much less clean up.   Yes, this medication, added to 48 hours of pushing, very often results in poopsplosions, the likes of which you can’t quite appreciate until you’re elbow deep in stinky, smelly poopies.  (I warned ya, this post was pushing the poop story limits…………)

 

I am still on maternity leave.  This simply means that I spend all day with our little one.  I have had diaper explosions on my lap.  I’ve cleaned poop off his legs, back and even out of his hair. I’ve tactically figured out how to remove poop covered garments from over the head with minimal poop transfer.  I’ve unsuspectingly picked up our little guy without realizing the poop had escaped his clothes and I’ve had it all over my shirt.  Suffice to say, that in 3 short months, I’ve been covered in and cleaned up more poop that I ever imagined possible.  And, just like they tell you… somehow it’s ok, when it’s your own baby.  Still completely gross…. But somehow ok..

 

So, now that I’ve set the stage let me tell my story.

 

One day, hubby is holding the baby and he hears the sound we like to celebrate.  Yes, when you have a constipated baby… you DO actually celebrate each and every bowel movement.  So, he promptly takes the baby to the changing table to get a new diaper.

 

I hear him in the other room … “Holy crap…”  he declares “I’ve never seen so much poop!”.  “Hon” he calls to me  “this is an insane amount of poop”.  So of course, I go into the room to see.  Yes, this is another absurd behavior of parents (one that I couldn’t have quite imagined).  You actually share poop stories and even show poop to each other.   Ok, maybe this is just us………………..  Anyhow, when I look at the diaper, I simply say to hubby.  “That’s nothing!”  since I am now a poop expert, I know that this particular diaper filled with poop is not ‘an insane amount of poop’.  I’ve seen an ‘insane amount of poop’ – those are the days I’m cleaning it out of the baby’s hair.  So, I tell hubby “Honestly babe, that’s nothing.”  And, as hubby continues to rant about the amount of clean-up he must do,  I watch him as he pulls his three hundredth wipe from the container.    “Uhm babe” I say to him “Are ya gonna leave any wipes for the next diaper??”  He’s instantly defensive…. “how am I supposed to clean this all up without using this many wipes?”   And then, I’m on my way into the other room because obviously we need another trash bag to hold an entire bin of dirty wipes…………..

 

As I get into the other room I yell to hubby… “Honestly, that wasn’t a lot of poop.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was going to go agai……..”   and, as I say this, I hear hubby yelling….”OH MY GOD!  He’s going AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!”  And, I silently chuckle to myself as I realize that he now fully understands the definition of “an insane amount of poop”.

 

At this point I realize that hubby might need help… or maybe it’s just my evil side wanting to spectate as hubby tackles this mess.  So, I go back into the room where he’s changing the baby.  I watch him as he holds the baby’s legs way above his head so he doesn’t lay in the poop that’s now all over the changing table.  He’s grabbing handfuls of wipes… he easily must be on wipe #478.  He’s cleaning and shifting the baby and then……. I hear sucking.  And, as I look at our cute little guy who seems to be contorted like a pretzel, as daddy is elbow deep in dirty wipes and more focused on clean-up than baby.  I realize that dad has him bent so far in half that he’s now sucking on his own big toe!   “Uhm hon, look at what you’re doing to him!  You have him bent so far, his toe is in his mouth!”

 

And, surrounded by dirty wipes, smelly poop and one heck of a mess, you know what hubby’s response is???     “He’s been wanting to do that since the day he was born.  After all this, the least I could do is to help him figure out a way to get his toe into his mouth!”

 

 

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Who The Heck Are You?

Well,  as you may have noticed, I’m not doing all that well managing my life AND my new baby.  This blog was like a distant memory of my past life, beckoning to me from a land far, far away.   I’ve missed you dear blog readers and now that I am getting the tiniest bit of sleep, I’m going to try to get back into the swing of things…..  Good Golly, it’s been 7 weeks!

 

Anywho… it’s been an insane 7 weeks that included 3 trips back to the hospital with our little one…. Very emotionally grueling but I won’t bore you with these details.

 

Today instead,  I’d like to introduce you to someone new in my life……….NO, it’s not my new little bundle of joy like you might expect, it’s a larger version of my baby.  Someone who many of you have come to know and love.  Someone who I share stories about, who makes us laugh, roll our eyes, and oftentimes, makes us wonder what the heck is wrong with an entire species (MEN!).

 

Yes….this person is my hubby.

 

And, I no longer know who the heck he is.  You see, during these past weeks I have a learned a few things:

 

1. Hubby does indeed know where the laundry room is.  As evidenced by the multiple loads of laundry he’s done to help me out (YES!  I did say MULTIPLE!)  AND…. He’s folded said laundry too!
2. He can, in fact, pick up after himself
3. Hubby does actually know how to empty AND load the dishwasher!
4. Hubby even knows how to fold washed bedding/sheets (well, minus the fitted sheet – but this is still mind-blowing!)
5. He can even do some low-grade cleaning!!

 

Heck, hubby has stepped up in so many ways since the baby arrived I couldn’t begin to write them all out into a list.  Normally I write about how silly he can be (he still is).  Or, how annoying he can be (he still is).  Or, how frustrated I can be with him.  BUT, he’s honestly become a different person to help out while I recovered from the physical and emotional toll the pregnancy and new baby have taken on me.

 

Now, you’d think I’d be over the moon that he’s been so great, and while at the surface, this is definitely the case.  I ask you one simple question….. where the heck has this guy been for the last nine years?!

 

In addition to learning that hubby can indeed do all these things I think I learned a far greater lesson:  Apparently I don’t know hubby at all…..

Or perhaps he’s just mastered the art of “training” me to not expect too much from him (sly guy that he is!)  Well, guess what hubby….. I’m onto you now!

 

Either that, or I maybe I should have had a baby 9 years ago!!  (ahhhhh……hindsight…………..)

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Having A Baby Is Like Buying A New TV

It’s no secret that men, in general, don’t jump to do household projects.  This is especially true when these projects are assembled into a nice “To Do” list by the woman in their lives.  The only projects that they might approach with a tad more enthusiasm are things that directly impact them and are deemed FUN.   As I’ve mentioned before, these projects would likely involve a beloved hobby, or some sort of electronics.   I mean heck, there’s no way a new TV would make it’s way into the house and sit in the box, unopened and uninstalled, for weeks.   BUT, a new piece of furniture that requires assembly could be tucked in a corner awaiting that special furniture assembly day  2-3 weeks (and approximately 6 nagging statements from the wife) in the future!

 

It’s also a proven fact that men intentionally do projects wrong so that we will never ask them to do the project again.  But, I’m onto this strategy and it simply does not fly in our house….. sorry hubby!

 

Now, knowing all of this…. Imagine my surprise when hubby exhibited “out of character” behavior.

 

We’ve been receiving assorted new baby gifts in the mail over the last couple of weeks.

 

One day, our travel system stroller arrived.  It requires assembly.   And, moments after hubby sees it’s arrived, he’s tearing into the box to it see it.   And, I thought it would end there, but NO…. he’s pulling out pieces and looking for instructions – WHO IS THIS GUY?  The next thing I know, the stroller is assembled.

 

Then another day, our mobile arrives….. and hubby’s giddy with excitement as he pulls out the pieces and immediately starts putting it together.  Within 10 minutes, he’s in our nursery attaching it to the crib!  WHAT’S GOTTEN INTO HIM????

 

And then, earlier this week our nursery decals arrive (we’ve been waiting for these for weeks and they are the last piece of having a complete nursery for the arrival of our new little one).  I arrived home from work shortly after hubby and as I pulled in the driveway, I could see the light on in the nursery.   I walked inside and it looked as if hubby walked in, dumped everything on the kitchen counter, and immediately disappeared.  I can see mail strewn about, his work bag dropped on the floor, and it’s obvious everything was hastily abandoned in the midst of his excitement over the mail.  So, I walk upstairs and hubby is unrolling decals and laying them out on the floor.  He dropped EVERYTHING, to do this right away.   HOLY CRAP – HE REALLY CAN DO PROJECTS RIGHT AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

So, my dear blog readers I can only come to one conclusion:   Having a new baby is like buying a new TV.  Which I suppose is a really good thing, since hubby’s obviously incredibly excited about it and (without any nagging) quickly doing projects…… it’s truly a MIRACLE!   BUT, here’s my concern.   By hubby’s assessment we seem to need a new TV every few years…. And, I’m just not sure this is gonna work out if we need to get a new baby with the same frequency!!!!!

 

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Pregnancy Brain….. For Men?!

I’ll admit that I have a bit of “pregnant brain”.  It sort of brings me back to the “mush brain” I was experiencing while I was unemployed.  Sometimes I don’t make sense, my memory is somewhat lacking and there are days, where you might just call me stupid (ok, maybe  it’s more that I do stupid things than I’m actually stupid – but, I’m sure that’s debatable)

 

BUT my question today is…….. What would explain the “pregnant brain” that hubby is currently exhibiting?

 

We all know he is generally oblivious to stuff around him.  We also know that he has expertly honed his ability to employ Selective Vision.  So, I’m not sure why I’m surprised when he’s clueless about things right in plain sight.

 

A few months back (yes, I did say months), we had some trouble with our air conditioning.  So, we promptly grabbed a fan from the basement and set it up in our bedroom to help keep us cool while we slept and waited for the AC repair guy.    I think our AC was fixed in about 3 days (HOORAY!).  And there sat the fan.   Days passed, weeks passed, and then finally months passed…. AND…… there sat the fan.

 

Now, practically every day, I noticed the fan.  I mean, heck, it’s kind of big and it’s smack there in our bedroom.   I moved it to get into my closet.  I tried to ignore it as the cleaning ladies cleaned around it.  And, I waited.  And waited.  And waited.   As you know, if you’ve been reading regularly, I’m pregnant.  And, I didn’t want to attempt to carry this fan all the way back down into the basement on my own.  So….. I  w-a-i-t-e-d.  Not saying a word, just wondering when, if ever, it would hit hubby’s radar.

 

Then one day, being a woman, I just had to say something.

 

“Honey, do you think you can move that fan into the basement at some point?”

 

And, as if the baby had sucked away all his brain cells, he innocently looks at me and says…….  “What fan?”

 

And folks, I’m flabbergasted.  It’s big, it’s OBVIOUS, and it’s on hubby’s side of the bed.  And yet, he has no idea what I’m talking about.  It’s been there so long, that it’s now a part of our bedroom.

 

I honestly think it could have possibly stayed there…….. FOREVER.

 

And, just to paint a better picture for you….. I just had to catch a snapshot of proof.   Please tell me how you could miss this??

 

 

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