From the archives - Now I know what he does

This blog entry from 2004 made me laugh at how we were back then to how we are now.

Now my husband does not touch the laundry unless I am out of town, but back then he couldn't stand it when the hamper got full. I actually remembered this entry, but only remembered the water pitcher part. The other thing I remembered that I didn't write about was how wonderful the pool looked when he came home. He was actually very impressed. I never touched it the entire five days he was gone! 

Of course, I told him I did. I told him I vacuumed and checked chemicals and scrubbed algae, but in reality, the only thing I did was check the chemicals once. The pool never needed anything else. Which then made me wonder what he was really doing when he said he was working on the pool every day.

May 24 and May 26, 2004

Now I Know What He Does

Tom left for a conference in Orlando last night. He was very unsure of leaving me. Ah, you think, still in love after ten years of marriage. Well, think again. He was unsure of leaving me to run the inner workings of the house.

Him: "You don't really know all the things that I do around here."

He counted them off on his fingers.

Him: "Like turning the lights off in the rooms. Turning the fans off. Can you remember the pool? I'm worried about the pool. I don't need it to be green and cloudy when I come back. And the laundry."

He did a lot of sighing and throwing his hands into the air. I immediately began to panic. How would I make it for five days having to turn off the lights and the fans all by myself? Could I manage the pool? Could I vacuum, scrub the tiles, adjust the chemicals?

Oh, heaven's to Betsy, hopefully, my seventeen years in the pool business would all come back to me so that the master would have a sparkling pool when he returned home.

As for the laundry...oh, to have actual control over my clothes! To be able to separate the whites and the colors! To not have to hide my dedicates in fear of his picking up the laundry basket and dumping the whole thing into the washer. To be able to actually dry all of my clothes instead of having them taken out when they are still damp.

I wrung my hands. How would I be able to do all of this while feeding and bathing the children?

Him: "I'm not worried about the kids. I'm worried about the pool and the lights. Leaving those fans on eats electricity. You think I'm kidding, but you don't really know all the things that I do around here."

It took two days for me to discover them:

Tom cleans up after the children. He is absolutely neurotic about a mess. Not a dusty-haven't-seen-a-rag-in-months mess. Not a wad of toothpaste left in the sink mess. Not a bathroom floor full of human hair mess. No, what Tom can't stand is the crayons and coloring books on the desk mess.

He hates it when the girls leave games, toys, Barbies, etc. on the floor. He cringes when he finds the remote control lying on the couch instead of velcro-ed to the television set like he intended it to be.

Leaving empty sippy cups anywhere in the playroom or bedroom can send him right over the edge, and finding a water stain on furniture? Well, his reaction to those things mirrors some of my mother's reactions from my youth.

He just cannot stand clutter, and so when he comes home from work-- before he can sit and join us at the kitchen table--he will take a run through the house picking up, wiping up, and cleaning up what he deems "messes". 

While he was gone, that responsibility fell to me. For years I have told him, "Honey, wait until right before bed and we will make the kids clean up their own messes." He hasn't listened to me and now I know why. The girls are not only incapable of cleaning up after themselves at home (although they do it at school), they are absolutely worthless at being forced to do it when they are tired. Each night after they headed off to slumberland I had to walk through the house picking up, wiping up, and cleaning up their messes.

Tom fills up the Britta water jug in our refrigerator. Our Britta jug was purchased at a closeout store several years ago. It is large and has two separate compartments for the water, and it is damn heavy when the compartments are full. I discovered this long ago when I filled and lifted it for the first time and it immediately went on the things my husband must do because I will not list. 

This past couple of days I have had to do the job. I never realized how much water we really drink in a day. I never realized how often he was working out his biceps with this thing. I wondered if he ever has back pains from doing so.

It was such a relief to finally be able to tell him when he called last night that I had discovered what he does around the house. I made sure to tell him how much I appreciated those things.

Him: "That's it? That was all you could come up with?"

Me: "What? You mean there's more?"