The Big News

As you may have noticed, I started with fervor on our Hobbit unit and then it kinda dropped off.  Sorry about that.  ”Morning” sickness kicked in full gear about half way through the book.  We hope to be blessed with a little, newborn baby in July of 2013.  I’m three months pregnant and feeling slightly better now but still a whole lot of bleh.

Niki figured it out pretty quickly because of how I was feeling and eating.  We kept telling the boys, “Mommy doesn’t feel good right now.”  There was no hiding it anymore so we told them on Christmas day after opening all of our presents and then told everyone else.

There is a distinct difference between how much I can get done normally and then when I’m pregnant.  It’s like night and day.  Poor kids, a few times now the boys have run out of clean pants to wear.  Most days it takes everything I have just to pop something frozen into the oven for the kids.  They always know when I’m having a good day because I’ll actually make something from scratch like normal but that pretty much wipes me for the next several hours.

Les miraculously got his vacation last week.  He’s had it cancelled or shortened the last three times.  We had originally planned a bunch of projects to get done while he was home but daily life beckoned for some catch up.  Les was absolutely adorable.  He had a taste of helping out the prior week because, again, he miraculously had three days off in a row.  He told me I was to sleep in and rest for all of last week while he did all of my chores.  He insisted on setting his alarm on the first day of his vacation even though I begged him to sleep in until 9 to catch up on his lost sleep.  He wouldn’t hear of it!

He would get up, fix breakfast for the kids, get dishes and laundry going and run up to check on me.  The first day I told him he needed to do an assortment of dirty clothes since most of us were out of clean clothes.  He did this for the kids but forgot to put any of our clothes in the washer.  Then he proceeded to sort clothes in our room.

I looked over at him and realized I needed to say something fast, “What are you doing?!”

Non-chalantly, he responds, “I’m sorting clothes.”

“Nooooooo!!!  It’s a complete waste of time.”

“This is how I was taught to do laundry.”

“Me too, but it’s a waste of time for our family.  Clothes these days are predominantly made from a synthetic-natural fiber blend.  They don’t shrink like they did when we were kids and we don’t have any brand new clothes that might bleed.  You’re going to spend hours sorting when there are too many other things to get done and it’s just not that necessary.  Just pull out an assortment of clothes and throw them in the washer.  You can do whites by themselves and some church clothes need to be done separately – everything else, just toss in.”

He just gives me a look, “I grew up sorting.  That’s what I’m going to do.”

I unfortunately got short with him at this point, “Fine – but it’s going to bite you before the end of the week.”

And…it did.

On top of sorting, he insisted on not only sort according to color but according to items.  So towels and bedding were put into two separate piles as well, making 5 piles.  He wanted to be very methodical about it.  I’ve been doing 1-2 loads of blankets a day for the past few months because of our dog.  We are calling her “nursing home old” at this point.  She doesn’t have complete control of her bladder anymore so we’ve designated three spots with blankets for her to sleep.  Les decided to wash all of Lily’s blankets first then start on towels.  The kids quickly ran out of clothes again and I had been out for several days now.  I was threatening to start doing laundry myself or call Les’ mom if he didn’t wash my clothes.  He told me I wasn’t allowed to work this week.  ”Fine – I’ll call your mom then!”  He just smiled at me and said, “She’s not in charge of me anymore.”  Them there are fightin’ words.  It became a playful battle between us for a couple of days.  I informed him that I was never going to boycott wearing my dirty clothes until they were washed so he might as well wash them.  He just smiled again as if challenging me.  I won by day three.  He’s lucky, if he didn’t wash my clothes that night, I was calling his dad and telling him that if his son didn’t wash my clothes immediately then I was going to call his wife and get her on him until his son washed my clothes.  I can play this game too.

In all seriousness, Les did a phenomenal job of taking care of the kids and the dishes.  The laundry pretty much stumped him.  (The kids predominantly have the rest of the chores although I help them out when I can.)  By day four though, Les stopped setting his alarm and declared his contempt for dishes and laundry.  I laughed heartily.  I understand!!!!  There’s so many nuances to our ebb and flow and sometimes I forget to tell Les about them because other things win out for priority.  For instance, Justin’s dirty clothes basket in his room kept appearing to grow instead of shrink.  I forgot to tell Les that when you tell Justin to put away his clean clothes, you have to add, “I’ll be checking your drawers afterwards.”  Justin, often times, will mix his clean clothes in with his dirty clothes so he doesn’t have to sort them into his drawers.

The thing is – what really meant the most to me last week was the effort Les put into taking care of our kids, my chores, and me!  He told me several times how much he appreciates the amount of work I do in each day and that even on my bad days, I get more done than he does on his good days around here.  I’ve never under appreciated my husband’s job of flying airplanes – landing, navigating in the dark, cross winds, landing in poor visibility, practicing engine failures or landing gear problems.  Yep, his job is hard!!!  Where I have no intention of even attempting his job, he put 100% effort into attempting mine.  I admit my hypocrisy in this but also full-heartily appreciate the effort he put into trying mine.  He knows it’s so much more than a few chores and feeding people.  It’s all carefully choreographed (even if there’s not a single schedule or list in sight).  It comes from trial and error and knowing the people that live in this home as well as knowing my own limits.

My husband is an incredible husband and I absolutely adore him!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was allowed, for the very first time as a mommy, to just be sick.  It was a precious gift I will never forget.