Author: Dre

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Guest Posts Parenting

Co-Parenting

Kirsten, of The Norwindians, really knows how to lay down a well-balanced rant.  That’s one of the reasons I love reading her blog – she always seems to play fair, and what’s not to love about that? 

You know what doesn’t play fair?  The stomach flu, which decided to pay a visit while I have jury duty and my kids are on spring break.  Fortunately, I haven’t crapped my pants in court.  Yet.

Co-Parenting

Let’s talk about co-parenting.  I’m not talking about a divorced couple who must figure out how to split time with their children and parent them through two different households.  I’m talking about happily married couples who decide to have a baby or three.  Then in theory they share the responsibility of taking care of those children.   Are there any couples out there that truly share the nitty gritty work of taking care of the kids?


One of the many reasons I fell in love with my husband was his easy way with children.  I knew he would make a great father one day.  And I was right… he is a great father.  When he’s home.  He leaves for work before me or the any of our three kids are up for the day, and usually gets home right as the kids are finishing up dinner.  He spends about an hour or so with them and most of that time is spent on our bedtime routine.  While his travel has slowed down quite a bit lately, he does have an impressive amount of frequent flier miles racked up.


So here’s the thing.  We do not co-parent.  We do not share the daily parenting tasks 50/50.  I stay at home with our twin girls and little boy.  I don’t long to go back to work (yet), house wifery suits me just fine.  But it does sometimes irk me that 99% of the kids’ needs are met by me. 


Even on the weekends when we’re all at home, if the kids need something, they come to me.  I often find myself saying, “you know you can ask your dad to get you a snack.”  It would be really nice if one Saturday afternoon my husband said, “hey, it’s about lunch time, how about I fix some grilled cheese for the kids?”  Or perhaps, “I’ll put the laundry away and get the kids dressed, why don’t you sit down and catch up on some reading.” 


Not to say that my husband doesn’t pitch in.  If I have my book club or something else to attend in the evening, it’s never a problem.  Assuming he’s in town.  I do make it pretty easy for him by already preparing dinner for the kids and putting them in their pj’s.  If I didn’t do those things, he’d manage just fine.  So it’s partly my fault.  Sometimes I silently fume when we’re heading out the door with the family and he has the car running while I’m running around making sure everyone has a jacket, water, the right shoes, snacks if we need them and everything else we might possibly need.  He just puts his shoes on and starts the car.


We were at my niece’s birthday party the other day and the difference between the moms and the dads really struck me.  There was a basketball game on TV and most of the dads were inside watching while the moms were outside doling out snacks and watching the kids.  It was the moms who supervised cupcake eating, face painting and gathered the kids and their belongings when it was time to leave.  My sister told me after everyone left, her husband complimented her on throwing a great party.  He had no idea what went into planning an executing the shindig.  He asked her that morning what time the party started.  Sound familiar to anyone but me?


I’m sure there are lots of exceptions, but as I look around and observe our friends I rarely see couple who truly shares parenting responsibilities 50/50.  For the most part, I’m fine with the division of labor in our house.  I really don’t have any desire to tackle home improvement projects, balance the checkbook or do our taxes… things my husband excels at doing.   If I speak up and ask for help, he is more than willing to jump in.   What bothers me is the assumption that I’ll do it all no matter what.


A few weeks ago my husband met a friend for lunch on a weekday and said he would be home in time to pick up our twins from school.  I knew the girls would love it since he rarely drops them off or picks them up at school.  Turns out he got engrossed in conversation with his friend and didn’t come home until over an hour after school was out.  He missed pick up.  Of course, I picked them up, but I was angry.  I was angry because when I have lunch with my friends I can’t just get caught up in conversation and assume my spouse will pick up the kids.  If he wants to stop at the gym on the way home from work or get his haircut, he just does it.  If I want to go for a run in the evening or to a meeting, I have to make sure he’ll be home. 


I’ve come to accept the fact that this is just the way things are.  I don’t resent my husband or the fact that I stay home with our children.   I wouldn’t trade places with him.  I really wouldn’t.  It all just makes me wonder if we are the exception.  Do other families out there truly share parenting 50/50?  And if so, how do you do it??

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Madeline

Madeline

Little Madeline Alice Spohr, who touched more lives in her 17 months on Earth than most of us could ever imagine, passed from this life on Tuesday, April 7th.

                        

Words fail me completely.  She has the most beautiful soul, with a smile that could knock the socks off of the grumpiest person around.

                          

I met her only once, but when I close my eyes I can still feel her soft hands in mine.  I can hear her adorable laugh, see her gorgeous smile.  My mind can’t comprehend that she’s gone. 

Heather and Mike are the most amazing parents – Maddie was so lucky to have them with her every moment of her little life, cheering her on and helping her to laugh, grow, explore.  My heart breaks for them, shatters into a million pieces to think of them without her. 

Please, if you can spare even the smallest amount, make a donation to The March of Dimes in Maddie’s name.  She fought such a good fight, the least we can do is carry on for her by helping the people who helped her so much.              

                                                                                            

*UPDATE* There has been such an outpouring of love for Maddie – if you’d like to read what others have to say, go to Meghan’s tribute post and follow the links.  Go here for an amazing slide show.

* All photos courtesy of Heather Spohr at The Spohrs are Multiplying

* Welcome, visitors from The Norwindians – in light of recent events, Kirsten’s guest post has been moved to tomorrow.

Categories
Entertainment Guest Posts Life in general

NYC: The Skinny

If I ever manage to suppress my neuroses long enough to leave my children and make a long-delayed trip to NYC, I plan to stalk the hell out of Marinka while I’m there.  If her blog is any indication, hilarious things happen around her every minute of the day, and who wouldn’t want a little taste of that?  Maybe I’ll hop on a plane as soon as I’m done with jury duty.  Yeah, probably not.  I need a bit more therapy first.

NYC:  The Skinny

Disclaimer: This post has some crude humor. In no way am I mocking terrorism or missing children or emaciated celebrities. Humor is just the way that I deal with tough subjects.  But just in case, no way am I putting this post on MY blog. Good luck, Andrea!

Sometimes I get the sense that people think that living in New York City is really fun and glamorous and strewn with celebrities. Well, the last part is true. Last week I saw one of the Olsen twins getting out of the car right in front of me. I was really excited, but mostly because I thought that it was Madeleine McCann and I was starting to prepare for the rewards and accolades that would surely be forthcoming as soon as I liberated her from her driver-kidnapper, but then I realized that she was too tiny to be a six year old, and was, in fact, an Olsen.


But NYC isn’t all fun and games, you know. It’s also fucking terrifying and we’re all pretty much scared shitless over here. Although we know how to use it to our advantage.


A few weeks after 9/11, my friend John and I started a diet. Our stomachs were in knots as a result of the biggest terrorist attack on the United States and the fact that almost daily the streets around our office and homes were blocked off with bomb squads attending to suspicious packages really worked wonders to suppress our appetites. We decided that since the terrorists gave us a jump start on our diets, we might as well roll with it. We figured that a few more months of being on this heightened alert and we’d be in the best shapes of our lives and if the war on terror kept going strong, we’d be a really big splash on the beach and not just when we jumped into the ocean.


Being super smart, however, we worried about dying hungry.


“I mean, what if there is another terrorist attack and we’re killed,” I asked. “Shouldn’t we have some chocolate before we take our last breath?”


John had to concede that there was a lot of wisdom to what I was saying and we agreed that maybe we should carry some small “forbidden” snacks with us at all times, in case of such an emergency.


Unfortunately, as soon as I started to carry a few Hershey’s kisses, it appeared that I was in constant mortal danger. Once, on my way to work, I was certain that I spotted bin Laden sitting across from me on the subway. Somehow he made himself shorter and blond, but those terrorists will stop at nothing to harm to our country. I had to have a few chocolate kisses because I’m not going to be caught dead hungry.


Because I value my life and the terror threat didn’t abate as quickly as I’d hoped, I was forced to upgrade from kisses to fun-sized to regular to King in a matter of weeks. This had an unfortunate effect on the size of my ass. John long decided that I wasn’t a worthy diet partner and went off on his own, so I had to deal with that rejection as well. I highly recommend Reese’s Peanut Butter cups as a salve for a broken heart.


Really, I have no idea how that Olsen girl stays so skinny. She must commute to Afghanistan or something.

Categories
Blog Carnivals Guest Posts Life in general

Monday Mumbers: The Vag. Edition


                                    Secret Spineless Whine

5 = Vagina references in my Secret Spineless Whine  today.  Go check it out!  
        Unless you are offended by cooters.  In which case, don’t.

95,375 = Layers of grease I scraped off of the kitchen in one of our rentals this weekend.

2 = Fingernails I broke trying to scrape grease out of cracks (insert retching sound).

1,217 = Loads of dirty laundry waiting to be washed.  Hmmm.  Yup, still waiting.

462 = Times my children have yelled “MOM! SPIDER!” in recent days.

461 = Times I have discovered lint where a “spider” should be.

7 = Pairs of pajamas Blythe went through this weekend.  Girlfriend shuns real clothes.

9 = Days till Alison goes back to school.

1 = Trip to the zoo planned over Spring Break. 

2 = Weeks of jury duty left.  Allegedly.  See?  My vocabulary is expanding by the day.

* Come back tomorrow for Marinka‘s guest post! 
* Don’t forget to check out my Secret Spineless Whine!
* As always, click over to Good Enough Mama for more Monday Mumbers!
* I like to use exclamation points!

Categories
Letters Life in general

Things I’ve Learned From Hanging Around the Courthouse

Dear People at the Courthouse,

I’m not sure exactly why you’re here.  Maybe you got a traffic ticket, or perhaps you’re in the middle of a bitter custody battle with your asshole of an ex.  Could be, you got caught doing something you shouldn’t have.  Regardless, here you are, hanging around the halls of the courthouse while I happen to be on Jury Duty.

Some of you will dress up for your day in court.  You’ll don a suit and tie, maybe throw on a pair of heels.  The deputies will nod pleasantly at you as you walk past.  But the majority of you?  Apparently have never heard of making a good impression.

Showing up reeking of cigarette smoke, looking like you haven’t had a shower since Bush was in the White House (and I’m talking George H., not Dubya), does not make the court sympathetic to your cause.  And I’m painfully aware that we live in the Second Meth Capital of California, but do you really have to make it so obvious?

No doubt you’ve noticed the sign on the wall that says, “No shorts or tank tops in the courtroom”, but seriously.  That doesn’t mean you should wear SpongeBob pajama pants to stand in front of a judge and plead your case.  Now is not the time to showcase your tattoo sleeve, either.  Cover it up, just for today, m’kay?  You can go back to being shirtless (and shoeless, I suppose) the moment you walk out the front door, I promise. 

Also?  I spend about 8 hours a day in the courthouse.  I know that sometimes, shit happens.  Especially if you’re like me and have been trying to consume more fiber and drink lots of water.  But dropping a bomb in the stall and then walking away from it, without flushing?  That is just wrong on so many levels.

So, take my advice and try to step up your game, just for today.  I’ll even give you a cheat sheet to keep in your pocket:

– No stink of any kind
– Real pants 
– Shoes without holes
– Cover your tats
– Leave your pocketknife at home (no, they won’t believe you forgot)
– Try not to act like a tweaker

I expect to see some improvement next week!

xoxo,
Andrea