Confession: Sometimes I Hate My Husband

Sometimes I hate my husband. Sometimes I hate that I'm a woman, the mommy, the one who can never check out.

To lay out the foundation of our relationship and this situation, you must know I am wholeheartedly 100% a feminist. I don't believe in gender roles. I know, I know, I look like Suzy-fucking-homemaker with her bundle of four small children. But I'm choosing to be home because that's where my heart is. I'm not at home because I believe women, all women, are suppose to be home, baking cookies, and knitting sweaters.

If I worked outside of the home, the chores would be split right in half just like they were before we had children and I stopped getting paid for my hard work. 

We've devised these guidelines about money, responsibilities, and work. I've agreed to be responsible of all of the household chores and the vast majority of the child-rearing in exchange to him working between 55 - 70 hours a week.

 

I've agreed to this household plan because his overtime pay beats any wage that I could make while working around his work schedule. I look at his overtime pay as the amount I would be making but yet, still have the blessing of a flexible schedule and the time to spend together as a family.

We have this plan and it works 95% of the time. Jarod has his realm of work at work and I have my own at home. I have a schedule, a plan, a way of doing things. I'm so use to doing things at home by myself and he's so use to not doing much at home. But then, my consecutive nights of little sleep start getting to me, the kids get exceptionally whiny, his overtime hours get shortened, and he comes home to the place he's accustom to not doing much of anything and he sits on the couch.

Source: Unknown

He says he's tired. Uhh, so am I.

He says he's excited his day off is tomorrow and I'm confused of this magical world of which he speaks. Where is "Day Off?" Is it far? How do I get there?

And then I hate him. I resent him for sitting down while I run around like a chicken with my head cut off. The kids are use to me doing everything for them, too. They're use to their dad not being home so they ask me for every little thing. I can be cooking dinner with my right hand, telephone wedged between my tilted head and shoulder while my left hand is pulling a child out of a fire, and then have another child ask me for new pants because they "pee in undeewear," all the while the parent is right there, sitting on the couch, laughing at some funny Vine.

 And then, I hate him even more.

"JJ."

Of course, I get nothing because men are terrible at doing anything else than the one task they're currently engaged in.

"Babe!"

If I hadn't been married to this man for almost 9 years I would already be so pissed and could have sworn I was being ignored.

"JJ!!!"

He slowly looks up, "Did you say something?"

Duh, I'm fucking dying over here, is what I really want to say but I usually go with a casual, "Yes, can you . . ."

Sometimes I hate how every big, small, minor detail: bills, emails, 3 meals a day (everrryday, whhhy??), cleaning, homeschooling, everything, and anything, falls on me. It doesn't seem like much but it all adds up.

I hate how I drink coffee at 10pm to get some "me" time in the day. I hate how he effortlessly states he needs time for himself to workout, to take a shower, to eat; I have no idea how to do that. I know how to take care of everyone else but me.

Sometimes I wish being "selfish" and simply, just taking care of myself wasn't such a foreign trait. Sometimes I wish I was a man because sometimes, being a woman is so damn exhausting.

Most of the time, I really, really like him, but sometimes, sometimes I hate my husband.

 

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Kids Are Hard, My Driving Disability, And Our Posse

When you have one kids you quickly realize doing anything and everything is hard. Things that used to be normal everyday things seem to take enormous mental agility and strength.

Going to the bathroom means sprinting and locking it before a strange, small person joins you, stares, and fills the silence with awkward, small talk.

"You poop?" they enthusiastically ask as they try to take a gander in the mesmerizing white bowl you're sitting on. You engage in this degrading conversation after thinking, how in the world did my life come to this?, because the only thing better than retaining the small amount of self-respect for yourself is the thought of never changing their diapers again.

Even driving becomes the hardest task in the world; so hard that you begin making up weird-ass driving disabilities. It is a known fact in our family that mommy cannot drive without complete silence.

"Okay, Mommy needs to focus now," is a phrase they've come to know as a demand for their complete silence and the blaring of the radio to muffle out any remaining sounds of their existence. It's not lost on me that one day they're going to recall this time in their lives and slowly come to the hard realization that I'm just a big, fat liar.

Please tell I'm not alone and you have lies disabilities you tell your kids.

Living life with kids, especially small kids, is hard. Doing anything out of the normal exhausts me but I want them to have childhood memories they love. I want to have family traditions we share and so, on Sunday (instead of revelling in nap time) we rented Monsters University, threw cookies in the oven, popcorn in the microwave, and, of course, coffee in the pot.

The DVD in the living room is broken, of course. Everything is slowly, but surely, breaking. Yay! So everyone "snuggled" (I was "comfortably" laying against the hard, cold wall) on our bed and me and my posse made a memory.

this is my happy. they are my world.

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Confession: The Real Reason I Take Selfies

I love me some selfies and I don't understand why anyone wouldn't like them.

Generally, in real-life (you know, the thing opposite of what you're looking at right now) we look at people's faces because that's how we're suppose to communicate with people, it's how we scope someone's emotions, and gauge what they're really thinking. 

I think you can give me that argument, right? Faces are pretty damn great.

But, selfies (insert eyes rolling) are the devil; they're a self-involved public pictorial statement from a camera-raping son-of-a-bitch begging the reassurance to the ever-annoying, "am I pretty? I'm so pretty, right?! Right??"
 



As a selfie-loving mom of four who's had every inch of her body stretch, sag, and most definitely, not bounce back (stilllll waiting for that one), I have to say, "bahahhahhha." Us moms, with our three-day unwashed hair, unshaven legs, dark-circled eyes, know the hell motherhood has on our looks and we, who, stupidly lovingly sacrifice ourselves again and again to create fucking life could give a damn if you think we're pretty.

Proof.

Ohh, we know we used to be pretty; How do you think we snagged ourselves a man? Our brains?? (LOL, pleeease) and once a week month year we use magic to make ourselves look, not pretty but like regular, normal people.
 

I don't strive for pretty anymore. I strive to look average. I strive to look like I got some sleep last night.

And when I cleverly think I can fool you - SHAZAM!!!! - I take a fucking selfie.

SHAZAM!!!!

 

Took a shower today. Selfie.

Brushed my teeth. Selfie.

Used magic!?! Put on makeup!?!

SHA-FRIGGIN'-ZAM!!!!

Are you a selfie-lover? Or a selfie-hater?

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The Difficulties of Being Pretty

It's really hard and annoying to be pretty. Trust me, I know this for a fact.

Aiden and Tristen have recently started vying for my attention with the kind of praise any 11-year-old girl would kill for. I am told I am pretty allllll the time. alllllllll day long. luuucky me.

I'm sure you're thinking, "how sweet! How friggin' adorable!" because that's what I thought, too.

That is until Tristen became a complimenting terrorist stopping at nothing to inform me of my "prettiness."

"Mommy!!"

"Just a second, Tris," I beg while rocking a cranky baby on one hip while attempting to open a box of crackers for the other terrorist in our house, our daughter, Ali. On a side note, anyone who says girls are easier has never met my daughter. She's the hardest, most demanding, and loudest child we have I have ever met. Btw, she's, also, for sale.

"MOMMMMMMMMYYY!!!!!" 

The decibel level in his cries wrench into my compassionate mommy soul.

Some thing's wrong! Some thing's terribly wrong!! I think to myself as his face scrunches into painful anguish and a second thought crosses my mind, I had too many kids too close together and I suck at taking care of them, as my three youngest cry like the grim reaper is swiftly approaching their short, miserable lives. 

I am a shitty mom, flushes over my greasy unwashed hair, down my husband's stained shirt because my own clothes remind me of that foreign body that use to be mine, all the way down to the pathetic chipped nail polish on my toes.

"What's wrong, Tristen!?" I plead. I hope my concern and meager effort can level out my inadequacies.

His anguish instantly switches to pure joy as his eyes beam of pure, incandescent love and his two favorite words in the entire world happily bounce out of his upturned mouth, "you're pretty."

"Thanks, Trissy," is what comes out of my mouth when I really want to just give him a hard-cold stare of sarcastic death and say, "are you fucking kidding me?!" because my kid is a sweetheart and I'm just an exhausted bitch that writes a blog about the difficulties of being pretty.

 

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Thankful For My Husband

There's a thing on Facebook where a few of my fellow Facebook friends post something they're thankful for every day in the month of November because November is the month of America's Thanksgiving and heck, why not be thankful? I think taking a minute to embrace what's positive in your life is always a great thing, but why stop at just one month?

So, I'm just going to write about something I'm thankful for whenever the idea fancies, and the idea fancies now.

I am thankful for my husband. 

 

Sure, everyone always says their husband is the greatest and they love them so much. Blah. Blah. Blah. Nothing original here (I know) but can I just say, I really, really love that man. I am so incredibly thankful for him.

We usually are given two parents who root for us, love us unconditional, and want what's best for us, but I think we're so lucky when we find someone else who loves us like a parent can love a child.

That sounds really creepy, but bare with me.

I am enameled at how much that man loves me. Aside from my parents, no one has ever loved me so unconditionally. No one has ever rooted so strongly for me to succeed. No one has ever stood by me through the thickness of life and the painful thinness of despair.
 

 

I can't count the number of times he's held me for hours, forgoing sleep (and if you are a woman with a man, you know how big of a sacrifice that is), because my heart was so broken the only mending band aid was a bleeding, out pour of tears.

I have never been a perfect woman (shocking, I know) and his devotion has never wavered. He's stood by my side when my depression was so low I didn't want to live. He's been right here when my, respective astrological sun and moon signs of Gemini and Gemini, personality would drive the most centered, Zen-monk fuuuuck. iiiiing bonkers. He's stayed right next to me when we were teenagers and I, most definitely, acted like a teenager.

I am thankful that staying by my side has been the absolute minimum of his love. I am so incredibly thankful that I know a love so strong that I compare it to a love of a parent's and risk sounding like a weirdo with daddy issues.

No, I don't call my husband, "daddy," and no, I swear, I don't have daddy issues.

This is getting really weird so I'm going to end it here: I am thankful I know him and his love.

I am thankful for my husband.

What are you thankful for?

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We Only Have About Ten Halloweens

The best thing about Halloween is how much fun it is for little kids. I love all of October, in general. I love how much the kids love going to the pumpkin patch, making Jack-O-Lanterns, and of course, going trick-or-treating. It's exciting how excited and happy doing these simple things make them. Hell, if knocking on people's doors and asking for candy made me as happy as it made them, I would do it every day. 

As we were driving to my mom's house on Halloween it hit me that in 18 years we will no longer have children to dress in costumes, trick-or-treaters to take trick-or-treating, scary movies or haunted houses to go to. Our children will be adults and the chaos and struggle (because it truly is) to get everyone dressed, out the door, decently well-rested, and temporarily happy will no longer fill our time. We will have the time we so desperately yearn for. Jarod and I will have the freedom of idle hands.

There are seasons in life and I look forward to each one. I'm excited to be a grandma. I'm excited to cuddle with my husband again without the anxiousness of having to do something else, something that needs to be done: laundry, dishes, dinner, emails. But I, also, want to be present. Present in the now; present in this utterly exhausting and mildly insane season of now because soon, the leaves of fall will rustle away and be replaced with the snow of winter, all I will have left are these memories.

And so, I made Jarod and I into zombies. Yay for playing with makeup and only spending under $5 for both our costumes! The older boys were both red Power Rangers, Ali was a princess, and baby Carsen was handed-down the puppy dog costume each of my kids have worn for one Halloween or another. 

We hit every house with Halloween decorations or a porch light on, the kids held their baskets out while saying "trick-or-treat," and with the excitement of the night, they forgot to say, "thank you" more than half of the time. Jarod and I took turns running Ali to each house the older kids ran to. We constantly did head-counts for our kids to make sure nobody was left behind and reminded them they needed to walk on the sidewalk. It was tiring and exhausting . . . 

and one of my absolute favorite days ever.

Later, I watched Grey's Anatomy and it was said that we, parents, only get about ten Halloweens with our kids before they want nothing to do with and they'd rather hang out with their friends. And it struck me, I'm going to have much less years than I originally thought, less years than I want, less years of having this whole gang together on this day.

My kids are going to grow up and that's okay because that's what kids are suppose to do, but realizing how sacred and rare a day like this was made Halloween 2013 even more special. I'm forever thankful I will always have these memories, pictures, and this video:

 

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Aiden Says . . .

I've always thought of Aiden as an old-soul; he's more mature than his age would suggest, extremely considerate, kind, gentle, and there's more love in that little body than he could ever contain. I have an inkling that he's going to get married as fast as he can find someone to share a life with. I'd bet money he's going to be the first one of my kids to settle down so it doesn't surprise me that we had this completely random conversation:

Aiden: "Why do you want to marry me?"

Me: "I don't want to marry you."

Aiden: "Well, then who am I going to marry?"

Me: "You don't need to worry about that now. One day you'll fall in love and get married. One day you'll find a nice girl."

Aiden: "Like you!?!"

I'm pretty sure five-year-olds don't normally talk about marriage - or do they? What do you think? Any experience with young kids ready to put a ring on it?

 

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Woman Like You

Jarod's not a man of many words. He doesn't live life with big, sweeping gestures nor will he ever command a huge, elaborate orchestrated plan to show his love for me. I guess, we're both a little old, jaded, and unromantic in most ways. I've told him to never get me flowers because they always die later anyways and I'm getting more and more appalled that a hard stock paper with some art and words can cost close to $10 these days.

I'm the "fat" girl who thinks a surprise greasy bag of Dicks burger, fries, and strawberries shake will always, always beat out a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. Even with all my reservations of conventional "romantic" gestures, I'm still a girl and sometimes I need a little romance in my life.

Awhile ago, Jarod and I laid in bed and he casually remarked he was listening to a song on his way home and it reminded him of me. He proceeded to find this song on his phone and play this for me . . .

 

. . . and I'm still glowing. Every time I hear this song I feel genuinely blessed. I'm lucky to have a man like him.

P.S. Men: find a song for your girl, tell her about it, and you'll score points every time she hears it!

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In A Really Good Groove

 

I finally feel like I've finally got the hang out of this whole four kids thing. Carsen's 7 1/2 months old now and it's been a few months since he joined his siblings in that wonderful, joyous thing called "go the F to sleep" "sleeping through the night." I still get less sleep than ever but something happened to me that I'm quite certain happens in all busy momma's lives, we realize two things. 1) the kids will NEVER, EVER leave. I've come to grips with them being adults and still asking us for things, for food, for money; I'm currently, working on the best way to say, "no" without flat-out laughing in their faces and 2) we truly forget what a "well-rested night of sleep" means, well, except for when we look over at our husbands who are peacefully sleeping through a bad dream, a kid peeing in their bed, and the 958th water break before the kid goes the F to sleep. So, we get a solid 5 hours of broken sleep and we wake up ready to go, kind of.

I'm happy we're homeschooling and feel fortunate to be able to do so but sometimes, sometimes I just want to scream; not at anyone particularly, I just want the kids to stop crying/ screaming/ yelling/ breaking/ you can add anything "bad" in here really because my kids have done and/ or will do it. I want to scream to simply release all the pent-up stress I feel inside. I have about a 10 day stretch before I really feel like I've hit my max and I feel like I'm edging the fine line of insanity.
 

Since Carsen is our last baby and a full-on crawler, we're at the point that a lot of our baby stuff can finally leave our home and I have no reservations about it, whatsoever. I have absolute no inklings for another baby, which after having baby fever every five minutes for the last few years, it's a nice, foreign feeling. That desire for another baby is now replaced with the desire for a strong, yet deliciously fruity cocktail and a legit "night of sleep" without the worry and guilt of not doing something else.

 

One of the best things that keep me from full-on losing my mind is I know with absolute certainty that years from now I will miss my babies' precious innocence and these days of absolute chaos. I try so hard to embrace this period in our lives and to be fully present in the time I spend with my children. The unfortunate part is they can be crazy, lunatics most of the time sometimes.

Overall, I think my level of sanity is questionable because of my lack of sleep; therefore, I'm loving life and feel like we're finally in a really good groove.

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