Paternity Leave

As part of my hubs’ parental leave he is off work for all of July. Yay that we get to spend time together with the wild thing and my step-daughter. AND boo at the same time! While he tries to help around the house (and I love him dearly), there are so many things we do differently.

For instance:

1) The other day, we were doing laundry and needed to do a load of towels. The night before, we had pulled the last of the towels from the cupboard and put them in our bathroom. My husband, in his grand wisdom, collected all of the towels from the bathrooms to wash. I go up to take a shower and no towel. Do I wait until the laundry is done before taking a shower (Even though I’m sweaty from working out!) or do I search for a towel? I found one hand towel in the cupboard. I take a shower and have to dry off with a hand towel. Seriously?!?! It barely wrapped around my thigh. How can this poor towel be expected to do the job of a towel four times it's size? When I mentioned it to hubs he says, “You could have used two hand towels.” Not, “Sorry babe. I should have thought about that.”

2) We’re out by the pool with the wild thing and he’s taking him inside to change him. As he’s walking along, the sun is blaring in the wild thing’s eyes. When I mention it, he says, “Well, if you hadn’t stopped me to tell me the sun wouldn’t have been in his eyes.” All I have to say is, “WTF!?!?” How is that my fault? Sheesh!

3) I get home from being gone all day with my wild thing. I have to go to the bathroom, so I ask hubs to hold him for me. He looks at me, momentarily distracted from his video game, and asks, "For how long?" I walked away. After being being alone with his games all day, I ask for a minute's peace and can't get that.

I'm done complaining, for now. I do get moments like this.

I know I'm a big fat complainer and am lucky to have a hubby who's interested in being home with us to "help". Some women don't have that. Heck, I didn't have that with my cowboy. His dad was deployed for 6 months after he was born. I was forced to be everything and do it independently. When he came home it was difficult for me to adjust and trust him with part of the responsibility. Maybe part of the reason for our marital demise. Who knows! Now I have a partner in parenting who wants to help and is here but...and here's the big BUT...does everything differently from me and requires me to pick up his messes. It's hard to share the load when it feels like doing it myself would be, possibly, faster and easier than explaining it all to him. It's just HARD! I know I'm not alone in this.