I'll admit it. Sometimes I get really annoyed with my better half. Like when I'm rushing around trying to make it through the evening rigmarole and catch him scrolling on his phone in the other room. Or when I have two screaming kids at the dinner table and the first thing he does when he gets home is head upstairs to change his clothes. It's really easy to get caught up in the "I do everything myself" mindset when washing the fourth load of laundry, sloshing through the third sink full of dishes, and mopping the kitchen floor before hauling two kids up the stairs for their bath, while Mark's off doing something.
BUT...the thing is, I don't do everything...and the "something" he's doing is probably a legitimate task related to the upkeep or improvement of our home. It's just not on my "to do" list, so I don't always immediately recognize his contributions, but there are many. Two weeks ago, I took the trash out for the first time since we moved to this house, and only because Mark was traveling for work. I think I've only emptied the diaper pail two or three times in the past year. Those things just magically happen.
While I'm trying to whip up our Sunday night family dinner, Mark's keeping the kids out of the kitchen and entertaining them...without using the TV. I didn't fully appreciate the difficulty of this until, for Mother's Day, Mark made dinner (because I wanted a break from it). Holy cow! They never want to be in the kitchen, but the moment they aren't allowed to go into the kitchen, it's like the floor is tiled in cookies. Before this experience, there was more than one Sunday evening when I became a little annoyed that he gets to play with the kids, while I am cooking and the least he can do is keep them out of the way. I don't get annoyed anymore--he's working harder than I am. (Full disclosure: on Mother's Day I ended up letting them watch TV for the last 15 minutes before dinner. He's never done that. But, in fairness to me, dinner took about twice as long to prepare and I had to pitch in or we wouldn't have eaten until 9:00 PM.)
Mark never runs out of energy (and rarely patience) when it comes to the kids. I run out of both often and quickly. Watching him with the kids makes me a better parent. He knows when I need a break and, if he can give it to me, he does. Even this morning, on HIS day, instead of sleeping in, he got up so I could go back to bed for an hour (of course I was up with a screaming Nick for the majority of the night and he slept through the entire ordeal, so maybe he doesn't get too much credit for this one.)
Right now, Mark is downstairs on his third hour of painting a dollhouse for Lainey's birthday. I think he has given more thought and more care to painting this dollhouse than he did to our house. I would have just given it to her unfinished and called it a day (I mean she's going to be 3--she's not that discerning), but Mark wants it to be perfect for her. I love that about him.
So, when I start to get the "I do it all" feeling, I am making a concerted effort to stop and recognize all he does. I realize we're a team. Sometimes one of us carries a little more weight than the other, but we're both working hard to be the best parents and partners we can. I'm lucky I have a husband who cares so much about his family and dedicates himself to making our world better.
We love you, Mark! Happy Father's Day!!!
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| copyright Joshua Ford, Ford Photography His face says it all... |
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