Girl Time
Today is our friend’s birthday and Fae and her two friends are hanging out for the day just talking and being girls and all of that. I’ve been trying to get her out of the house more and out doing Non-Mom things, just to break it up, let her use her brain for more than “Cheese Doodles or Nachos today while packing lunches”.
She called a little while ago and asked me what to do – “Do I leave now and miss the traffic, or wait until after”. I immediately responded with “Stay, I’ve got the kids” and told her that I was glad she was taking some time for herself and that she needed to do it more often, and hopefully more regularly. To that end, I suggested that if I knew ahead of time, she could do it regularly and I would stretch out my workday a little and handle things here. I have my workouts and martial arts, why shouldn’t she have some kind of way to blow off steam?
She put me on speaker and told me to say it again so her friends could hear, and I was surprised at how ‘generous’ I was perceived – “what did I do to deserve you” and “you are so awesome”.
Come on! Is this not normal – a guy suggesting his girl take it easy? Truthfully, I didn’t see what I was doing as such a big deal. Is it? Now that I’ve been writing about it, I’m curious to see what people think. What do you do to give your spouse a break?
September 15th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Dude, she put on speaker phone so that she would have witnesses on what you said. Oh, you are so screwed. Now your committed…
No seriously, that’s the way you keep her happy. Happy moms, equal happy dads.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
As one of those who oohed and ahhed at your generosity, let me ‘splain.
It was not that I saw you as so generous because as a husband you gave your wife a break. Husbands and wives (should) do that for each other. Why I saw it as so generous is that I have some sense of how much stress you are under right now, and know that giving her that extra time on a day when you’re working from home means having your work day interrupted by the kids’ arrival home from school, and likely staying up even later to completely your work for the day and not fall behind and into further stress.
And I am very grateful for your generosity.
Thanks for giving me that extra time with my girls today. It was the best birthday present I got.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Being completely honest (which is not advisable on the internet
), I think that most of the reaction was due to her feeling just a tad guilty for leaving you with both the kids and your work. But you deserve every “ooh” and “ahh” you got. Thanks for being you.