Other People's Messes

Let me start this by saying that I love my husband and my children tremendously.  I feel that I need to say that because I complain about them.  On a regular basis.  To whomever has the misfortune to be listening. That being said, the problem, really, is me.  I enjoyed an orderly, rather regimented life before I had children.  My husband disturbed my peace on a regular basis, with his lack of understanding that a tidy house is critical to one's sanity, but by and large, I was able to control my life and my surroundings and feel relatively calm and centered.  I woke up at a reasonable time, exercised regularly, cooked healthy and nutritious meals, cleaned up after myself, and did my laundry.  I went to work, where I was the assistant to the director in running a small (also orderly) library and came home feeling like my life was my own.  My husband would tell you otherwise, but I remember that time as peaceful.  I think this peaceful and controlled life made me just a little bit selfish, as I continued in that blissful manner for five years before we finally had our first child.  

Now, with two young children, a busy and hobby-prone husband, and a more demanding job, I feel as if I am forever dealing with other people's messes.  Not to say that I don't have my own messes -- but my own messes are understood to be my responsibility.   Other people's messes, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter.  

My husband is currently unemployed.  His job is like that -- he is in the trades and is laid off and hired again at least four times a year since the financial crisis.  So he is home during the day while I am at work.  Unfortunately, he does not see this time as an opportunity to keep on top of the housework, laundry, cooking, paperwork, and all the rest of the drudgery that goes along with running a household.  Instead, he is building a boat in our garage.  A very large canoe, to be exact.  It takes up the entire garage and has been there since March.  It is now January.  Building this boat takes a lot of time -- time which he did not have when he was working between March and December.  It also creates a lot of dust, as he powersaws and sands on a regular basis.  So this week, while I headed off to work each day, he spent a lot of time not doing the housework.  Each day after work this week, I picked up our young daughter at daycare and headed home, bound for a house that was in chaos.  Everyone's dirty breakfast (breakfast!) and lunch dishes still on the counter, piles of laundry waiting to be folded and put away, unmade beds, mail and paperwork in distressing piles in a variety of locations, dirty bathrooms (this is a real issue, as our older child, Liam, is a nine-year-old boy with bad aim), toys throughout the house, and my husband's tools, change, wallet, receipts, and other bits and pieces laying hither and yon throughout.  

Now I don't expect to come home and find a perfectly clean house, a hot dinner on the table, and my husband fixing my drink.  It would be nice, but I am a reasonable person.  It would thrill me to death, though, if he could see the task of keeping his part of an orderly home as part of the deal.  I clean up after myself.  And the children.  Can't he understand that cleaning up after himself is part of being an adult in a mixed marriage?  Mixed, in that I am a tidy person and he is not.  I bring this to his attention.  He tells me that I am neurotic and that my standards of clean are unreasonable.  The dirty dishes will be taken care of -- if today, or tomorrow, or next Thursday, he will eventually wash them.  Eventually.  He won't put them away, though.  That's just silly, as he will indeed use them again.  And so I seethe and put everyone else's dishes in the dishwasher, which he refuses to empty.  He does not believe in the dishwasher, so if I put something in the dishwasher, I am responsible for putting it away.  He believes in eventually washing the dishes.  And leaving them on the counter.  

Our four year old daughter, Eleanor, who was -- I swear -- potty trained more than a year ago, has recently decided to rebel.  Sometimes recently, when I pick her up from daycare, I all of a sudden notice a nasty smell in the car.  When I look back at her in the rearview mirror, she has a guilty look.  "Eleanor?"  I will say.  "Do you have a skid mark?"  "Just a little one," she will eventually answer, after first trying to change the subject.  And so my first task when I get home is putting her one the potty and cleaning yet another pair of princess panties.  She was so well potty trained they my husband and I got into the habit of leaving the house with no diaper bag, no change of clothes, no wipes.  We were even taking day trips to New York City with no back-up underpants.  This recent turn of events took us completely and disappointingly by surprise.  

We were at a trip to the mall recently and spent more time in bathrooms.  Finally, I found myself in the single use men's room at Chipotle (the ladies' room was occupied by someone having some real issues), not a paper towel in site, with Eleanor, and poop-filled panties.  The men waiting on line for the bathroom could clearly hear the following conversation:  "Eleanor, you ruined these underpants.  I need to throw them away -- I have nothing to clean them with."  "No!  I need those underpants!  My hiney will be cold!  It smells like pee in here!"  "Eleanor, you can't wear these underpants.  Mommy doesn't have any more underpants!  Next time, do not poopy in your nice underpants!"  "Mommy!  I need underpants!  You're being MEAN!"  I hung my head in shame as I led Eleanor out of the men's room in Chipotle, screaming, past about four twenty-something male hipsters.  I now carry a clean pair of princess underpants in a baggie in my purse.