Airing Dirty Laundry

I love what I do. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I was made to be a stay at home mom. At least, I hope that is what they would say. I never miss a minute of anything with my children. I am the first person they see when they wake up in the morning and the last person they see when they go to bed at night. We spend our days playing with "babies", coloring pictures, reading stories, and watching movies together. It is a wonderful life. My husband works extremely hard so that I can have the opportunity to be here with them full time.

All the other domestic duties that come along with being a homemaker are not exactly up there on my list of favorite things to do, though. I detest folding and putting laundry away. I like to organize things, but I hate to deep clean the house. I make no excuses. I know that I should have a better attitude toward housework, but that has never been me. I don't get stressed out by clothes on the love seat or hand prints on the walls. I don't lose sleep if the floors need sweeping. Sure, I like to have a clean house. I love the way the house smells like pine-sol and lemons when I've just dusted and mopped. I love the way it feels to get up in the morning and not have a sink full of neglected dinner dishes staring at me. But, it's just not something I get bent out of shape about. I do these things around the house because I have to, and not because I want to. I don't clean Brian's work clothes with the joyful attitude of "I am so thankful for my husband going to work and providing for us that the least I can do is be happy about doing his laundry." Instead the attitude I have is, "I better get these stupid clothes done, so I won't get yelled at when he has nothing clean to wear in the morning." Wrong?? Yes, I know, but I'm just dishing out a smidge of honesty here. Airing my dirty laundry...cheesy pun intended.

You see, I am married to a neat freak to the 1000th degree. I think he really believes that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness", and he is going for sainthood. He is super organized...borderline OCD, and I'm pretty sure that 99% of the time, living with me drives him bonkers! He loves me, though, in spite of the dust and crumbs that I welcome into our family on a daily basis. I know this because I have always been me. And, he has always been him. And, we fell madly in love and got married anyway. Probably both wishfully thinking that we would somehow rub off on the other...no luck so far.

Today, the girls and I got out the crayons and got creative...I had no idea just how creative. While Sarah and I were drawing on blank sheets of printer paper, Rylee was busy as a bee dumping out all the crayons and putting them back in the clear plastic container. When we were done working on our masterpieces for the day, I rounded up what I thought were all the stray crayons and put them away. Can you see where this is going? Early in the afternoon, I was putting some things away in Sarah's room when I saw it.....RED crayon all over her WHITE duvet cover! So, I called Sarah in. She promptly blamed it on her sister...and I believe her. Sarah wouldn't have drawn on the comforter...she would have drawn on the wall.

What to do?? Well, I have about 1/4 of a scoop of washing powders left, so I can either wait until I go to the store and buy detergent or I can wash the duvet cover in plain water. I decided to wait. WRONG!! Knew better, did it anyway.

When my 20/20 eyesight husband went into Sarah's room, what was the first thing he saw? Yep, that's right. We proceeded to have a ridiculous fight about my apparent "lack of supervision" of the children when they have crayons. Seriously?! They are almost 4 and not quite 2...sometimes things get past me.

We never go to bed angry with each other, and tonight he went to bed upset, and obviously I still am, or I wouldn't be blogging about it. All over a stinking comforter (that is now in the dryer, good as new and smelling like a new baby-because I found some Dreft in the back of the laundry closet) and a little red crayon...Geez, I would much rather save my fighting energy for fights that are actually a big deal. It all seems so silly in retrospect. But, I wear my heart on my sleeve and my feelings got hurt. How about I leave both girls with him for a few hours and see how much "kid stuff" happens under his supervision. All I'm saying is, if they were unsupervised with crayons all the time, then I would be going to town with a magic eraser trying to remove Picasso from every freshly painted surface in our house.
OK, I'm done.
I'll be over it in a minute and go wake him up to say "Sorry", because I literally hurt when we argue. We'll kiss and hug and all will be forgiven...even the ugly name I called him (not so) under my breath. I really do love what I do...sometimes....well, most of the time....ok, all the time. But, I am woman enough to admit that I am still a work in progress.

I'm going to go apologize to my husband now.