Division of Labor

Now that DH is, for the most part, quite a bit better than he was a year or so ago, it's been difficult for me to know where to keep my expectations. If you remember, most of the time, I've needed to remind myself to "lower your expectations." And that mantra has gotten me through some pretty stressful stuff!

But now, DH is awake most of the day. He's there with DD and I'm working. He's making parenting decisions and "forgetting" to talk to me about them first. And since I've been the "only" parent for quite some time, I get pretty frustrated with that. But he doesn't see that part, all he sees is that he's there, I'm at work, something needs to be done. Ok. I can be grateful and frustrated at the same time.

And he is helping. Sort of. He got a huge burst of energy and rearranged our bedroom. But half way through, he just stopped. So now there's furniture all over the place, the TV is over in a corner of the room where there isn't even any electric outlet. There's an empty book shelf on top of the dresser, and all the books are scattered all over the room, because the cats don't like "nice, neat, piles" of books. And he still hasn't groomed Buffy, our Collie. I'm going to end up paying a groomer to do it, because while he's been "getting around" to doing it, she's getting more and more matted. She's losing her winter coat, and DH had said he would do it. He finally did fix the bathtub drain, I thought I was going to have to figure that one out.

My problem is that he has such good intentions. He feels good, starts a project, or volunteers to take on some household chore, and then midway through (or not at all), he loses motivation. And there it sits. And I end up with more work than if he hadn't done anything. But somehow "lower your expectations" doesn't seem to work, either, because it seems like he should be more capable now. The key word, I know, is "seems". Apparently, he's not as capable as he thinks he is. Apparently he's not as capable as I want him to be. Apparently I still need to "lower my expectations." I just wish I had more time for all this. Last week, including training, I worked 73 hours. And took my mom's cat to the vet, and my dog to the vet. And my mom to the dentist, too. I so much want DH to just say, "I was feeling energetic, so I cleaned the bathroom." And have it really be all the way done. Not just sweep the floor, but clean the tub, clean the toilet, scrub the floor, clean the mirrors, etc.

I just reread that last sentence. And I can tell you I have better odds of winning the lottery. Yup....gotta lower my expectations....