typealice

When I have “down time” I can’t help but see my house as a list of “to do”s. The floor needs sweeping. The entrance needs scrubbing to get rid of the salt stains. The garbage, recycling and compost needs to be taken outside. I always have laundry to do. The sink needs scrubbing. There are diapers to either wash, dry or put together for the next day. The sheets need to be changed. The dishes need to be done. It’s 10:03pm and I need to go to the grocery store because I haven’t had the car all week and I don’t have milk for my breakfast tomorrow.

Clive works a lot, granted. I asked him to get a second job to help pay down some of his crazy debt. He leaves the house at 9am every morning and doesn’t get home until 6:15. Three nights a week, he’s back out the door at 6:45 after a quicky meal that I cooked and doesn’t get home until 9:40. That’s a long day. And then he works one weekend day from 1pm-9pm. Luckily, both of his jobs are EXTREMELY easy and don’t actually require any work. I’m serious. For his evening job, he’s able to remote into his home computer and play around. He works for a call center, and he’s lucky to even take one call. His day job is similar- he’s had a bit of training in the past three months of working there, but so far? No responsibilities. No work. Just more internet surfing.

I’m beginning to think there’s a problem with internet addiction here, because as soon as he comes into the house after his day job, he washes his hands, I give him Ash for some (ha!) bonding, and Clive sits at the computer. Today I asked him what he was doing, and he replied, “Just clicking around.” I asked him to PLEASE, GOD, actually pay ATTENTION to Ash. Because Ash can’t even be comforted by Clive at nighttime anymore because he doesn’t spend enough time with him. Why, after spending the last nine hours in front of a computer with nothing to do but click randomly around the internet, would you go right back on the internet? Do you think something changed in the 12 minutes you were driving home? Do you see how stressed I am? Maybe it’d be nice if you could ask me if there’s anything you can do, if you don’t want to play with your son.

Clive has very few responsibilities around the house because of his work schedule. The only thing I really ask him to do is be on garbage/compost/recycling duty. I ALWAYS have to ask him to do those chores. I’ve “tested” him to see how long a garbage bag could sit in the kitchen and him act like it was a piece of furniture. It was five days before I got fed up and asked him to please take it outside. Today I put a large bowl of compost IN FRONT of the door so that he could take it out on his way out the door to his second job. It didn’t move. I thought, okay, when he comes home from work, then he’ll take it out.

Nope, still there. I asked him about it. He says he’ll take it out tomorrow. He says I must have put it there after he left (NO. It was there all along), because he honestly didn’t see it when he was leaving.

Am I alone on this? Do men just overlook everything? Why are these things so blatantly obvious to me, and so absolutely INVISIBLE to him? If he does do something, like unload the dishwasher, he brings it up to me, looking for a “thank you.” I do thank him, because I want him to make a habit of it, but part of me wants to bring up to him how he NEVER thanks me for doing ANYTHING. I have to remind him almost every meal that hey, mmmmm, isn’t this good? Isn’t it healthy? Yeah, you’re welcome.

I haven’t left the house in three days. It’s been too cold. So, I’m stuck with a baby who’s too young to give me a break, outside of a nap here or there. I’m mourning the days of him being a newborn because he was so small and adorable and I just love that age, but I’m excited for the short stage of him being able to sit up and play with a toy before he starts crawling and making my life infinitely more difficult than it is right now. Clive gets to go to work, play around on the internet, specifically digg.com a lot of the time, talk to adults, go to the gym for an hour (his work offers one), have a lunch break that lasts another hour, take MY car that I’M PAYING FOR, and I’m “stuck” at home with the baby I love so much but isn’t very good at the art of conversation.

I have taken exactly TWO breaks in the past 4.5 months. Once, Clive and I went to dinner for his staff xmas party- where every molecule in my body wanted to be back with my baby, and once at the beginning of December when my sister and I went shopping at the mall for an hour. I would love to have a day off, but I know that’s impossible because 1. I would miss Ash too much and 2. Clive would just sit in front of a computer with Ash and wouldn’t pay enough attention to him, or would fuck up his napping schedule (self-inflicted, I might add), and we’d be up until 10pm with him because that’s what happens when Ash misses naps. Third, really? Clive doesn’t have boobs and he doesn’t smell like me, which makes Ash upset.

I can’t even go for a massage or a haircut in the evenings because I know Ash wouldn’t stay asleep for longer than 45 minutes, and I’ve already mentioned that Clive trying to comfort Ash when he wakes up is basically useless. He just gets more and more upset when I’m continuing to not be there.

I know it’s not Clive’s “fault” that he gets to go to work and hang out with adults, and I normally don’t even think about that. I wouldn’t have my life and Ash’s life any differently, it’s just when I think about how much I do, and how much Clive’s able to relax, I get livid. I will be sleeping in a different room tonight thanks to writing this entry before bed.

I don’t know how to get Clive to help out more. I’ve asked politely. I’ve screamed. I’ve nagged. Nothing changes. I get empty promises and excuses about why things weren’t done. I’ve given him such few household responsibilities, I figure that it should be no problem for him to do them. But, the compost bowl is still by the door. There are boxes stacked along the wall from before xmas that he still has not taken out. There’s one full garbage bag, paper recycling bag and blue bag ready to go out, and not a CLUE in his mind that he’s got something to do.

I’m going to write it instead of doing it: I REALLY WANT TO THROW THAT BIG GARBAGE BAG AT HIS STUPID HEAD.

The end.