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Category Archives: Husbands

Cheater

September 3, 2009

OK, I am exactly one week late on blogging about this but hopefully some of you missed this last week as well. As it turns out, a wife in VA found evidence of her husband cheating – she found it on his cell phone – so what did she do?

She made him stand on Leesburg Pike during rush hour wearing a huge sign that reads “I Cheated. This is my punishment.” Apparently he was out there from about 9am – 11am last Wednesday. I would have made him stand out there for more than a day.

But honestly, hats off to this super pissed off wife. Presumably she’s taken him back after he fulfilled his public humiliation assignment. And apparently he wouldn’t speak to the many people who tried to interview him because he didn’t want to get into more trouble.

But seriously, she obviously felt very humiliated and returned the feeling to him. There’s something to be said for it.

Here’s the hilarious link

OK – Thursday morning update – the whole thing was a hoax put on by radio station 99.5 – check out the story in today’s Post style section. What a shame!

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Husbands

What’s wrong with a wife?

September 1, 2009

The NYT Modern Love column is something I look forward too every Sunday. Typically I am pacing for the paper to be delievered because that is my sad life. It’s true. I am generally fired up every Sunday when I check and check and recheck and the paper still isn’t there, only for my lazy slovenly, good for nothing NYT delivery person to toss it into my yard around 8am.

I mean really. We are like 2.5 hours into our day by then, why do I have to pace for it? Its sad really.

So, back to the column. I think Sunday’s column is the first time I’ve been not only pissed off as I read it but also confused. I needed to read it a few more times to even make sense out of what the point of it was.

The writer had me with the first sentence, I was seething, as she bragged about how she has a big job and two kids and how when other working moms comment that she must be so busy, her response was a flippant “Not really, my wife stays home.” Imagine if a man responded in such a fashion. We’d be organizing to burn and pillage his home, decrying him as the world’s biggest chauvinist and wondering why in the world he doesn’t pick up some slack around home to appreciate just how much is wife makes his successful career possible.

Yet instead, because the author is female, we are supposed to accept her obnoxious statement and appreciate that it’s a column about gay women raising children and the struggles with what to call each other. But not me. I’m pissed off at how obnoxious she is regarding the ease with which she maintains her career because she has a wife at home. Then she goes on to berate straight women in marriages because essentially we take on too much and are power hungry and refuse to relinquish tasks to our husbands, as she so gallantly did to her wife (after implying her wife still doesn’t do it all as well as she would and flat out stating it took her 18 months to accept her wife’s way).

How noble of the author to admit that her career is successful and she is able to maintain it and manage it all because she has an organized wife at home. Isn’t the reality that most women take on the majority of these tasks – whether they work or stay home – and when they stay home, they do so because that is their job but when they work, they do so because these things help them stay connected and involved in the lives of their children in the way that they would want too, if they were home.

But then she cuts at the heart of at the biggest point of contention among almost every woman with kids I know – the unbalanced workload between husbands and wives. While her arrogance and judgement irritated the hell out of me – she still made a legitimate point in that having a more involved husband at home means relinquishing control and letting him take charge of some duties – without berating him for doing it differently than we would.

What a conundrum I find myself in – both loathing and appreciating some of the words of this woman. And she’s right. We all want our husbands to take on more work around the house, really to just take initiative. To notice when something needs done, cleaning, fixing, purchased at the store, and just do it – without being asked or handed a list. And I do think that this behavior happens more often with positive reinforcement, like that of a child pushing boundaries – the more praise and recognition we heap on them for menial tasks, the more inclined they are to do them. I think if we critique what they do constantly or we don’t ever ask them to do it because we figure that is more work than just doing it ourselves, then we forfeit the right to complain about our husbands because we are enabling them NOT to be a true partner.

Then the author goes back to what was her original point of their identities as two women, both wives, and how to refer to each other publicly. At the onset of their relationship, they felt it was very in-your-face to people to refer to each other as wives, both because it is unexpected and the word “wife” has such negative connotations.

Now here’s something else I have a beef with. Why is this? And why are other women reinforcing this notion? Why is someone who manages the house, primarily raises the children to be upstanding and responsible members of society, and keeps food on the table and clean clothes on everyone’s bodies – why is this condescending and something we recoil over? Aren’t we way past that? Haven’t we all recognized that many women deliberately choose this path and take great pride in it, often times finding it more fulfilling than some dumb job in a cube.

I couldn’t believe this made it into the Sunday NYT.

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Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood, Work

The KT List: Beach Edition

August 21, 2009

I’ve spent a good part of the summer at the beach. From my many trips alone with the girls, we know I’ve concluded one important thing: husbands are good for hauling crap onto the beach. Divorce would be bad.

I’ve also had a few months to put together my list of beach essentials. Before you go on, a few notes. First, I am not a minimalist. If you are a minimalist, then KT’s beach survival list is not for you. Also, this list is particularly useful if you have more than one child. I didn’t necessarily need all of these things last summer. And well, I’m a gal who likes to need and collect things, so I do not say that lightly.

I made my peace with the true fact that I am no longer able to toss a few gossip rags, a bottle of water, some sun block (who the hell has time to apply sun block anymore?), and a cheesy beach read into a cute straw beach bag, grab a chair and hit the beach. Those days are long gone. As they are for you. So here goes, kittens.

Topping the list, without a doubt, is the very thing that saved summer. If you are a regular beach-goer, then this item is a must have. Easily the best $80 or so I’ve ever spent. And once you own one, you will note that it is like a veritable convention of these surrounding your beach camp each and every time you go. And if you relish in shopping, as do I, then you will size up the cousins of this contraption and determine that your deluxe model, with it’s big wheels fit for pulling over sand with relative ease (for the husband, of course), was well worth the extra cash.

Behold the Wonder Wheeler Deluxe – in all of its plastic perfection and big wheeled glory. It is the ultimate visual representation of parenthood, of dorkiness, the minivan of the beach, if you will. Being seen pulling or standing close to one of these tells the skinny bikini clad teens and young lovers around you that you gave up on being cool a long time ago. And as I went to dig up the link – don’t think my stomach didn’t turn upon realizing this life-saver of summer is now on sale for HALF PRICE. The rush I get from a great deal on a great item keeps me going for months, I almost want to buy them in bulk now and then sell them to others at the onset of Memorial Day 2010. The only thing this summer champ can’t do is carry a baby – and don’t think I didn’t consider where a baby might be strapped in, similar to a baby bjorn, thereby freeing up both hands of one parent (the one clever enough not to be pulling or pushing the WWD). I considered how the sturdier baby just might be fine sitting in the main basket. Trust me, desperate womans health times call for desperate considerations.

So now that I’ve tipped you off on the ease of transporting all the gear, including chairs and the ever-important beach umbrella, to and from the beach, let’s now get into the actual gear.

Surviving two hours on the beach with two children under the age of 4 is no small feat.

Because DD2 was immobile way back in May, and in my naivete I presumed she would be immobile all summer long as was her sister, I purchased the covered tent for baby. As luck wouldn’t have it, she was crawling shortly after July 4 and so she maybe played and napped in the thing twice before she spent her next visit pushing her head up against the mesh netting that was zipped closed and them promptly began screaming bloody murder for someone to retrieve her. So – it worked well for DD1 and was a total waste for DD2, and as any self-respecting shopping lover would do, I lost the first tent from DD1. So we have this useless second one. IF she had stayed immobile, as I had planned, then it would have been a real asset to our beach-going experience.

Which brings us to our second question: how to keep the mobile baby distracted long enough not to eat a pound of sand each beach visit?

Enter the baby pool. You got it. We are big fans of the baby pool on the beach, steps from the ocean, filled with like 3 centimeters of water. I don’t think the baby pool will be useful for us next summer, but it was a life saver this summer and because DD2 would play in the pool with rubber ducks and whatever else she could find, DD1 was then interested in playing in the pool and ripping all the toys from DD2 hands (read: enabling some ‘relaxation’ time for us away from playing “let’s jump waves” in the ocean). The baby pool gets ranked second for me after my beloved WWD.

In case you’ve lost track, you are now hauling several chairs, a baby pool, a baby tent, gobs of beach toys, towels, a cooler, snacks and a beach umbrella to the beach. If you are anything like me, you are wondering why in the hell you are even bothering.

Which brings me to the joys of applying sunscreen. I don’t know about your children but applying sunscreen to DD1 is like chasing around a chicken whose head was just cut off. As it turned out, the Coppertone Water Babies sunscreen in the form of roll-on, that she could apply herself (Miss “I’m three, I can do it by MYSELF”), eased my pain and misery. I can’t recommend this product enough if you don’t already have it or if your child hasn’t turned into the taz devil yet when trying to apply sunscreen.

And finally, let’s end with me. I still haven’t found that fabulous, stylish and practical beach cover-up. Happy summer kittens, there isn’t much left to go.

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Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood, Toddler Antics

Staying Home

July 21, 2009

I’m 3.5 months into my new stay-at-home gig. Everyone loves to ask me how it’s going, am I getting bored yet, will I go back to work, do I like it, what is different now?

Here’s my view on adjusting to life at home after a 13 year career.

First – am I getting bored yet. I love that one. The answer to that is a resounding – NO. I dream of the day when I have time to actually get bored. Don’t you? The correct question would be this – are you frustrated yet?

The answer to that is – it depends on the day but frustration is, indeed, a frequent and regular part of my daily routine. But I’m preaching to the choir on that one.

Will I go back to work?

I have absolutely no idea. Perhaps the novelty hasn’t worn off yet but I wouldn’t even consider going back to work right now even if some opportunity came knocking on my door. Which it hasn’t. I love being home, frustration and all. I love taking and picking up DD1 from school, I love spending my days with them, I do not even think about going back to work on my worst days. It’s also very liberating for me to just have no career plan. It is what it is. I am home. I dig it. I am aware every day that I am lucky to have the opportunity to stay home.

One thing that is very different is my stress level. I enjoy not having to worry about a nanny being sick, if the nanny is keeping the baby on a feed schedule, let alone the annoyance of not finding things in my own house because someone has been there all day. Of course, there are stresses that come with staying home all day – so again – it’s all just different – but I like it like that.

What is different now?

OK. This one is something I think about a lot. The truth is, I am barking at and frustrated with my husband way more now than I was before. Is this because I am home or is it because life is just harder with more kids? That I don’t know the answer too because for us, both things happened at basically the same time. But this is just the truth. You read KT because I tell it like it is – this is my new reality. Is there more bickering because we are still adjusting to life with 2 in combo with the ongoing challenges that come with a more sophisticated older child? Perhaps. The topic of discipline or failure to discipline- is a hot and regular topic around my house – and trust me – no one’s ripping their clothes off over this hot topic. The only thing rising in anyone’s body is my blood pressure.

And am I barking at DH more because I am home more now, therefore I am doing more house things – like picking up and laundry – than I did before – or am I barking at him because I spend enough time picking up after two kids, I don’t need or want a third to pick up after? I’m not sure. But don’t think I haven’t hatched a plan that includes shoving his boxers that are dropped at the foot of the laundry basket (I’m seriously not even exaggerating), or his socks strew in random rooms (did he find them there? No.) – into his pillow case – and just waiting to see how long it takes him to notice. I mean, why shouldn’t I? Do the boxers or socks belong in his pillow case any more than they belong at the foot of the laundry basket (I mean, come on) or on the dining room floor?

So there is more barking and argumentative conversations than there was before. Would this be the case if I were still working full-time? Possibly. Would they be about different things? Probably.

So what next?

Despite the bickering, the frustration and the endless laundry, I couldn’t be happier and love not sitting behind a desk all day. Is it true that I secretly dread August, what with no camps, no grandparents in town and no help? Probably. But me and the girls will survive – we have fun every day. It’s totally worth it.

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Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood