My Life:

My buddy Juli Church Kozicki had this funny saying - actually it was her mother's - "Attitude is everything after posture and good grooming." Well, I'm not into the good grooming part, but I so totally agree that attitude makes or breaks a situation. There have been a couple of situations recently where I laughed instead of getting mad - situations where I thought, you know, if we weren't getting along, this would drive me nuts! For example, driving home before Kath's C-section to make John dinner. When I write about that I think - What are you? Nuts? You spent two hours in the car to make dinner for John? Would he do that for me?? But that's not me thinking - that's like society and the femi-Natzi's saying, "Oh, marriage is 50/50 so be sure you don't do more than your 50 percent." I heard this great speaker once - and she said marriage isn't 50/50 -- it's 70/30 where you always give 70 but only expect 30 percent in return. But that only works if both spouses give 70 percent. But I'm not sure that is true - I think what is important is throwing away the score card. So I drive home to make dinner so that when John comes home from a day of work, he's not facing 3 hungry kids and no clue what to give them. And I don't even CARE that he probably wouldn't do the same for me (then again, I'm not as household helpless as he is!) So I give myself permission to be a doting spouse for John (which would be WHY he is so household helpless.) I'm happy. And maybe all the 'books' and 'experts' say that I should be taking more time for myself, or that John should have more household responsibilities or that the kiddos shouldn't be the absolute center of my universe. But you know what? I DON'T CARE. I have found my corner of the world, I'm delighted, and I'm not going to let silly things disturb my happiness. And, this way, I remain happy.

Anyway, back to the plot. So I take extra valuable time (ha ha) to take care of my family. And my good deed paid for itself on Sunday. As I mentioned, I went to visit Kath in the hospital. I left at like 12:15 and said, oh, I'll be gone for 3 hours. . . . 5 and a half hours later I stroll in. Oops. So much for dinner. I called and left a message - It's 3:30, I'll leave at 4. So then I call at 4:30 -- and John picks up and I can hear Mike screaming in the background and I'm saying, "heh heh, I'm in the parking lot now." So John was pretty irritated and was like "Where the hell are you? You've been gone all day!" So I thinking I'm not going to get into an argument on the cell phone here so I just firmly say I'm on my way home now. And of course my blood is pumping! How dare that ass yell at me - on Mother's Day no less! - about being gone! Like he doesn't disappear every Wed. for Softball, like I EVER leave him with the kids! Like. . . and then I think, you know, this is my fault. I would want to kill him if he just up and left for 5 hours. So I'll apologize for being gone, and tell him how much I appreciate that he watched the kids all day. But then I'd drive 5 more miles and start planning the argument in my head again, feel my blood pressure go up again. Cleansing breath, I will apologize for John's bad day and thank him for how good mine was. So I walk in the door and before John can even say anything I'm like, "I had a great mother's day. This was the best gift you could have given me. I'm sorry I was gone for so long, but I want you to know how much I really appreciate it." Of course, John has just spent an hour in HIS head planning an argument - so he says something like (angrily) "Look, I've just GOT to get out of the house. I'm going to WaWa." And I'm like, "Sure, fine. I really appreciate what you've done. I'll watch the kids. Go take some time for yourself. Do you want to go to Target too?" Now, John is still expecting an argument. Maybe he's planning his responses to what he THINKS I'm going to say and not listening to what I'm saying. So he's off on the how he needs to get out of the house and he's watched the kids and -- you said I could go? Know where he went? To get me flowers. Isn't that cute? He was gone for maybe 15 minutes and we had a great evening together. I thought, you know, if we weren't getting along, or if we were 'keeping score' this would have been one heck of an argument. Instead I had a really wonderful Mother's Day. (I love infants!)