Unimpressed Daddy who can't see the airplanes at Skydrive, the London airshow.
People are unpredictable and that makes the world exciting… for the most part. Sometimes they surprise you in the worst ways and then you get so mad you threaten to kick them out. No, I’m not talking about my kids. Before I go to far, I have to give him props because he has been very helpful lately working on the house and sharing some of the parenting responsibilities with me but boy was I ticked at him last weekend!
Part of the problem is likely that I have high expectations for people in general but especially for those in my life in whatever capacity that may be. Some say I expect perfection, maybe I do, I haven’t had time to reflect on that yet but I plan to, a goal of mine is to work on self reflection and personal growth and development. If this is true, I’m going to apologize now to anyone this has bothered and anyone this may bother in the future while I work on adjusting my expectations.
I had to wait to vent about this, so it wasn’t clouded by anger and vengeance via the keyboard. I never make things up, but I can have a flare for the dramatics and things have been a tad over emphasized in the past (something else I’m working on). Last Saturday night Grayson and I were jointly working on bedtime. It had been a long day and the girls were cranky and fighting sleep even though it was shortly after 10pm and past their bedtime. Our nighttime routine leaves something to be desired but usually to get Thalia to fall asleep I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star one to infinite times. So, I’m sitting in the rocking chair singing while I feed Raiyah. Grayson is playing the ‘I’m thirsty’ game with Thalia and doing the ‘I dropped my suckie’ dance with Raiyah and mentions that he’s going to see his friends after the girls fall asleep.
Normal people would be like, “okay sure, thanks for sticking around and helping” … and I was. But I was also kind of upset because it’s not as simple as just seeing some friends for a few hours. The weekend was already half over and the progress on the house had been minimal. We were working towards a deadline of the following Friday for the kitchen cabinet installers and the kitchen was far from ready for cabinets. Walls needed washing, prepping, and painting but needed to be filled with drywall and mudded first. Which, if your familiar with renos, you’ll know is no quick project when you’re at the mercy of the mud drying and waiting for a different contractor to come and do that work. The floors needed some attention too, nails had to be pulled to prep for flooring and then the flooring actually had to be installed while we also deal with that pesky bulkhead that has been haunting my kitchen plans since the structural engineer told me it was load bearing. The bottom line is there was lots to do and knowing Grayson and his friends it would not be an early night because it never is with them. Which would in turn lead to Grayson sleeping all day which isn’t great for my renovation plans.
Rare footage of the boys dancing. Also, proof that on rare occasions I do actually get a social life.
Do I understand that people need breaks? Absolutely! Especially parents. Even more so for parents that are renovating a house. I get that, I really do, but I’m also a believer in fairness and equality and that was another source of my frustration. I went to see friends the night before. It was the first time I’d seen them in well over a year and the first time I’d been away from the girls not working on house renovations since I got the house two months ago. I was actually going to reschedule my plans but there’s a few shift workers in our circle of friends and finding times when we are all available is near impossible, so rescheduling wasn’t an option. Besides, I think my break was well deserved and long overdue. Grayson also needs and deserves breaks too, and I was really trying not to be upset that he was going to see his friends but my head was screaming AGAIN?!?! Grayson had already been to see his friends two other times in the last four weeks and although he usually goes while the girls are sleeping it frustrates me that I don’t have that same luxury. It may not seem like much for some but to be it seems like a very large number of outings for a parent. I can’t even dream of a world where I get three nights out in a month. Maybe my imagination needs fixing? Part of the reason it’s so hard for me to get away is that Grayson is always working while the girls are sleeping so I have to ask Mom to watch the girls if I need to go somewhere during the day. She’s already watched them a lot in the last two months, and she’s entitled to her sleep as well if I wanted to go out when the girls are sleeping. That being said, if I don’t sleep when the girls sleep, I am so tired and beyond irritable the next day which isn’t fair to anyone around me. It seems so impossible for me to have me time. It’s probably not as impossible as I make it out to be, but I really do try to limit the amount of time Mom is watching the girls and when she is watching them, I feel like I have to be working on the house. There’s just a lot of mom guilt rolling around in my head right now which makes taking time for myself very difficult. Grayson on the other hand doesn’t ever have a problem taking time away form the girls, and maybe that’s how it should be? He’ll leave to work on renovations (which I appreciate) and be gone for hours because renovations are a never-ending project or spend hours with his friends and think that’s totally normal. I’ve never seen any indications that he feels bad for being away from the girls no matter what the reason is. I am the exact opposite.
Anyway, off he went to his friend’s house, the girls feel asleep around 10:30pm and he left very promptly after the crying and whining stopped. As he was leaving, he told me that he would come back and sleep at Mom’s instead of staying and sleeping at his friend like he usually does, that way I could wake him up when it was time to go to the house. I thought that sounded very reasonable and went to sleep. I woke up at 7am when my alarm went off and was surprised that I was so tired I didn’t even hear Aurora bark when he came back. I rolled over and realized why; he wasn’t there. Already slightly frustrated, I picked up my phone to see if I missed a message from him but there wasn’t one. Thinking that was odd, I texted him joking that his definition of coming back looked different than mine and then I started my day. To my surprise I got a response a few minutes later which upset me more thinking he had been awake this whole time. He said he just woke up but was still tired. I thought I was being nice telling him to go back to sleep there, I figured if he got up and drove back here, he would be too awake to go back to sleep and then would be tired all day. He thought I was being sarcastic but went back to sleep anyway. In my mind I figured he would sleep until 9 or 10 and then be back shortly after, remember it’s just after 7am at this point. The girls usually sleep until 9 anyway so I thought that would be good timing, I would make everyone breakfast and we would be ready to go to the house around the time Gray was coming back. I don’t always take the girls to the house, but I was only planning on painting their flower wall but would be available if they needed help a third set of hands. I figured the girls could keep me company for awhile while the boys worked on the bulkhead and that would give mom a break, win-win-win. Well, not so much.
Grayson woke up at 12:30. Said he was sorry for sleeping so long. He drank the night before and shouldn’t have and apologized for being irresponsible. I was a little thrown because Grayson never drinks. I can count on one hand the number of times he’s had alcohol in the 4 years I’ve known him so hearing that he drank was completely out of character. At this point I was slightly upset. He didn’t come back when he said he was going to, and that drives me bananas. If you say you’re going to do something then do it! At east have the courtesy to let the other person know if you aren’t doing to do what you said you would, and he didn’t do either. Then I find out he drank too, I was really confused because this was extremely unusual behaviour for him. We aren’t dating so I have no right to control his behaviour, even if we were dating, I wouldn’t have the right to do that, but I felt like I was allowed to feel upset. He is staying at my parents’ house without having the responsibility of cooking or cleaning and although he’s technically paying me rent, he’s saving on things like groceries while he lives here which I think is a fair trade of for his help at the house in addition to the fact that I’m hoping to give him some money as compensation once the house is done but I tried to let it go even though I was upset.
A few minutes later he texts me and says he’s going to take a hot minute coming home. Still upset, I don’t answer thinking a hot minute is like maybe 30-45 minutes and he’ll be home soon.
1:30…
2:30…
3:30…
4:20… “I’m sorry, I wanted to give you some space for a little bit, but this is a lot, I’m really sorry”
4 hours. 4 HOURS! On what planet is that a hot minute? I was very mad, and then he used my feelings as a reason to stay gone so long. Are you kidding? But wait, it gets better.
For the record, I help at the house too. My projects are just usually less exciting like cleaning the shower and setting up the bathroom.
“I’m sorry I’ve basically been doing chores for 2 years at this point I get less vacation days with you than at work. I understand I’m here longer than I thought but sometimes I need as breaks as well and you should take breaks too. I’ll be back in 45 minutes”. 45 minutes from then would have been 6pm and he would have been gone 19.5 hours. It was at this point that I told him not to bother coming back, that I would drop his stuff off at his friend’s house. I was probably being a tad dramatic, but I was beyond mad, I still can’t even think of a word that properly describes how pissed off I was. In case you’re new to my blog, I got the house two months ago and we separated last July so I’m not sure how he hasn’t had ‘time off’ in the last two years but I decided to let it go because I didn’t want to argue further while I was still so angry. He was smart enough not to come back that night but text me the next morning asking me to tell him why I was so mad. The nerve!
Here’s why I was mad:
1. I think it’s unfair that he gets so much time to go and see his friends. I understand the girls are usually asleep when he goes but it still seems like he’s not sharing and understanding parenting responsibilities when he takes off to see his friends three times in a month and I maybe get to go once in three months. That’s not very balanced in my eyes. Maybe I should be going out more? Raiyah isn’t breastfeeding, I don’t have to be the one that’s with them every moment of every day but how am I supposed to go places if he’s not there to watch the girls? Mom won’t let anyone else inside the house so I can’t hire a babysitter and sha can’t watch them all the time.
I understand this isn’t completely his fault, a lot of the reasoning behind not taking breaks- aside from me not wanting to ask mom to watch them more is that I experience Mom guilt for not spending time with them. I know I just said I don’t have to be the one that’s with them all the time and deep down I know that but its still incredibly difficult to put into practise sometimes. Mom guilt is a huge topic I won’t get into right now though but after listening to a really good podcast- Zapo Chats, about Mom guilt it helped me realize there is no such thing a Dad guilt, which is why he can take off and do things so much more easily than me. That being said, he should have been able to understand the next reason why I was mad.
2. When I sold Pearl St. Dad said no more, and yet there he was working on the house all by himself because he knew that we had a deadline to hit, and Grayson wasn’t there. I couldn’t go and help Dad because Mom had things to do and couldn’t watch the girls. I felt so bad! I would have told him not to bother but I knew I needed to help to get the bulkhead under control before the kitchen arrived, it was a total catch 22. Thankfully the kitchen was delayed because the bulkhead was definitely not done in time and it most likely would have been if there was someone at the house helping Dad on Sunday which is the source of my frustration.
If only I could be as chill at Raiyah when we go on wagon rides. She know how to keep her cool!
I think I had a right to be upset. The dramatic part of me wanted to put his stuff out in the rain but the practical part of me said that wouldn’t be very nice so I didn’t. I also haven’t kicked him out. He can’t actually stay at his friend’s house, and he still can’t really move into the house while it’s under renovations. We haven’t completed a room yet so we would be constantly moving his stuff around which is irritating and the entire reason that he’s been staying at my parents this whole time.
Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Was I out of line being upset? As a parent, how often do you take time away from your kids?
