many mundane moments

In defense of my husband

Last night Matt had his regular software user group meeting, the same as the second thursday of each month. I also had a quarterly meeting for a board I serve on at church. One of us had to take Howie along and since Matt's meeting is not nearly as kid friendly as a bunch of women sitting around eating a light dinner and chatting, the choice was clear.

So we get to the meeting and I'm talking to three of my neighbors- a young mom who has a boy a few months younger than Howie (YM), a nice older neighbor (NN) and a woman who will be referred to as jerky neighbor (JN). So NN says hello to Howie and turns to YM and asks if she brought her boy. YM says no and JN steps in and says "no, she got a break," with a glance toward me. YM says, "yeah, mine's home getting some time with daddy." They all look at me.

I resisted the impulse to flip them off, but said, "he spends lots of time with his dad, but he has a meeting the second thursday of each month and ours just happened to be on the same night." Seriously? really, seriously?! They were judging me (or more accurately, Matt) for bringing a toddler with me when that very morning the coordinator had said, "bring the baby if you need," when she called to remind me about the meeting? This whole thing was over in about 30 seconds. I'm sure they all forgot about it (except for when Howie kept acting up during the actual meeting, naturally), but I am still thinking about it this morning. Since I really don't associate outside our duties with any of those women, you get to hear all about what I've been thinking.

Matt is nothing short of incredible as a husband, dad, and provider. I know a lot of moms who feel like they carry more than their own weight. That's certainly not true in our family. Matt works so much harder than I do in this household. Commuting more than an hour a day, he leaves by 7 most days so that he can be home in time for me to work. If Howie wakes up before he goes, he changes him and gets him all settled. He works hard all day, not only on his assigned projects, but navigating the exhausting paths of management and their processes.

Howie jumps and runs to the door when he hears the garage open and he's all Matt's the minute he arrives home. More often than not, I'll have a shift to work that evening (5 nights a week), and I rarely have dinner made since we usually eat on my break. Matt works all day and then gets to wrangle Howie all evening, plus make dinner- not to mention the long list of projects around the house that I keep pestering him about. He's worked so hard on our yard this last month with Howie following every step of the way. Bedtime is his sole responsiblity, only after which does he get a chance to work on free-lance projects or do the things he's really interested in .

Howie has no regard for weekends and still likes to get up around 7, and Matt gets up with him every time. I sleep until 8 or 9 when Matt starts making breakfast. On Saturdays, I tell Matt I'll hang out with Howie while he's working on a project, but that's usually short lived because if Matt's outside, there's no keeping Howie in. Sundays are even easier for me with Matt often taking Howie to his church early while I have a lazy morning.

So, enough gushing about my husband. It's starting to make me look bad. It pisses me off that they see me walk into a meeting with my kid and automatically assume that I have a slacker husband. Matt is selfless in his dedication to our family. He goes out one freaking night per month to do something for himslf. The fact that it fell on the night of our meeting does not make me unnecessarily burdened.

Also, I resent the insinuation that I need a church meeting to get a break. First of all because it's a rare day when I feel like I need a break from Howie and second because even with how many nights I work, Matt's still okay with me going out a few nights a month with friends. I can only assume the women were drawing these conclusions based on their own lives and that makes me sad for them.

posted by Valarie @ 11:00 AM