April 4th 2011

In the middle of prepping my beautiful big baby boy for bed the other night, this mother succumbed to interrupting herself in order to stage a little hissy fit; not *at* her husband exactly, but *around* him.

“The toilet’s disGUSTing!  And have you smelled the garbage?  It smells like something DIED in there!  And the recycling is piling up!  It’s not going to take itself out, and I doubt anyone else is either.  Do YOU!?!   Well, *do* you?!?”  Ack ack ack!!

Never mind that he just sat down from cleaning the kitchen after a wonderful meal he prepared for us all this evening, like most evenings.  My darling patient husband takes a breath and says, “Um,”  (Let’s see here, where to begin.)  “OK, what’s wrong with the toilet?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I snap. “Maybe no one has *cleaned* it in a WEEK or two?  That’s the last time *I* cleaned it!?!   Do you think anyone *ELSE* has cleaned it in that time?  Who else would clean it?  What do YOU think!?!  Do *YOU* have any ideas?!”

Being a man, and a 6-foot, 9-inch tall man, he of course thought the toilet was *fine.*  We realized this night that because of his lofty vantage point so far above the toilet, he literally doesn’t *SEE* the gunk building up on the rim.  The rim which -coincidentally- is EXACTLY the height of my baby boy’s hands and penis when doing his business at the “big-boy potty.”  Business which, being so nascent, is actually a big deal in our current family affairs.   As the mother supervising said business on this night,  I just totally wigged out and jumped out of my skin.    I even cajoled my poor tolerant husband into coming in and bending way down low over the toilet to see what I was talking about.  And he *did* see what I was talking about.   But I expect in general it’s probably just a lot easier to keep standing tall and simply *not* see it.  Furthermore, he couldn’t *smell* the garbage because of a head cold he has been nursing for days, and has -in his chef words- “no nose.”  Contrast this with my totally acute, very present, quite pregnant “NOSE.”  And of course he’s blind to the pile of recycling building up by the door because… well, where does that land on the radar.  What radar?

I had to do an emergency 5-minute flurry of housework just to get my jitters out and get some breathable air and then do a couple extra flights of stairs.   My lovely husband finished putting our boy to bed.

Afterwards he asks me, “Are you ok?”

Breathing now, I say, “Yes.  Are you?” (As in, Gee sorry I kinda sort of totally blasted you there honey.  Oops.)   He laughs, wraps his super-de-duper long arms around me and we hug it out.

*Sigh.*

Marriage.

Ain’t it GRAND.

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