Mr. Mom

I probably don’t have to tell you that we have a thankless job. Why is motherhood so hard? We definitely don’t get a gold star for folding an exceptionally difficult fitted sheet. Or an award for cooking a delicious meal consisting of what we had left in the cupboard. No usually we’re given more laundry, a few hours worth of grocery shopping, and a mess only to clean up again the next day.

I’m not anti motherhood because although I may gripe that my son poops in the corner of my closet and then my other son throws up after smelling the poop (true story!) I still love it. Although I’ve always had this secret sinister wish that my husband would one day find himself doing the same mundane things I did all day.

We’ve all been in the predicament of having a truly crazy day and not having time to clean the house, then working on some sort of school project your child tells you is due tomorrow, only to have your spouse come home and ask “What’s for dinner?”  At this point I would like to throw a shoe at his head. It’s in those moments that I wish my hardest that the tables were turned. Well I got what I wished for because shortly after Allan lost his job he quickly became Mr. Mom.

Our roles were reversed just like that. I was going to work almost every day kissing my husband and kids goodbye and venturing back in to a world of adults, meetings, and brown bag lunches. There are always a few things that can go wrong when you have your hubby at home all day with kids. Sometimes things don’t get clean. Sometimes if they are clean it’s not as clean as it would be if you were to do it yourself. Sometimes it bothers you that someone else has a different style of cleaning than you do.

These are small and really petty things compared to what we gained from Allan being home. First and foremost: what dad ever gets to spend that much time with their children? It was absolutely amazing to see what transpired over the summer between him and the kids.

Avoiding the problem of boredom Allan took the kids to either the pool or Seven Peaks every single day. This proved to be successful two fold.  First, it gave them something to do daily and second it wore them out so much that they would collapse in to bed at night! As an added bonus they both learned to swim! Lifeguards would blow their whistles and mothers would gasp when they saw our 2 year old jumping in the water with out floaties or a parent at his side. We would chuckle every time this happened. The kids loved spending time with their dad and learning to swim!

I have to give it up to Allan. Anyone that could potty train two kids at the same time deserves complete adoration. It was a literally dirty job that I didn’t want anything to do with. He bought them potty treats and fed them salty chips with jugs of water. He had them on a timer to go every hour and would applaud their successes. He googled potty training tips and problems and by the end of the summer he had both of them out of diapers. Even though my oldest has reverted back (that may be my fault) he had potty trained both boys!

My favorite thing happened only a few days after we had switched roles. Allan called me at work and simply said “thank you for taking care of the kids and house for the past 5 years. I don’t know how you do it.” That was what I wanted to hear. I just wanted him to know what it felt like to be home with kids all day, then have to clean a house, and then put a creative/healthy/kid friendly meal on the table! But I got much more than that. Not only did Allan recognize how hard our job is but he really tried hard to do it without complaining. I can’t say as much for my attitude on occasion. 

So sometimes the fridge was a disaster, and other times I didn’t have any clean undies, or the kids had on very badly mismatching clothes, the point is that none of it mattered. The kids got to spend quality time with their dad, I got appreciation, and many neighbors and friends benefited from Allan’s homemade chocolate chip cookies which he made weekly. So my gratitude is for my husband this post. Cheers and thanks to you for making my and the kids summer so memorable!