I realized that I should blog today while I was in the shower. I started crying for what I though was no reason. Then I realized it was because I am frustrated, scared, and angry. I am frustrated because I thought my husband would be different. I thought he would understand that I am not as I was last summer. I am 36 weeks pregnant for goodness sake. I feel tired, sore, huge, unattractive, sad, scared, incompetent, and unappreciated. I have a 1 and a half foot person curled up inside of me!
I have never been a delicate girly girl, and I think that's one of the things DH loves about me. I've always been more than ready to get my hands dirty and work up a sweat to get a job done. But I don't think he understands how hard and how scary it is for me to go through everything I am experiencing. He will never know what it feels like to have a human being kicking the crap out of you from the inside. Or how every 45 min you feel like you'll pee your pants if you don't get to the toilet...only to sit down and have a few drops come out. Or how it takes great coordination and patience just to roll over in bed. Or the fear of going to he hospital for labor and all that comes with it. I didn't expect pregnancy to be easy, but I did expect some compassion and support from my husband. I haven't even been able to get a foot or back rub out of him in the past 8 months. I have had constant pain in my back, hips, knees, and foot. But I deal with it, everyday, because I have to. He injures his knee, refuses to do anything to help it, and uses it as an excuse to not get anything done. I'm sorry, but suck it up...it could be worse...YOU could be pregnant.
This baby's coming sometime in the next 30 days...it could be as early as next week or it could be 4 weeks from now. Either way, he's coming and neither his room nor his mommy is ready for it.
It's been really hard sitting by week after week while things in the baby's room gets done at a snails pace. He knows I would be doing it if I could, but I physically can't. If I think really hard about it, there have only been about a dozen days in the past 6 months that he worked really hard, all day, and made real progress. This past Sat was one of those days, even though all he was able to finish was the electrical work.
There is still no floor in one section, the walls are still studs and insulation, there are wires everywhere for the electric, and the little that is left to do in the bathroom still sits unfinished. Its not for lack of help...my dad and my BFF's DH have both come over and tried to help, but my unorganized DH was unable to find anything for them to do. Now we're coming down to the wire, a holiday weekend is up next (meaning no one available to help), and I want the damn room to start looking like a room. I know its a lot of work, but if he would stop over thinking it and just do it, it would be done by now.
I wish I had the strength and stamina to sand the drywall and get the tiny portion of the bathroom finished. I did my job (even though I shouldn't have worked that hard)...I tiled, and grouted, and sealed. And I did a damn good job because I didn't stop. The rest is work my DH created for himself and has yet to complete. All I want is to take a bath in my own f-ing bathtub before this baby comes and bathing falls to the bottom of my priority list. I don't care if the bathroom doesn't get painted right away...I don't care if the duct work over the sink doesn't get sealed up for a few months. Shit, I don't even care if we don't get the vanity area touched until fall or winter...I can find a place to put things until then, but I can't do it w/ all the tools and stuff in my way. I can't do it until he sands down the spackel. I will get my ass up on the stool again and do the caulking just to have it be done...but the rest is his job and I can't help.
I know if he took his entire 3 days in a row (Friday, Sat and most of Sun) that he has off, called up some friends to help, and just busted it out, that the nursery could be mostly done by the end of next weekend. Or even take a day or 2 off to work on it...he's taken off for WAY less important things. But will that happen? Probably not...
I really needed to get the room painted BEFORE I go into labor since the fumes take 30 days to fully evacuate from the walls (we bought the paint about 2 years ago and it's not low VOC, though it is latex). I really wanted a place to put all the baby stuff so I could get to it without stressing out. But it'll have to sit in a pile in our bedroom. I can't control how labor and delivery are going to go, but I can control how stressed I feel in my own home right? Apparently not. I can't walk anywhere without being stressed by the sheer amount of stuff. Much of it is out of our control at the moment because of the construction going on. But some of it is just DH's laziness. Clothing piled on the bedroom floor...mere inches from the hamper and closet where they belong. An old computer and a pile of god only knows what on the dresser because it's a convenient flat space to set stuff. Yes, there is some stuff on my side of the dresser, but I know what it all is and the places that it goes are inaccessible right now. How is it that I can find 30 min to sort through my bills and statements and file them away, but DH's pile has been growing, on the living floor, for about 6 mos? How is it that I can get the clothing washed, dried, and put away in a weekend, but he can't put away his small pile of clothes for weeks?
I'm not asking for a freaking squeaky clean house...just a husband who gets it and does it. I don't want my son growing up to think it's ok to leave his crap everywhere because daddy does. I want a son who knows how to clean up after himself and values the things he has enough to take care of them. When he goes away to college and eventually has a place of his own, he'll be better equipped to take care of himself. Isn't that the goal of all parents? To develop self-sufficient children who have the confidence to go out on their own and take care of themselves?
Why can't my DH do any of that? Was it because he was the baby...or never lived on his own...or what????? One of his brothers turned out just fine in married life. He's become super supportive of his wife and very active in his twin boy's lives. I just don't see my DH being that way. He's more concerned about himself.
In his 24hr day there is 10.5 hours of work, 30 min total of driving to and from work, 9 hours of sleeping, and 4 hours of eating/ tv/ nothing...whereas my 24 hour day is 2 hours of getting up/ dressed/ eating breakfast/ driving to work, 8.5 hours of working, 45 min of driving home, 3 hours of pets/ hubby time/ dinner, about 2 hours of baby stuff organizing/ laundry/ bills, 1.5 hour of getting ready for bed/ email, and in the last 6.25 hours...about 4 hours of actual sleep interrupted by the frequent need to pee/ change position/ time random contractions while focusing on breathing/ and trying to get comfortable enough to get back to sleep.
And it's not going to get any easier. Our baby is going to want to eat every 1-3 hours in the beginning...which if fine for DH since I'm going to be breastfeeding...he'll be able to sleep. Once Dillan is about 3 weeks though reality will set in and DH will have to get up to transition the baby to a bottle. I'll still be feeding in the evening and at night, but during the day he'll be getting a bottle from daddy. My fear is that daddy won't feel like getting up and Dillan will be crying for an hour because he's hungry...and as we learned, crying is a signal that he's beyond the actual feeling of hunger and he's into the stage where he needs to be calmed down first before he can even eat. Why do I think that...because it happens now with the pets! Our cat will cry in the hallway for hours because her bowls are empty and DH is sleeping less than 10 feet away but doesn't bother to get up for the 2 min. it takes to dump food in her bowl and get her water.
I only have 6 weeks of leave from work, granted I'll probably take between 8 and 9. I hope that's enough time for DH to become tuned in and confident in caring for his son. I hope a switch is flipped "on" when I am in labor signaling the reality of being a dad and the need to step up to the plate.
Don't get me wrong...I love my DH very much and don't know what I would do without him sometimes. I am just disappointed in his lack of enthusiasm and motivation. I would think he would want, as much as I do, to have a comfortable place for Dillan to sleep and grow and learn. Rather than a corner in our cluttered bedroom.
As a parent-to-be I want my child to have better than I did. My generation is in a better place than our parents were. We can provide more and foster healthier lifestyles...at least that's my goal for our son.
I'm also frustrated because my mother, who lives with us, is a such a walking contradiction it's ridiculous. I get yelled at/ accused for any mess that's left around...whether it's obviously not mine or not. Tools in the kitchen, mail NOT addressed to me on the counter, heavy things that I couldn't have possibly put where they are, all dishes in the sink...it's all my fault. She never confronts DH that way she does me...I'm the first person to have to hear the complaint. Why?? Because "he's not my son"...well I'm sorry, but when I got married, he became her son. And when we all moved into the same house, that makes him equally able to be held responsible for the messes that are usually his to begin with.
And it's not just the stuff I get blamed for...its the stuff that I call to her attention. She'll unload the dishwasher and instead of putting a bowl or pan IN the cabinet, she'll put it on the counter under it for someone else (me) to put away. Today there was a pile of spoons on the counter...no idea what for...so I asked her why they were there and she takes an attitude about "the one time she leaves something out" and goes to throw them away instead of putting them away. Really?!? If I leave something out, my first statement is usually "sorry, I forgot". I don't get all defensive about it. Usually I did forget and I really did mean to put it away.
Another example of how I can't win for trying to help was today. My mom has gone through 4 spools of weed-whacker twine in 2 summers. It took me a summer and a half to go through one. While she was using it today I could hear she was tearing up the spool so I went outside to see. Sure enough she's got the center of the spool right up against the garden boarder and the stones, instead of pulling back a few inches and letting the string do the cutting. I tried to explain this in a helpful way, since she just put a new spool on, and she got all huffy about how she's hot and tired and I could finish it if I wanted to. I was just trying to help. Our model is much different from the one she used at her old house and doesn't require the same amount of work for it to do it's job. I can see her burning up the motor with the way she's using it, then of course it'll be that it's cheap and a piece of crap...not because she didn't listen when I tried to show her how it works. She'll soon complain about it needing another spool of twine AGAIN...but won't let me show her why it's disappearing so fast and how to use it so it lasts longer. I wish I could just do the cutting myself, but I'm supposed to be taking it easy. Not getting overheated. Ugh...is it going to be like this all summer???
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