Everyday

Posted on January 18, 2008
Filed Under My Better Half, bitching and moaning, jealousy, kids, marriage, parenting | 11 Comments

This morning G asked that her father accompany she and her brother to the bus stop. “No, I want Daddy,” she said as I uttered the words, “Time to get our coats on.” Immediately she came over to wrap her little arms around my waist. “Because you’ve got stuff to do, right Mommy,” she added, instantly aware that her request may have had hurtful consequences. Backpedaling at six year’s old. She is nothing if not diplomatic.

I smiled wanly and said, “Great, your father can walk you out.” And I watched the three of them drive to the end of the driveway and await the bus in the protective shell of the Honda Pilot. Idling warmth and shelter against the sloppy, cold rain. A nest for three.

Already they have had breakfast with at least one fruit item and no sugar cereals, I have supervised their teeth brushing even though I asked My Better Half to do it three times while I selected clothes appropriate for the day’s activities and projected weather forecast and gathered homework and binders and lunch money and all that is necessary to their day. I was ignored, My Better Half having already holed up in the home office, surfing the web, content to sit out the tough stuff.

When I trudged up the stairs to attend to dental hygiene, my oldest complained that he feels like a baby because his mother still brushes his teeth, I should have just smiled and continued the routine but instead I shouted, “You think I imagined that I’d still be brushing your teeth at this age, big guy? No, but your teeth are not what we’d hoped they’d be and so you’re stuck with me brushing kiddo. Until your old enough to pour your own beer.”

It’s a routine you’d think I’d get used to. My being the responsible adult in a home which registers on the census as a two-parent household. You’d think it wouldn’t sting anymore when the kids request their father for things like trips to the bus stop or insist on sitting next to him at the dinner table. Because it is no different than it was yesterday or the day before. He is one of them and I am one of me.

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