It seems that my eight year old daughter has chosen this time to begin exhibiting signs of multiple personality disorder. One minute she is just as sweet as pie and I'm patting myself on the back for my parenting skills. The very next minute and seemingly without provocation, she has morphed into a trash talking, head swinging, eye rolling, teeth sucking, evil prepubescent version of herself. She is an alien. She should be captured and studied but not left to her own devices, free to wander amongst the civilian human population.
My husband, admirably determined to get into shape, has shown remarkable focus in maintaining his new diet and exercise regime. So much so that I'm consumed by jealousy at his ability to find the time for his two hour daily visits to the gym. It can be a little tricky to hold onto that lovin' feelin' while working on joint tax returns and realizing your other half is probably sitting in the gym's steam room before he takes a relaxing twenty minute shower. Don't get me wrong. I'm actually really proud of his progress and resolve. However, as I sit aside a giant pile of paperwork that demands my immediate attention and is getting the best of me, with a shoulder that's been injured most of the month of February and a digestive system that is just beginning to succumb to its new, booze-less existence, his occasional raise of the eyebrow or deep sigh at the sight of a few dirty dishes in the sink or kids' snow gear scattered in the foyer is doing nothing for my patience OR libido. Adding to my angst is the fact that on some level my husband actually believes that he has the organizational and housekeeping skills of Martha Stewart. Would Martha Stewart lug some ugly, unfinished wooden shelves down three flights of stairs and set them up in a narrow hallway to make room for a bunch of new diet related pantry "necessities" RATHER THAN just clean out a damn kitchen cabinet? I think not. This is a man who wasn't able to complete a to-do list of about ten things over twelve months in the course of planning our wedding; including reserving OUR hotel room. The man that dug out a concrete step in front of the house without a plan to replace it until I hired someone to do so a mere nine months later. The man that has effectively ignored a hole in the wall on the first floor landing that he opened to repair plumbing three years ago when we moved. (Martha would have made her own drywall from excess dog hair, dust bunnies and rainwater long before now.) I do appreciate his other household contributions, strengths and talents. I've just exhausted the minuscule amount of patience I'd reserved for other people in the first ten, more like the first two days of the Lenten season and sometimes want to punch him in the face. (Of course, I haven't yet.)
So the experiment continues. My family is alive and well despite their best efforts to push me over the edge. I fear we have several more school snow days to manage before the arrival of Good Friday and that challenge alone may be the straw that breaks the camel's sanity. Now that it seems my body has finally adjusted to the shock, I can only hope my mind will get with the program.
