Mr. Mom
My wife got a job this week. Yippee! She’s been doing the “stay at home mom” thing and it’s been working out ok, but especially with the higher cost of gas and groceries, things have been a little snug more often than not.
Yesterday she went in for orientation (first day). She had to be there at 5:00pm, so that meant I had to take care of the kids after school. No big deal… or so I thought. First of all, as I have mentioned in past blogs, my wife is into healthy foods and plans out our entire weeks meals before she goes to the store on the weekend. Her start date got bumped up a week, so I literally found out Monday night that she’d be working Tuesday night. Not content to let me feed my children mac & cheese or frozen pizza like any other self-respecting dad, Amy points to a recipe ripped out of a Food Network magazine and says to me, “you can follow a recipe can’t you?” This was the beginning of my bad night.
I “can” follow a recipe, but there are certain nuances to cooking that I do not excel at. I can barely even keep my damn grill lit. This was some frou-frou chicken dish that called for me to make homemade breading, cook them in a skillet with Extra Virgin Olive oil (whatever the heck THAT is) and then bake them in the oven. My breading was falling off all over the place, but at least the chicken was white and not pink. I was flustered from trying to get all that done so we had chicken and peas for dinner. Tomorrow I’ll order in Chinese.
Then, it’s time to sit down and do homework. It’s only the second day of school, so my 6th grader just had to memorize her combinations, school ID, etc. But my second grader had to draw and list 10 or more things that had to do with Math. As a 36-year old male, I could only come up with two. Time and money. These things are close to my heart because I have very little of either.
Then it’s get the little one bathed and ready for bed. This went smoother than I anticipated although I never realized that mom reads to her, sings her songs, snuggles her, sets out her clothes for the next day and has a 20 minute debriefing of the day all before bed. I think I may have been taken for a ride.
The big one wants me to help her find some songs for her iPod, so I’m off to do that. Then I have to find some time to get things ready for the show tomorrow and still try to get myself to bed before 9pm. I may not make it through the week.
Send help.