Hormones and Garbage.

Do any of you ever feel like you are always behind on housework? There is always something that could use improvement? There is never enough time to keep up with it on a daily basis?

This is my typical day.

6am- get up, get ready for work. Get the girls ready to go.
7:15am- Jason takes the girls to grandma's, heads to work.
7:30am- I leave for work.
Sometime between 1pm-2pm - I get out of work.
2pm- get home from work, do my 20-minute workout.
2:30pm- pick up the girls, chat at grandma's house for a little while.
3:30pm- get home, feed Sofia, fix Tiegan a snack.
4:30pm- play with Tiegan, help with her reading & workbooks.
5:30pm- start getting dinner ready.
6:30pm- Jason gets home. Feed Sofia. Serve dinner.
7pm- clean up after dinner, watch a little TV with the family & relax.
8pm- get Tiegan ready for bed. deal with tantrums.
9pm- Feed Sofia again. get her ready for bed.
9:30pm- go to bed myself. because I'm lame.

Let's not forget that intermittently throughout the day, I am doing Mommy stuff like changing diapers, changing clothes that have been spit up on, having Tummy Time with Sofia, heping Tiegan in the bathroom, cleaning up spills, refilling juice cups, etc...

There are also days when Tiegan stays at grandma's and it's just me & Sofia til Jason gets home. Those days I can relax a little bit, and even have time for housework. But the time I have is never enough, and I would always rather be snuggling Sofia or having ME time. And I think that's allowed.

It's gotten to the point, though, where there are ALWAYS things left out. This is acceptable to a certain degree. But on any given day you can come to my house and see...
Pop cans. Pop bottles. Random packaging lying around from things that were purchased and opened. Receipts. Baby clothes. Chairs full of laundry (clean or dirty) and nowhere to sit. Shoes on the living room floor. Toys. Blankets. Clean dishes on the kitchen island waiting to be put away and dirty ones next to the sink. Random clutter on the kitchen counters that belongs in a "junk drawer". Dust. Papers. Mail. Pens. Books. AAAGGGHHH.

I don't think I have been exceptionally lazy lately, so I have been asking myself WHY this is happening. I have short work days. I was working 3 weeks after I had Sofia and kept a cleaner house then, than I do now. WHY IS THAT?!

Then I figured it out. Wanna know how?

I was on my bed this afternoon playing with Sofia. I leaned over Jason's side of the bed and saw the most appalling thing on the floor. Old, crusty, rotten, expired baby bottles. Not one, not two, NOT THREE... but FOUR used baby bottles. Still with remnants of old formula in them. Let the record show that Jason's side of the bed is near the wall and I rarely ever see over there, or I would have caught this much sooner.

How did I not smell this? How did HE not get up EVERY MORNING for the past... oh, I don't know... 2 weeks? and walk right past those dirty bottles and think "Hey, maybe I should pick those up on my way downstairs and drop them off in the sink."

I wouldn't even mind dirty baby bottles sitting in the sink as if to say, "Hey, wife, you need to wash these." At least that shows a little effort. But no. Maybe he thought they would just disappear one day. Is that what husbands think happens? All the dust and clutter and dirty dishes in the house just magically disappear once every couple weeks?

As you can probably tell, I'm a little ticked. Not about the baby bottles, but the attitude that was taken toward them. And about the dirty laundry sitting not in the laundry basket but on the floor about 1 foot away from the hamper. And about the overflowing garbage. And this and that - little things around the house.

For a while, Jason was really wonderful at helping me out around the house. His tasks have always been minimal to begin with, and I'm okay with that. But that makes it extra noticeable when those minimal tasks start going undone. When we got back together last year, we vowed to be more helpful with each other. And because I'm a "put yourself in the other's shoes" kind of person, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out where I could be more helpful to him so that this can be more of a 2-sided issue of improvement. But I just can't think of anything.

I've been supportive of all his creative endeavors, whether successful or not (this recent one being successful). I say "it's okay" and take care of things that he has forgotten about. I am understanding when he over-spends on going out to lunch at work and I have to skimp on gas in my car because of it. I just can't think of anything I've been doing wrong to help offset the blame.

I must say that we are a very different couple than most. We are understanding of each other's faults and typical husband-wife quarrels seem silly and pointless to us. In fact, I couldn't care less if he just stopped taking out the garbage forever. I live here too, I make garbage too, and I'm happy to take it out myself. I guess what I'm most upset about is that we had an agreement to help each other keep our sanity. When all you have to do is pick up your trash behind yourself so that you don't leave a trail, the simple act of neglecting to do your chores leaps over the fence from laziness and lands square in the boundary of disrespect. When that happens, I feel like I'm turning into a slave.

Or maybe I'm just PMS-ing.