Balance

Once upon a time, the balance of work in our house was pretty even. I help with homework and Tom packs lunches and often heats up dinner.

Lately, though, since the girls were home for 22 weeks, I’d taken over a lot of the evening work because he’d been home with them (read: Olivia) all day every day. I get that mental taxation of that.

However, now the girls are back to school.

Which means he’s home all day, every day, alone. He can get started on his eBay listings/packing/whatever he wants to do without having to deal with breakfast, lunch, snacks and whatever else Olivia might need throughout the day.

So yeah, his life is pretty freaking great right now.

The other night, after we did homework for a half hour, then went to Gram’s house and then got home at 7:00, I asked if lunches were packed.

Alyssa had packed hers but…O’s was not packed.

I packed her lunch, I packed my lunch. I gave her her 8pm meds, I got her a snack before bed. I brushed her teeth, I bandaged her fingers, which are bloodied on a daily basis because…Olivia.

The next day, before I even got home, Tom had packed O’s lunch, which was…nice.

The day after that was the 2 hour homework session.

He suggested I go rest before we tackled homework.

No. Not a good idea. Must get started because the sooner we start, the sooner we can be done. It’s a good thig I made that call because if I’d ‘rested’ before homework that night, we’d have been finishing at 8, she’d have been having dinner at 8:15 and no shower would have happened and guys, Olivia is 13, she needs her showers.

As we were doing homework, he was toodling around, taking pictures, cleaning crap to list, just going about his day.

He did announce in the middle of all this that he’d packed her lunch.

“Thank you,” I said because heaven forbid I don’t sing his praises whenever he ‘helps’ me around the house.

Damn, I’m such a bitch.

Alas, homework continues to frustrate.

Tom left to go to my mom’s. He came back and continued about his business. It was at least 6:45 by this point. It never once occurred to him to offer to warm some food for Olivia so she could eat as soon as she was finished with homework.

We finished homework at 7:10 that evening. As she completed the last few multiplication problems, I heated some chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes.

At one point in all this, Tom declared that he was going to go out to the garden and pick some tomatoes. He stopped at the backdoor to make eye contact with me and declare he was picking these for ‘my lunch.’ Then he waited, because I was obviously supposed to thank him for going out to pick tomatoes because he was doing it for me.

OMG.

Are you kidding me?

I was in homework hell and I still had to make sure Liv ate dinner AND took a shower and he wanted gratitude from me because he was going to pick tomatoes FOR MY LUNCH.

I might have lost my mind for minute.

I think if I’d murdered him then and there, I could have claimed temporary insanity.

Yes, he still lives and breathes. But, because I’m a petty bitch, I did NOT take any of those freaking tomatoes in my lunch the next day. I was so pissed about the whole thing that I didn’t bother to pack anything for my lunch the next day.

That’ll show him.