Women are smarter...........

Mike Said:
Yeah, that's right. Women are smarter. OK, do I really believe that? No. Well...................ok yeah, sometimes. For example, how does Jenn know how to get the baby to sleep after she's been squirming around, crying, pointing towards the door, and all around protesting going to bed for me? Couldn't tell you, but she does it. Also, she just has the instincts to know how to keep Allie occupied all day with Little People, ring around the rosie, dancing BooBah's and whatever else is around the house. OK, now with that being said, do I think she has all the answers? No, but she knows a hell of a lot! I stayed home with Allie one day last week because she was sick and by the end of the day I was done. I give anyone that stays home with kids all day a lot of credit. Don't get me wrong, I love kids, especially my daughter, but it's hard work taking care of a kid with a horrible cough and a 102.5 fever. Everything upsets them. When Jenn came home after work and a quick trip to the store, she could tell I was beat. Meanwhile, Jenn stayed home with Allie Monday since she still wasn't 100%, and somehow got her to sleep for two 2.5 hour naps, and both of them were smiling away when I came home at 5:30pm. Whatever she does, it works.

Now, lets talk about how I don't understand my wife's obsession of going shopping on Black Friday.......................THIS is something that I am smarter than she is on. I avoid shopping like the plague everyday of the year, let alone THAT day. Am I right guys? All of them must have a defective part of their brain that makes them enjoy that hell hole of a day!

Jenn said:
Your right. Women are smarter. Aaaand, do you have to do any Christmas Shopping, except to buy for me? No? Ok, well then shut up! lol
*takes credit card* *kiss*

end of post.

Oh wait, the baby. Well, I should be better than you at SOMETHING! Your cleaner, more organized, remember shit, and now you even make more money than I do. So give a girl sumthin! I play better ring around the rosie than you do, and I have long hair that lulls babies to sleep *shrug* whatcha gonna do?

Come on though seriously, any of you go shopping on Black Friday? It's usually how I kick off my Christmas Shopping. Although this year I actually bought a couple of gifts already. YAY! Anyway, on Friday my mother, aunt, cousin, and I all wake up early and shop till we have blisters on our feet! And I don't care what you all think, we have a ball!

It is funny though how when I talk to people about shopping on Friday everyone says I'm crazy, and how they would NEVER shop that day. Meanwhile...the stores and malls are packed. Hmmmmmmm
So come on spill it. You go shopping on Black Friday, ADMIT IT!

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p.s. Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at Dad said Mom said!

Who makes dinner? Also know as drunkard blogging.

Issa: You know we had this great idea to talk about dinner and who does what if anything about it. But I've had a horrible day and so...um...

Nick: She's trashed.

Issa: I am not. I'm just a little tipsy.

Nick: Yeah little like running into the wall and calling Nata, Maya and....

Issa: Ok, so maybe I am drunk. Who cares? Do you in blogland care? I didn't think so.

Nick: They do care. They just won't tell you, becuase y'all are friends.

Issa: Did you say y'all?

Nick: No.

Issa: I think you did.

Nick: Maybe we should try and stay on topic.

Issa: What's that.

Nick: Oh christ. Dinner, remember dinner? Our brillant topic?

Issa: No one cares about that. They want to know what...

Nick: Honey, if they won't care, why don't we choose something different?

Issa: Like what? Drunkedness? Beer? Maybe jello shots.

Nick: We don't have jello shots.

Issa: We should really get some of those. They are tassssstttty.

Nick: You don't even like jello.

Issa: I do with vodka and whipped cream. I like that word whipped. Whipped, whipped, whipp...

Nick: ENOUGH.

Issa: Ok, party pooper. Every party loves a pooper that's why we ummm... I forget.

Nick: Invited you?

Issa: Nopes. That's not it.

Nick: Dinner, honey. Write about dinner.

Issa: Oh yeah. I do all of it.

Nick: Not cooking.

Issa: Who cooks? I never said cook.

Nick: Most people cook.

Issa: I just can't imagine.

Nick: Ok, internet, here's what we do. I'm typing now, because my wife has to dance around or something. I hope you know how much I love her to do this. I can not even type. Ok, so we ordr in every night. But Issa does order it and has it delivered to our house right when she gets home. And she does make the desciion unless she is feeling onery and then I do it and then she changes it. Some times we go out, but mostly we order in. but not pizza normally, good food that is pretty god for you. But we live in LA and you can have just about anything delivered here.

Issa: Tell them I make all the descisions and you do the dishes. Oh and tell them I'm sorry Im a drunkard.

Nick: It's true I do most the dishes. And that's it. Well except for the drunkeness. Sorry everyone. We forgot about this until just now. It is what it is.

Issa: Tell them McDreamy is HOTTTTTT, with lots of T's.

Nick: Ok, we're leaving now. Oh wait, what do you do about dinner?

the snooze button

jennster says:

or the thing that i am going to break off of boyfriend's alarm clock and use as my weapon to kill him with!

how annoying is this- boyfriend sets his freaking alarm for about an hour before he has to get out of bed. AN HOUR! and he snoozes the entire time. DO YOU THINK I WANT TO WAKE UP EVERY 10 MINUTES FOR A FUCKING HOUR? no, i don't.

he won't be reasonable either. i beg and plead with him to set the alarm for about 20 minutes before he wants to wake up. i can tolerate that. but this hour crap has got to stop. i want to sleep. i need my sleep. and i don't understand why he tortures me with this?!?! maybe he thinks it's funny? maybe he likes to snooze for 29348920353 minutes before he wakes up. but maybe he should start thinking that it affects my sleeping! and i'm the one who has to get up with blake at night when/if he wakes up. lord knows that boyfriend is just snoring right through any of that nonsense. so when it comes to morning- give me peace. give me sleep. i just don't understand this freaking snooze button phenomenon. who the hell invented this anyway? i'll kill them next.

point says:

For my entire life i have woken up with a snooze period. its like a gentle reminder that i need to start getting up. I set it for about 5:20 and i get out of bed at about 6. But there are more reasons.

1. I HATE setting my alarm clock. i have the alarm clock curse.....i'm the guy that shows up to work 20 minutes late and says "my alarm didnt go off. i set it. i double checked it....and it didn't go off." It didn't go off this morning as a matter of fact. i have alarm clock paranoia.

2. I have a job that i have to be there BY 7 am. I could get there at 2am if i wanted to. But sometimes i need to be in there at 6. so this way if i know i have to be in by six i just dont snooze. granted that's not that often.....even though now i think im gonna start going in at 6 more.

3. My Alarm is set to talk radio (right wing hate radio for those that dont know me) so its not like metallica starts up ride the lightning every morning. its people talking and i keep it low and quiet........

4. I will give jenn that she tends to blake in the middle of the night (as she should....that being women's work and all) but i also feel, like i get the shit end of the stick in the sleep total at the end of the week. every night at about 10 im ready to be asleep......but she gets home later than me so it's too early. so i stay up till around 11:00 or 11:30.....then i wake up by 6:20 and she gets to sleep another hour. so at the end of the week im shithoused on sleep. so the way i see it since i dont get 5 extra hours of sleep a week i should be able to SNOOZE

jennster says:

why are you going to start going in at 6???? and i hate right wing talk radio.. i do not want to hear their bullshit ringing in my ear every morning. or ever. double ugh.

ps - we RARELY go to bed after 11. our sleep and work times are a whole other discussion. good gravy.

point says:

because dumbshit got fired and it would be opportunistic for me to put in some extra effort right now and christmas and all that is around the corner and i could use the overtime. right wing radio is the best. WE ALWAYS go to bed after 11. are you fucking high? oh wait, i forgot your hammered right now.......

i have to live with this..........

jennster says:

he is totally lying. well not about the me hammered part because 1 glass of wine puts me over the edge these days. and 2 glasses has me floating in the wind. floating in the wind? that's not even a saying. i'm so lame when i'm drunk. my point is that we do NOT go to bed after 11 often. but like i said before- that is a conversation for another time! as in, NOT NOW.

pss- i am all for the snooze button. i fully support it. but in moderation. snooze button abuse should be grounds for some kind of beating. the end.

Keeping Score

Eric Says

Like almost every wedding I've ever been to, our ceremony had the whole "love is patient" reading from Corinthians. And while I suppose I can agree that love is patient and kind, I'm not so sure about the part that says love "keeps no record of wrongs." (Yes, people, that was a part of it, too.) I say, why not keep a record? Why not just write those "wrongs" down? And not just the wrongs, but even the minor inconveniences in your relationship, too. Keep track of all your gripes. After all, how else are you and your partner going to know what the score is?

Jill and I always keep score. (I know, a marriage counselor would have a field day with us.) We should probably just put a Jumbotron in our living room. I guess we both just feel the need to know who has "inconvenienced" who the most. Or, put another way, we want to know "who's got it worse." We both are staking a claim to the title.

But while I'm laying out all of our marital dysfunction for the world to see, let me also say that in our defense, there is actually a method to our madness. The reasoning behind the whole "keeping score" thing is to help keep things balanced between the two of us. Striving for equality is a good thing, right? Let's say I have to work late one night. That means that Jill has to get home to relieve the nanny, cook dinner, pick up one of the big boys from practice, clean the house, make sure homework is done and then get the little kids to bed. All of that adds up to one point for Jill. At least one point. Now I owe her. I have to make it up somehow or else she's "ahead" 1-0. And because she has a point stored up, theoretically she now gets a free pass to go shopping or just relax or . . . something. That way she can even up the score.

But there's one small problem with our system - Jill doesn't take advantage of those free passes often enough. And, after awhile, those things expire. I say, use 'em or lose 'em. So then it goes back to being a tie score again, right? If not, we might lose our perfect balance. Maybe Jill feels differently. I guess we'll see . . .

Jill Says

Wait, someone actually read something about "keeping no record of wrongs" at my wedding? I have absolutely no recollection of that. Maybe I was too busy fuming about the fact that Eric spent the night before the wedding drinking with buddies, while I worked on party favors and thank you notes.

Aw, that's not entirely true. I don't think we keep score. Not exactly. Or at least we're not as bad as Eric makes us out to be. But with four kids and two full-time careers, there is just no time for lying down on the job in our marriage. Everyone needs to pull their weight. For the most part, I think we do.

The thing is, every marriage involves a division of labor, but every so often the math gets a little fuzzy. That's where the resentment - and the scorekeeping- comes in. For example, right now, the way I see it, Eric's jobs usually revolve around three things: 1) driving 2) buying things, and 3) being the "public face" for our family. This means that he drives the kids around, hob-nobs with the other parents and spends our money. Not a bad gig. Oh, and he is also the exclusive vacation planner. Think of him as the family cruise director.


Meanwhile, I seem to be stuck in the rut of butt-wiping, tile-scrubbing, homework-helping and checkbook-balancing. Not such a rockin' time, but definitely worth a lot of points. Here's a recent picture of me:



Lately, I've come to realize that I may be just as responsible for this division of labor as he is. The truth is that I don't trust him with the ugly jobs. So I hoard them. Could it be that I like being a martyr?

Maybe tonight I'll change things up. Maybe I'll be the one hitting happy hour while he relieves the nanny. Then, when I come home, I'll hand him the laundry basket and head off to Target to spend the family's money. That doesn't sound bad. Not bad at all.

How does the division of labor work in your family? Is it equal? If not, is that still OK? What does equality mean in a marriage anyway and is there any room for keeping score?