Days 211 - 213 - Spring Has Sprung!

Well, spring has finally sprung in Montana! We had two days in a row with sunshine and temps above 50 degrees. My toddler went outside to play on Saturday morning at about 10:00 a.m. and didn't come back in until after 3:00 p.m. She didn't even want to go inside to eat, so I brought her lunch out to her.

I took her for a wagon ride around the neighborhood. We picked up sticks that had fallen to the ground from the local trees and piled them high into the wagon. We'll use them later as kindling for our outdoor fire pit this summer.

She played on her swingset and slides while I scrubbed some outdoor windows. I hung laundry out on our laundry line for the first time this year and the laundry smelled oh, so good! I piled up stacks of wood that had been laying in a heap in the back yard, frozen to each other and the ground for too many months to move it until this weekend when the sun warmed them up and melted the ice and snow.

I spring cleaned my kitchen, even, and baked some homemade flour tortillas with the girls and my husband. Well, my husband preferred to sit on the couch and play with his Droid, but I coaxed him up and off the couch and handed him a rolling pin. He rolled out about 18 tortillas of various sizes and shapes. They're supposed to be round, but he was a bit disgruntled at first to try very hard at making a perfect round shape and instead made shapes that looked like bicycle seats.

When he protested at first, saying "I don't like to bake." I said, "Well, I know you like to eat these, so you're going to help."

Sometimes I'm a bit pushy with him. But he would steamroll me if I weren't. I'd end up working full-time while he fly fished all day long, if he had his way. I'd also end up scrubbing the whole home by myself and raising three children by myself if I didn't force him to step up to the plate and participate.

This past weekend, I forced him to bathe our toddler while I scrubbed our wooden stairwell. I could hear deep sighs from my husband and quite a few, "No's" from my toddler. In the end, there were plenty of tears and temper tantrum on the bathroom floor, even...I'm sure my husband was glad that he could be of service.

Another point in my weekend, while my husband sat on our bed reading while I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I snipped that it would be nice to have his help.

And this morning, as I was heading out the front door for work, I reminded him to brush our toddler's hair, brush her teeth, have her dressed in something other than her pajamas, and to make sure she had eaten breakfast AND lunch by the time I arrived home at noon.

He rolled his eyes at me. But truly, if I didn't say these things, I would show up and our toddler would have not have her hair brushed, would still have her pajamas still on, and she wouldn't have eaten but a few saltine crackers and a milk bottle.

I really don't understand why I play the role of "wife" and "mother" towards my husband. I've had many women tell me to just let him be the man he is. But I also know my personal boundaries. It irks me to play "mother" to this grown and graying husband of mine.

I've had to train him quite a bit over the past 17 years of marriage. Part of the problem is that I married a man who wasn't the ideal kind of guy for me, I suppose. I mean, we really truly were totally unequally yoked in more ways than one. God had it right on when He said that we should not be unequally yoked in marriage. It causes more strife than anyone can imagine.

I try to tell my friends who are the parents of boys to raise their boys not to be Mama boys, to cut those apron strings and let them fly the nest, and to train them in how to do the dishes, how to wash laundry, how to keep a neat house. I realize that teaching sons how to be sensitive might be asking too much, so I won't even mention that part of it. But just basic stuff like I mentioned above would go a long way in their future as single man living alone to husband living with a wife and children.

"Please make the bed. Please pull your hair out of the drain in the tub. Please rinse your spit down the drain, please put your laundry away. Please take your muddy shoes off at the front door. Please let the dog out. Please pick up the dog poop. Please give the animals some water in their bowl. Please feed your child. Please help clean. Please help with the children..."

Need I go on?