My Argument

I'm venting.  This is my wife's quote of the weekend, that just totally
pissed me off:  "It baffles me that you don't understand why I need
a break from the kids."

Not once, ever, did I say I didn't understand how the kids could drive my wife
crazy.  They drive me crazy within minutes of me getting home from work and
sometimes I'm too tired to deal with it.  My wife asked for a chance to get
away on sunday and just go for a walk and the kids could stay with me. 
Fine. Go.

But don't say it's "baffling" that I don't understand... well, that's
just bull!  And then she can't understand why I get upset about it.

If I say, "the kids are giving me a headache." What's wrong with
saying, "That's why I need breaks too."

As if that wasn't bad enough, after she dishes out dinner for everyone else, I
get mine and pour myself my daily glass of red wine.  And suddenly I'm
being inconsiderate because I didn't pour a glass of wine for her too.

Well, she already had a drink and didn't offer to get a drink for me.  I
mean, we ordered pizza, so it wasn't like she was slaving over the stove or
anything!

+++Actually, let me digress for a moment and vent about the pizza.  We
ordered from Domino's Pizza --most likely for the last time.  On Oscar
night, we decided (well, I decided because I wanted to watch the Oscars and just
sit back and relax with the family) to have pizza for dinner.  now, we have
a great pizza place a few blocks away and they make great restaurant-like
pizza.  It's actually the second owners in the time we've lived here, but
both owners and their families have been extremely friendly and it's just a
treat to order from them.  However, on Oscar night they were closed. 
We had a $5 off coupon for Domino's and although I'm not a big fan of their
pizzas, we decided it was an obvious replacement since we had the coupon. 
The pizza arrived and hadn't been sliced.  I called to comment on it and
the guy apologized and asked if we wanted a gift certificate for a free large
pizza mailed to us or if we'd just like a replacement pizza delivered that
night.  I opted for the gift certificate thinking if we were ever in a bind
with the other pizza place again we could just use the freebie card.  As it
turned out, the freebie had an expiry date of the end of March, so we decided to
use it.  I have to acknowledge that I must be doing something right with My
Diet and Exercise program as we haven't had pizza ordered in since Oscar night
and here it is almost a month later!  I called Domino's and told them what
we had for a gift certificate and that we also wanted to try their new
"cheesy dots" (feeling that at least we'd be paying some money and
therefore the driver would assume he's getting a tip out of it at least). 
The food arrived and as I opened the box, my wife noticed something: they'd
given us a medium instead of the large we'd ordered.  Aw, crap.  So I
phoned down and the girl who answered apologized.  She, again, asked if we
wanted a new pizza delivered or a gift certificate mailed.  Well, since I'm
getting sick of Domino's after 2 times in 4 weeks, I asked for another pizza to
be delivered.  About 5 minutes later, the manager calls us and asks if we
handed over our gift certificate.  I say "Yes" because we did
(who holds onto the gift certificate if it's used???) and he then says,
"You should've kept it."  Well, which pizza place is going to let
you hold onto a free gift certificate?  Anyway, he then says, "We gave
you a medium, but if we make a small that'll make it into a large." 
"Fine," I reply.  At this point I don't care and it's not like
we're going to be phoning Domino's again anytime soon.

Okay, back to arguing with my wife.  I've acknowledged in the past that I
don't always spend enough time with the kids, but this weekend had definitely
been an exception to that rule.  I entertained my son for hours on Saturday
before we went out for the night to a steak barbecue in North Vancouver and even
there held him and showed him off to most of the people there.  I also
played horseshoes with my daughter for over an hour and helped her with her
dinner.  On Sunday afternoon, my daughter and I went outside for a few
hours and looked for different kinds of bugs.  I caught a couple of
different kinds of bees and explained to her what the difference was between
them.  We looked at worms, snails, bees, ladybugs and saw our first 2
robins of the year.  We also watched a squirrel in a nearby tree. 
After that, my wife wanted to go out for a walk and my son was sleeping in the
living room.  We decided to go inside just in case he woke up (he has the
worst abandonment issues I've ever seen in a 8 month old child) and my daughter
asked if she could watch Little Mermaid.  Great!  I could work on a
few things around the house and she'd be close to my son while he napped. 
If he woke, she could come get me.  As it turned out, my mother-in-law
arrived about 15 minutes later and she was more than happy to watch the kids
while I fixed our toilet (it's been running like crazy recently so I'd bought a
new pump).  After my wife got home, a friend called and invited her and the
kids to come play in their backyard.  they have a girl the same age as our
daughter and they're pretty good friends.  so, off they went and I got to
sit back and relax and get some work done on the computer --for all of 5 minutes
before the power went out.  So, instead I lowered my son's crib and put
away my clothes and cleaned up some of the stuff I had stacked in a "to
do" pile in the basement.  But the kids came home and started driving
me crazy pretty much right away.  And somehow, despite spending most of the
weekend at home and with my family, I came out to be a villain.

I'm looking forward to next weekend when I won't be at home for most of it
again.