My 96 Hours

It was Easter weekend and for me it was a 4-day weekend.  I felt a
little embarrassed because I'd been making lunch plans with an old friend (I
call her 'Bean' and I have no idea why) and not paying attention to the fact
that it was Good Friday.  Her reply to my lunch emails were "Dedicated
worker you may be, but no one else will be here on the holiday.  Good
point.  I'm so used to 6-day work weeks (which are a no-no around here)
that a 4-day work week and then a 4-day weekend is... well... flabbergasting.

My biggest concern over the weekend, though, was being at home.  Every
weekend for the past few months my wife & I have gotten into a huge
argument.  The previous weekend we fought about the 5-minutes I wanted to
spend at a party to get some kudos for the work I've been doing for the past
year.  I didn't happen and I was mad.  This weekend, being a long
weekend, we started early.  Like 10 o'clock Friday morning.  My wife
insisted I go and shower because she wanted to get out of the house and go for a
walk (read: get away from the kids).  So, off I go and shower.  When I
get out of the shower, I quickly shave and brush my teeth and get dressed. 
I walk into my son's room and my wife is holding him and crying. 
Why?  Because it took me 25 minutes to shower, shave and get dressed and
now she "can't go for a walk."  I looked at her, half in shock
and half exasperated and simply said, "Yes you can.  Go." 
and promptly took my son into the living room.  It was 20 minutes 'til his
scheduled feeding time, so she had plenty of time to go for a walk and I'm perfectly
capable of feeding my son.  Only now I'm thinking she doesn't think I am
capable of doing it. So we fight.  She eventually goes for her walk and
everything is fine with me feeding my son and taking care of my daughter. 
But now I'm antsy about the way my wife is acting.

The fighting continued throughout the day.  We argued about different
things and I tried my best to avoid her.  I took my daughter with me when I
went to pick up a few things.  I decided she & I could also go get some
more fish for our rain barrel since my last ones died a few weeks ago
(ironically just after I quizzed people on how old my oldest 17-cent fish was...
5 years and then he died too).  We bought 7 new fish and I let her pick
them out.  Cost us a whopping $2.48.  Too bad they didn't last 12
hours.  Yep, they all died overnight.

Back to the arguments.  After spending the afternoon with my daughter,
somehow it was interpreted as ignoring my wife.  I went down and bought a
pizza for dinner (wanted to watch the hockey playoffs in relative peace). 
My daughter decided she didn't want to eat more than half a slice of pizza and
the rule is "nothing else until you finish dinner."  She asked
for a sandwich and while my wife was ignoring her (she said no the first few
times), I finally told her outright that she wasn't having anything else to eat
until she finished the slice of pizza.  My wife responds, "Why don't
you just let her have a sandwich?"

Oog.  Somehow I became the villain.  I made my daughter a sandwich and
before my wife could complain about it (I knew she would), I grabbed my dinner
and headed downstairs to watch the hockey game.  I could care less about
talking to my wife for the rest of the weekend. 

And it was only Friday of a 4-day weekend.  96 hours....