Recently some friends of ours went to a marriage conference. They were really excited about what they came away with from the conference and they told us all about it over takeout. (Takeout that I had to drive all the way across town to take back because they gave me Wonton Soup when I ordered Hot and Sour soup and I must have my Hot and Sour Soup.)

The premise of the conference was that men need respect and women need love. Men need sex, women need communication. And I thought that was a very interesting perspective, but not necessarily a box that I fit into. I thought, “I need respect. I need sex. And I need love.” (Did I just say that for the whole internet to read? Oh, my.) It wasn’t until a lengthy conversation with Jim the other night that I realized that I may just fit into that box.

We had a conversation about his responsibilities – being the primary breadwinner – and my responsibilities – being the primary caregiver to the kids and housekeeper which I really, really don’t like, (the housekeeping part, not the kid part.) Basically after two hours of discussing, it boils down the fact that Jim feels love from me by my cleaning the house and caring for the kids. But I wouldn’t think that Jim wasn’t showing me love if he wasn’t bringing in enough money. I would think that he wasn’t showing me love if he wasn’t being sweet to me, showing affection, being kind and considerate and thoughtful, and showing me respect.

My first reaction to Jim’s point of view was to feel totally manipulated. “If you loved me, you’d clean the house.” Not that he said that, but it’s what it made me think at first. It also didn’t really appeal to the (semi) feminist in me. Why should I be the one who has to do the laundry and clean the house? Why should HE require this of me? When I’m going off on these little tangents in my brain, I hate when reasoning enters in. It’s just a division of labor. Someone has to do these things, and that person is me. I suppose if I wanted to go work full time, Jim could start shrinking washing the clothes.

And it dawned on me that he feels that the best way to show me love is for him to go do his job and do it well and provide for our family. In turn, he’d interpret my show of love in the same way – by me fulfilling my obligations. This was a really startling revelation for me! How could cleaning the house (etc.) say that I love him? Being sweet and thoughtful and loving means that I loved him…. doesn’t it?

And I realized that all this meant that we really do view love differently. While he should be aware of the way that I interpret love, I should realize that he’s doing the very best to show me love in HIS way. And while I should be aware of the way he interprets love, he should realize that I’m doing the very best to show him love in MY way. Alternately, I think it’s best for both of us to try and show each other love in the way it will be best understood.

And it made me wonder, how many marriages fail because each person can’t realize that the other person’s lack of action isn’t saying, “I don’t love you.” It’s just a lack of action. I don’t know, maybe it’s about love and respect. But I really think it’s more about communication. We’ve been married six years, and it’s taken me this long to realize that we view things differently. It’s taken six years of talking and fighting and making up and doing it all over again to finally come to this revelation. What will I think in six more years? I can’t wait to find out.

It’s beyond time to start potty training this boy. I’m done holding my breath for extended periods while I try and wipe up a poop explosion. So I’ve decided that this week will be a crash course in sitting on the potty for Honor. The problem is that his brace is so hard to get off. And if I put it on under his diaper/pull up, it just gets disgusting. So this week will be brace free. My hope is that I can get him to get good enough at sitting on the potty that he can start to wear his brace under a pull up or, dare I say, underware (I wish I could find little tiny boxers) and we can keep his brace clean.

And just now as I paused from writing to make him sit on the potty, I realize that I’m crazy. I should just succumb to the fact that he’s going to be wearing diapers in High School. Even though I’ve done this before, it seems like all my old tricks don’t work. If he sits on the potty and goes, he gets a piece of candy. He could care less. This boy could care less about bribery motivation. I guess that I should not be surprised that my children have very strong opinions about things, although I don’t know where they get it from?

Yesterday I got a phone call from the manager of the Bresnan office here. He profusely apologized for all the trouble we’ve been through and offered some compensation for our troubles. So it seems that sometimes when you yell loud enough, people listen.

The other night Jim was doing dishes and chucked a wet, slimy paper towel at me. I peeled it off my arm and chucked it back at him and of course, missed. I went to go clean up my arm as he continued to do dishes and I assumed that he’d peel the towel off the wall. He didn’t. I just found it today. yuck.

Here’s one off my list of baby sweaters to make. I gave this to my friend Kari, Saturday at her baby shower.

detail

The pattern is from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but if you plan to knit it, please check the website for corrections. Basically the whole pattern is wrong. It was totally silly of me not to check the corrections first, I knew that the book has lots of mistakes. So I pretty much knit this sweater twice.

The yarn is Rowan Cash Cotton, oh my is it soft! (35% cotton, 25% polyamide, 18% angora, 13% viscose, 9% cashmere) and most importantly machine washable. I made the 2nd biggest size, so it’s about 12 months.

I’m working on my knit list, wow is it long! I’ve still got 3 baby sweaters to go (although two are in various stages of completion.) The rest of my list can be found here. There needs to be more knitting time in the day.

Monday
Soyriso Omelet and a big salad

Tuesday
Tortilla Soup

Wednesday
Chicken Curry

Thursday
Southwest Wraps

Friday
Date night?

Saturday
Asian Salmon Patties – MS Everyday Food #11

Sunday
Leftovers

We have our DVR. Did Bresnan call us to say, “Hi your DVR is in, we’ll have a technician out to install it at our earliest convenience.”? No. Did they call to say, “Your DVR is in, come pick it up?” No. Did I call to get a huge run around to finally find out they’re in? Yes.

We just got back from spending 45 minutes at the local office trying to sort everything out. Trust me it was quite a mess. When we finally got our DVR, there was something on our account that they couldn’t fix that would cause it to not work. So with guarantees that they’d fix it, we were given some free Pay-Per-View coupons and sent on our way. We got two coupons. We can only use one a month and the expire March 31, 2006. Thanks Bresnan Communications. All I have to say is that if I can’t watch Battlestar Gallactica tonight, my last fit is going to be nothing compared to the wrath I’m going to unleash.

Honor is feeling much better today, and the rest of us are feeling fine. I could tell last night that he was starting to feel better because the space between the times he was getting in trouble great decreased.

Honor came down with a fever around dinner time last night. He fell asleep on my shoulder a few minutes later and I transferred him to his bed. A couple of hours later he woke up, so I put a movie on for him and Eden in my room. Awhile later Eden came out to tell me that Honor was puking all over my bed. yum. He puked all night long, trying to get some sleep on the pallet I made for him on our bedroom floor.

Today he’s still got a little fever, but is keeping food down (so far!). He’s relaxing on the couch with his Batman pillow and Batman blanket wearing his Batman jammies. The puke bowl is close at hand. And I’m tired.

I’ve hardly had a chance to play around with my camera yet, but I took these a couple of weeks ago.