Keeping Score

One reason so many marriages get "crankier" (for lack of a better word) after babies come into the picture is keeping score. For instance: You took a nap yesterday so I get to take a nap today, no matter that my nap today is in totally different circumstances than your nap yesterday, and today's nap will cause several people to be put out as opposed to only one yesterday.

That's keeping score. If we really kept score, most of the time Mommy would be racking up the points. There are many times that mom gets up in the middle of the night that should be worth about 100 points. Then there's the times that mom gets to hold a baby covered in puke, getting puke all over her clothes. All those times mom didn't get a shower for three days. And that span of about (I think) two weeks where I forgot to brush my teeth in the mornings until my mild but still there gum disease flared up. (oops). And the times that mom lets dad take a nap, even though mom got up at the same time as dad and did just as much time "on the clock" as dad.

But dad's scorecard is pretty impressive too. Dad keeps the family alive. He works to pay the bills. He goes to the office, or wherever, from 8-5 or whatever version of that day he does. And he has to put up with the TPS reports (or whatever version of the TPS report exists in his world) and the small minded managers who focus on TPS reports to the exclusion of everything else. And dad is expected to do this.

My husband is better than many at helping me. He is a godsend. And he does get up in the middle of the night too. And he helps me after he's been at work all day. If I didn't have him, with two babies to take care of, I probably would, as someone warned after my poems the other day, go all Sylvia Plath and depressed. (I don't think I'd ever have the ego to kill myself. I'm just not that important to the great scheme of things to kill myself... the world goes on, and barely notices you're gone. It's not great melodrama; it's pathos.

Anyway. This is my warning. Because this morning, I'm feeling cranky because the wonderful hubby got to sleep an hour longer than I did because our gorgeous, clever, smiley (usually) babies woke up at 6 am. And I got to take care of them. Even though they really are still very tired but refuse to nap. And when I mentioned to hubby (communication of these crankiness issues being key) that I was trying hard not to be mad (cause I really was) he pointed out that I got a nap yesterday in the car on the road trip. He thinks I didn't hear that part. But I did; I just wanted him to repeat the comment. What he doesn't know is that I didn't really nap more than about thirty minutes of that time. I lay there listening to babies breathe and stir and the road noise and thinking of my dissertation.

You have to not keep score. Everyone gets the same results of the game-- wonderful children who grow up to be adults who make the world a better place. Hopefully. That's the real point system.