As this week is the beginning of my time as a full-time stay at home dad, I thought perhaps we should talk about whose shoes I am filling. (As if I could fit my fourteens into her sixes) My wife has returned to work this week for the first time in 16 weeks. She is nervous and generally unhappy about leaving us boys to ourselves. She is unhappy because we are perhaps the greatest source of entertainment known to man and she is nervous because she is leaving us at home, in her home, which she strives each and everyday to keep looking like a magazine spread. As my son sleeps, on our bed because our room is so much cooler than his, I find the time to do a handful of things – empty the dishwasher, pull the laundry from the dryer (but not put it away; just adding it to the pile of clean for “later”) and write this piece. I imagine in my head that my wife, the hummingbird of domesticity that she is, would already have done all of these things (including returning our clothes to their rightful homes) along with some sort of baking or fancy drink preparation.
I have come to the stark realization that not only will I never replace my wife around the house; without her I would live in a giant's rat's nest.
My wife is the energy in our family. She keeps me invigorated and in motion (most of the time – sometimes even she can't keep me off of the couch). I am only funny or witty because I am constantly hoping to keep her attention. I only really have friends, outside of the guys I would've grown old with in some shitty rental property had we not discovered girls, because she encourages me to “do something, anything without her”. Even though we have been together since I was eighteen I still somehow find reason to believe she is about to become aware of one too many faults or weaknesses I possess and scamper out the door (only to be buried in our garden – as per our pre-nup!). She is absolutely magical and anyone who has a woman (or man) as good-natured, strangely humorous, and shirt off her back generous as my wife should consider themselves fulfilled.
As I endeavour to complete at least one household task, however unlikely that might be, I will be thinking about how fortunate I am to have spent these last eleven years with my girl and how much I look forward to the next seventy or so (I figure modern science is going to bump me well over the hundred year mark).
All the penguins, Volkswagens, tattoos, and every fibre of my being babe.
Jim, that is so lovely. I teared up.
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