In most parenting relationships there is the fun parent, and there is the enforcer parent.
In my parenting relationship with my husband, he is the fun parent, and I am the devil-hath-no-fury-like-this-psycho-mother parent.
I am reminded of this on several occasions. As an example-
When my husband goes up in the middle of the night to deal with the ridiculous process of trying to keep the brats lil ones in their beds:
“Get in bed now or you will get a pow pow (our version of spank your ass)” says dad.
“But daddy, I am thirsty”
“Ok, one drink……(five drinks later)….. now get in bed”
“But daddy, my finger hurts”
…….after a ridiculous amount of band aids are applied…..
“Now get in bed”
“But daddy, my tummy hurts…I will feel better if you rock me…”
Then, mommy comes up.
POW. BANG. BOOM.
Silence.
Most recently my travel schedule has been quite hectic. And the kids LOVE it.
I returned from a trip a few days ago and the whole crew picked me up from the airport. The three-year old gave me a blow-by-blow of all the fun things they did (see…daddies get to focus on ONE thing- entertaining…while mommies focus on one hundred things- like feeding the kids REAL food, the laundry, the messy house, trimming fingernails, miscellaneous work, the next day’s line up, the next day’s meal plan, grocery shopping…..). Her blow-by-blow account didn’t really include one real meal, but did include a lot of fun trips to the mall park and plenty of bubble baths.
So sweet.
Pushing away the irritation at how easy it is for my hubs to be the fun parent, my sweet three-year old pipes up from the back seat (after mommy was gone for four days),
“Daddy?”
“Yes honey?”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Mommy?”
“Yes baby?”
“I am hungry.”
Hurry home so I can cook this child a meal, pour a hefty glass of wine, and pout.
Cheers!
PS- I AM grateful that my wonderful husband is such a loving, great daddy. Mostly.
Filed under: For Everyone Tagged: family, kids, life, parenting
