Mother Goose version Nick.0

Nick has been trying to come home early enough once a week to see Jordan before he goes to sleep.

So the other night they were sitting together reading in the big red chair, reading Mother Goose's nursery rhymes. It's one of the few times where Jordan is totally calm and absorbed in a non-running non-banging non-clanging activity.

He sticks his thumb in his mouth and totally concentrates, and it's so sweet.

So I love to sit nearby and watch.

I was sitting in the blue chair, half checking email, half listening to them, silently intoning the familiar words.

"To market to market to buy a fat pig..."

"Jack and Jill went up the hill..."

It's funny how familiar they are, even if you haven't heard them since your childhood. You know every word.

Except when your husband catches you off guard:

"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children that her uterus fell out."

Oh, I laughed.

"Just wanted to see if you were listening."

In which I am nearly a harpy and instead take a deep breath

Unfortunately, when Nick says something that rubs me the wrong way or feels like an attack – no matter how he means it – my inclination is to get all shrill and sharp and evil.

I speak before I think and I get all verbally stabby and it is very not helpful.

And then, no matter how innocuously he may have meant it, he feels attacked, because he has been, and then he gets angry and unkind and then it escalates.

Sometimes it ends with stomping around, but sometimes one of us can snatch control of the situation and say, wait, stop. I love you. Let’s calm down and talk about this.

Which makes us actually constructive. I am really working to be more CONstructive and less DEstructive.

So last night, when he was looking for the wooden pronged grill scraper thingy, and he asked if I’d seen it, I thought I knew what he was talking about and said it was outside.

But it turned out I was thinking of a different wooden pronged thingy.

At which point Nick, who was frustratedly looking around on the counter, which admittedly has a lot of shit piled on it, said, “It was here when I last used it. And since we never put anything away, it must still be right around here.”

And I, I looked up from emptying the dishwasher – you know, putting the dishes AWAY – and took a deep breath.

Even though it infuriated me. Because yes, this was a dickish thing to say.

And here’s how the harpy in me wanted to respond:

“Really, asshole? Because half the shit on the counter isn’t YOURS? Because I haven’t been PUTTING THINGS AWAY while you’ve been stomping around looking for the stupid fucking wooden pokey thing? Because I don't PUT JORDAN’S CLOTHES AWAY? Because you happened to run out of underwear the other day because SOMEONE ELSE DIDN’T PUT YOUR UNDERWEAR AWAY? And have you ever thought that if you’d get rid of some of the UGLY SHIT THAT I BET YOU DON’T EVEN LIKE BUT YOUR DAD GAVE THEM TO YOU we’d have more room to put OTHER THINGS AWAY?”

But the truth is, we do have piles of stuff around, and much of it is my fault. And Nick is tidier than I am, and the mess probably irritates him more. Also, he has just as much right to hang onto his crap just because his dad gave it to him as I do. Also, maybe he actually does like its.

And I don’t always need to bring family into it. Even though I do think they’re often to blame.

But do I have to assign blame? No, I do not.

So instead of taking the ugly, talons-forward, carrion-shredding approach, I took the breath. And said, “C'mon. That’s not fair. I do put things away. And I may not do a great job, but I do TRY.”

Because you know, Nick will do these grand clean ups. Or he’ll move big stuff, like furniture – things that I am unable to move. And he’ll get all stompy when I say something critical about something completely unrelated because he’s doing so much work.

And he does work. He works really hard at the office, and then he comes home and works.

Whereas I do a lot of small regular things that you don’t really see. Like washing Jordan’s food tray every time we turn around. And cleaning up his toys and books. Which he immediately dumps all over the floor again. And unloading the dishwasher. And loading the dishwasher. And washing clothes.

Yes, I suck at folding them, and they pile up and it’s a disaster. But sweet Christ, I do TRY.

It is not that I do so much, but these things that are easy not to notice, because they’re so quickly undone and need to be repeated. But they’re totally endless and effortful and tedious and suck the fucking life out of you if you dwell on them.

So then when someone says that you never put anything away, it makes you want to snatch the wooden pronged thingy for cleaning the grill out of his hands and beat him about the head and face with it.

But the breath. The helpful breath. And the constructive approach. It puts you on the same team. And it’s incredibly nice to feel like you are on the same team as your partner.

And thus we agreed that our house is a disastrous construction mess, and it is HARD. And that this weekend we’ll try to clean off the counters and put things together for a garage sale. And we will each get rid of some stuff.

And this feels good to both of us.

What have you learned from being married?

One of the women in my office is organizing a wedding shower for a woman who gets married in a couple weeks. The shower is tomorrow afternoon.

The organizer decided, just for fun, to ask three couples who have been married different lengths of time to answer the question "What have you learned from being married?" She chose Nick and me as a recently-married couple, and asked us to answer the question separately.

She said it could be serious or funny, however we wanted to approach it.

It was more difficult than I anticipated. I approached it a variety of ways, deleted one after another, and ultimately, here's what I said:

What I’ve learned in 2 3/4 years of marriage:
With marriage, the two of you are working towards something bigger than yourselves. And it is work. I don’t know if I thought marriage would be a piece of cake, but I didn’t actually anticipate how much work it would take to build and maintain a healthy, solid relationship. I believe that you get out even more than you put in, though.

It’s rarely even – one of you will carry more of the load for a time, and then the other will, or you carry it in different ways, as you have different strengths. Sometimes you are tired and resentful, and sometimes your partner will make you so angry that you go to bed mentally dividing up the furniture, but you still wake up with the certainty that you will spend the rest of your life with this person, and you are lucky for it.

For those of you who are married, if asked (and I'm asking), what would you say?

At the risk of opening myself up to huge criticism

I can't rejoice at the death of Osama bin Laden. I can't get behind the celebrations.

And I know this is unusual for me, and I almost never write about current events. It's not that I don't think about them, but so many other people write about them better than I can.

But this feels very emotional to me.

It's not that I'm opposed to capital punishment; I'm not. I do think there are things that people do that are vile enough that putting them to death is acceptable. In fact, if someone did something to my son, I would probably have to be restrained from murder.

Being pro-death penalty is not a popular viewpoint among my friends, but it is mine.

And this isn't a death penalty issue - this is war.

Osama bin Laden was a terrorist. He masterminded the tragic and horrendous deaths of thousands of innocent people. He was a popular figure, and clearly one who could both plan strategically and emotionally incite others to mass murder.

I believe he deserved to die.

It's not his death that bothers me. It's the dancing in the streets. It's the delight at an execution.

Would I have rejoiced almost a decade ago, when 9/11 was fresh and raw and everything was terrifying and it seemed like capturing/killing him was the solution to terrorism? It's hard to see myself dancing at the news of a death, but maybe then? I don't know.

Would I rejoice if I had lost friends in this war? If I were on the ground in the Middle East?

Possibly. I don't know.

It just feels wrong to me. An execution isn't winning a football game. Taking life isn't light. I don't understand the revelry.

How not to go naked at work. Perhaps better suited to somewhere with sand and waves and large coconuts, but you do what you can, you know?

It will likely come as no surprise to you that I do not lead a lounging-around-the-West-Indies type of life.

I know, I know. It pains me as well.

As such, I had never heard of Calypso St. Barths.

I do, however, lead a haul-the-toddler-to-Target-in-hopes-of-finding-bras life. Yes, I do.

And as such, I happened into Target on the debut day of Calypso St. Barths for Target. Lucky! Because the collection is delicious - full of fun summer colors and breezy dresses and tops.

It's even luckier, really, because I was getting to the point where I was considering going to work naked, I hated my clothes so much. Because what did I wear last year? Oh, right, ugly tops that allowed fast access to my boobs for the pumping. And transitional kinds of pants for my transitional size(s).

So I was wheeling the stroller towards the lingerie section - the glamor, it never ends - and I saw this gorgeous raspberry. And a lovely turquoise. I stopped immediately and surrounded myself in piles of pretty colored fabric.

They're kind of vacationy, some pieces more than others, but I have every intention of wearing all of the clothes I bought to work. I got this dress in pink and blue - it's a very nice, shiny cotton, with lovely detailing, and looks better in person than on this model. Because why is she standing like that?

I also got this printed top in a very light silk (also nicer in person), and this top in blue and white - perfect for brutal DC summer. I can wear all of them to work.

You know from my Liberty of London foray that I can go a little overboard when I like something.

I didn't try anything on till I got home.

Any of you who have been shopping with a toddler in tow know how, uh, challenging it is. Those of you who have not, it's kind of like treading water while hanging on to a free-floating boat motor, revved up to full speed and pointed in whatever direction you are not.

So I hung onto the stroller as many pieces as I could get my hands on without losing my child more than once (panic! In the two seconds that I looked away, he was gone! Giggling and sprinting gleefully 20 feet away!). I bribed him with cookies while I grabbed several more fistfuls of clothing.

And home we went, stat.

One important note, now that I've tried them, washed them, and am waiting to wear them - they're sized much better than the last designer collaboration. More like normal human sizes. It's refreshing.

I have to say, shopping is one of the things I miss most about my pre-baby life. I love clothes shopping, whether I buy anything or not. It's not as fun when it comes from the Internet. Also, how do you buy pants on the internet? Or fitted dresses? Impossible!

(And yes, I know, there are children starving in Bangladesh who will never, ever get the chance to shop on the Internet.)

That said, I can't actually go to work naked, at least not in my present job. And if I got a naked kind of job, Nick would divorce me. And if I don't go to work, we can't pay our bills. And then Jordan will be homeless.

In other words, thank goodness for Calypso St. Barths for Target.

See how deftly I set my consumer guilt aside?