Skip to main content

Division of Labor

I loved Cookie magazine's unbelievably objective and sooo not hostile point-value guide to help settle the question of which parent is really pulling more weight around the house:

1. Clipping the kids' toenails: 5 points.
2. Shopping for a child's birthday present: 5 points (not your own gender: add 5 points).
3. Cleaning congealed toothpaste off the sink: 5 points.
4. Reading a bedtime story: 5 points (Dr. Seuss: add 10 points).
5. Attending a child's birthday party where you don't know any of the adults: 20 points.
6. Working a shift at the school fundraiser: 10 points.
7. Filling out the school paperwork: 10 points.
8. Knowing the pediatrician's phone number by heart: 5 points.
9. Pushing your child on the swings until your soul turns black: 10 points.
10. Morning duty: 10 points.
11. Morning duty after a late night out: 20 points.
12. Cleaning the funk out of a sippy cup: 10 points.
13. Cleaning cooked rice off the floor after a meal: 10 points.
14. Setting up the finger painting: 15 points.
15. Emptying the diaper pail instead of putting the diaper on top: 10 points.
16. Drinking beers at a Super Bowl party while your spouse humiliates herself in the next room with a breast pump: -20 points.

Comments

Unknown said…
My favorite is pushing Lucie, er, your child on the swings until your soul turns black. ;) Tell your babies that I love them!

Popular posts from this blog

Life is Like A Box of Chocolate

According to experts, chocolate is now good for you. Feel guilt no longer; chocolate is actually good for the heart, brain and libido. Can I get an amen?  That is more than the permission the kids and I needed to visit Papa during his shift at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory. If you ever find yourself cruising down I-5 through the nothingness of Lathrop, do something sweet for yourself and pit stop at Ghirardelli's ice cream shop. At $5 each, the "World Famous Hot Fudge Sundae" will not disappoint. The smell alone is enough to get your dopamine levels rising, keeping travelers bellied up to the bar like alcoholics on a binge. Thankfully, you can't get pulled over for driving home under the influence of an over-sized sundae. Although, judging by the giddiness and volume of some of the pint-sized patrons, I'd say the hot fudge can definitely affect your judgement. Life may be like a box of chocolates, but in this case, you definitely know what you are g

Motherhood - Not for the faint of heart

My picture of hell: one soggy rainy day, two healthy energetic children, three solid days of DVDs, one dog that needs to pee but refuses to get wet, and me. Alone with the carnage and contracted to get 4 hours of work done. And just to frost the cake, Lucie can take off her pooy diaper now, which delights us all, but especially the dog, to no end. These days it is sort of a toss up for who has left the pile on the carpet. Lucie? Dog? The fact that it landed on top of a princess high heel is good indication the culprit was of the two-legged, shoe-loving, Oreo-eating variety, which makes it only slightly less disgusting to remove behind a 28-ply Kleenex. Pray for sunshine.

Lucie and the Problem of Evil

Lucie has suddenly started questioning things. And by things, I mean eternal things. It all started when she asked if I would read her a bedtime story from the Bible storybook. The book opens innocently enough with the story of creation. There are lions and tigers and bears, and naked people being created from dust. (At this point in the story you’d think questions would arise, but no, kids just seem to go along with it at face value. Which is exactly the reason I've had to work so hard to convince Lucie that turtleneck shirts are not actually made from the necks of turtles.) Anyways ... "Do you know why Adam and Eve are sad?" I asked, pointing at the picture of them sorrowfully leaving the garden. "I sure do, " Lucie assured me. "They are sad because they don't have any parents."  Impressive, huh? Clearly, she’d been processing and following along. "Well there is that," I prodded her, "and also they have to leave the