We live in a one-bathroom home.
Living here now are five people.
It’s become commonplace to be sitting in my chair at the end of the day and to hear some form of “whose turn it is in there” squabble.
Last night I could hear my youngest and my husband start in over how they both needed to brush their teeth and get in bed now, and why they most deserved the bathroom,
but then I heard my husband, Justin, say,
“It’s fine. You can go first, actually. I need to talk to Mom anyway.”
Next, he came sauntering down the hall in his sleep shorts, bare-chested, doing the classic schtick he does nightly.
He likes to walk in to bid us all goodnight like an Adonis, knowing the girls and I will all shake our heads at him because, well, we live with him and his habits, and we definitely know better.
The light was dim in the hallway as he approached.
He pretended it set some sort of mood for his entry.
I was in the recliner reading. No one here likes to just let me read.
By the look on his face, and his come-hither smile, my interest was piqued about what he would have to say to me, however.
What was he wanting to discuss before bed in private?
Why was he using this hip-sway, Barry-White looking method?
He looked deep into my eyes as he slowly leaned over me next to kiss me, and then he stayed close, and just kept staring sweetly, like he was contemplating.
I was so curious now!
I was hanging on, breathless, and desperate to know.
What was he going to say to me?
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, still looking at me like we were on the cover of a romance novel.
And then, inches from my face,
with a breathy voice,
the words every wife of nearly 20 years longs to hear at the end of a very long day,
The absolute warmest of Princely Sweet Nothings:
“Do you think tomorrow you could clean the litter box out?
I just don’t know as well as you do how to do it, and it’s getting really stinky.”
I just blinked, looking back at him, mentally replaying the moment I’d pledged my entire life to him, and, instead of five things I thought about saying, I told him maybe I’d wait until he got home, then, so I could finally show him.
You know… Teach a man to fish and all that.
A little tutorial.
Around here we call this “The Raymond Syndrome” after the fabulous Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond.
There is an episode we watched once where Deborah finds out Raymond has used flattery and pretends she does somethings better than him as a shrewd way of just getting out of having to personally do them.
I can remember watching that episode the first time with him, and just turning my head to stare at him real long and quiet. Let him know I understood suddenly.
His eyes fixated to the TV, unblinking in that moment, like he knew he had better not dare make eye contact, or any sudden movements.
He knew his cover had been blown on that day.
I was onto him and his diaper duty, and his kid bath time, and onto him never ever cooking dinner, or even making himself a sandwich.
I don’t know if this is a thing all men do, but I feel like it is a lot of them, and all I am saying is – THE JIG IS UP, BUDDIES.
On Saturday morning our 12-year-old was coming undone because she couldn’t find her shorts for soccer.
After her head spun around, the cats had scattered, and she had levitated a bit,
he appeared beside me in the bathroom and stared at me in the mirror.
For a few moments we just made the kind of silent eye-contact between parents that means
“Is it too late to decide we don’t want kids?”
(Any parent knows that even if you have adults, teenagers, and preteens already,
that question often still arises)
“Is this how it always is?” He asked, starting to brush his teeth, using the foam as a way of masking that he was talking to me about her.
Normally he works early on a Saturday.
He was not usually there for Soccer Saturdays to bear witness.
But you can’t let preteens know you are discussing them.
He was frozen with his mouth fully white from his unnecessary tooth brushing.
I smiled at how she and he both seemed rabid.
But we talked quiet. You can’t let on. Not if you don’t want them coming for you like they’re in The Ring, at least, crawling towards you right out of the mirror.
“It is many, MANY ways,” I answered.
“Welcome in.”
He likes to act like he is new here.
But I am onto him.
I have been for years.
It’s time for a little “orientation” for Raymond.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
