Daddy does it different

Sometimes I feel a little sorry for my husband. He, after all, will spend the next 18 years in a house full of girls. Even if we change our minds in a few years and have another child (highly unlikely) and we have a boy (which the odds seem to be against at this point) the girls will still outnumber the boys. Unless we have twin boys. And with no twins in our families I think we're more likely to find a winning lottery ticket on the street than to have twin boys.

So there he is. A lone beacon of testosterone lost in a vast sea of pink, frills, dresses, make-up and estrogen. He's going to have to learn things most men will never learn. Like how to color coordinate. Or how to braid hair. Dress dolls. Have a tea party. He'll have to deal with lots of tears, listen to boy problems, and buy lots of tampons.

Poor guy. He has a tough couple of decades ahead of him.

Watching Josh with Evie, I think he's going to do fine with all of this girly stuff. He actually volunteered to paint her toenails this morning. She wanted her toenails painted, but when asked if she could sit still long enough for them to dry, she admitted she couldn't.

She instead wanted Daddy to trim her toenails. Then wanted to help me paint my toenails. Ehhh, that's okay baby.

I admit, even for me taking care of two girls is going to be difficult. It already is at times. I'm home alone with them a lot and I admit that there are times when they're overwhelming. You can't understand it or explain it but taking care of two kids is somehow three times harder than just one.

Josh doesn't spend a lot of time home alone with them both. Sometimes I'm jealous of this. Like this week, he's working the late shift everyday. So he gets the house all to himself from 11 a.m. when I take the girls to my mom's and then head to work until he leaves for work at 3 p.m. Then he doesn't get home til around 2 a.m. so he gets to miss the nightly insanity. Then he'll sleep in the next morning til around 9:30 or 10, meaning not only does he miss the insanity of trying to get both babies fed first thing in the morning, he only has to deal with them for an hour or so before we leave.

I'm sure he misses them some. But at the same time he gets a lot of time to do whatever he pleases. While I would be miserable only seeing my girls for a few hours over the course of an entire week, I'm at the same time very jealous of all the time he gets to do whatever he wants. Especially since my free time is certainly not spent on "me time." My "free" time, meaning anytime the girls are sleeping or otherwise preoccupied, is spent trying to catch up on house work. If I get 5 minutes I will run and start a load of laundry, put up some clothes, sweep the floor, put up dishes, etc. Men just don't seem to have that kind of motivation. Josh will spend all of his free time playing Call of Duty or watching a movie. If I ask, he will manage to get a few chores done. Today he's supposed to be putting the first load of laundry (that I started during a free moment this morning) in the dryer, the next load in the washer, emptying the dishwasher (which I loaded and started this morning during another free moment), filling the humidifiers, getting the coffee maker ready for tomorrow and making the bottles that Elly will need tonight and in the morning. He will probably get it all done. But of course he'll have PLENTY of time for his video games and whatever else he wants to do.

I don't get enough free time to usually get to spend it doing something for me. Over the course of this weekend, I got a whole 30 minutes to myself which I spent sitting in the sun reading. It did a little for my base tan and dramatically improved my overall outlook on life. I wish I had more time for stuff like that. But I don't particularly want to give up time with my kids to get it.

One of the upsides of having spent so much time with both kids is that the whining, crying and tantrums don't really get to me much anymore. Of course, I have some bad days and there are moments that I cannot stand another second of it. But Josh's tolerance level is way lower. He gets easily frustrated with Evie's whining and tends to yell a lot more often than he used to.

The first day he stayed home with them both he was exhausted and completely frazzled by the time I got home from work. Of course, I remember calling him in the tears on my first day home alone and telling him that I couldn't do it. Granted that was two months ago and Elly was younger and sick and Evie hadn't developed any patience or tolerance for her sister yet. So I think Josh has it WAY easier now. But I don't want to say that. Because I know it is incredibly hard to balance both babies at first. And I don't need to prove that I'm better or anything. Being a parent isn't a competition. And if it were, we're supposed to be on the same team.

I tell him it will get easier the more he does it. And it seemed to go better on his second full day home with both babies.

I just find it so interesting how much different a father's bond is with his children. His whole attitude towards them is completely different from mine. And I don't mean that he loves them any less or doesn't want to spend time with them and do things. He loves them very much and he's a great father. Josh helps out way more than a lot of men do. So I'm not complaining. Sometimes it is just so frustrating though. Guess that's just part of parenting.