domestic hostility

All week I've been feeling like a successful housewife and mother. Every day I have cleaned and done laundry, played with Dennis, cooked our meals... This domesticity is relatively new to me. Yes, I've been away from work for almost 4 months now, but I have been spending my time at the lake or going shopping or with my mother... I don't know where the time has gone. But now we are settling in to a home routine. We've nearly stopped eating out, which we did WAY too much before, and we've been keeping healthy groceries in the house and a few snack things that aren't so healthy because occasionally we need those, too. And it's been so fulfilling, cleaning out stuff that's been needing it for a long time, rearranging rooms, all during naptime and all while keeping laundry going. I never dreamed of being a housewife and stay-at-home mother, having always pictured myself as a career woman, and I never considered stopping working at all until this year. Granted, I work very hard at raising Dennis, but I never thought I'd be doing this.

There is still much to be done. I have baby stuff to pack away in storage and my closet to go through. We have a junk room that I would much prefer to be a library and intend to start on that when I can. And we're planning the greenhouse garden, which is also a very big project. All in all, I've been very excited about staying home especially now that I'm actually staying home instead of going out somewhere every day.

But today I cracked a little. We were out too late last night grocery shopping and Dennis didn't get to bed until nearly midnight. I paid for it all day. He was cranky and whiny and irritable. I really wanted to reorganize our den and create some play space in there for him so we aren't always in his room. I already have a toy box full of toys in there, random stuff that David and I collected earlier in our marriage. Dennis has a table and chairs in there, so I thought today he could play at the table while I rearranged. He, however, had other ideas. Yes, he was delighted to sit at the table, and he sat there in 4 minute increments. But in between these increments, he was everywhere. He thought that today would be a perfect day to reprogram the stereo and I absolutely could not keep him away from it. All those lights and buttons--irresistible to a toddler! I turned my back and lost him, only to discover him in the bathroom opening the toilet and saying "down". I don't know what went down. I never heard a flush, but I know he was playing in the water. Thank goodness I scrubbed it well this morning! He's contained when he's in his room, but I wanted to start to allow him some freedom. And he certainly wanted the freedom!

I tempted him with toys. He played with the Chevron cars that we collected from the gas station years ago. I had no idea we had so many of the things, but we do. He was very excited when I unboxed some of them today and presented them to him. There's a major traffic jam in the den floor now. And when I was trying to convince him to sit at the table, I let him play with his Fisher Price Nativity set, which he had never seen before today. It isn't a Christmas present but something I bought for him to have to learn about Christmas. It's designed for a 1 year old and is babyproof, and he was very excited about it. He loved the baby Jesus figure, placing it carefully in the stable and saying "baby" over and over. I hadn't intended for him to start playing with the set in September, but he found the box and was intrigued, so I opened it up and let him see ALL the pieces. He played with it a good bit, but it wasn't enough to keep him from wandering the house and getting into mischief. I even brought out David's Green Giant toy 18 wheeler, and I've never seen Dennis so excited about a rolling toy. He kept saying "truck" and rolling it all over the room. He did play a good bit today.

But every minute he wasn't playing, he was fussing at me. He wanted to go outside and help Daddy cut grass and of course I wouldn't let him. He wanted to mess with the stereo all day and I wouldn't let him do that either. When I started cooking, I had to put him in his room for a minute and he was FURIOUS and let me know it. He didn't want to sit in his high chair, he didn't want what I fixed for lunch and threw it down, and he didn't want milk to drink... So much whining and fussing from him is very unusual, but I got it in spades today. Today was the first day I ever wanted to spank him. I didn't, of course, but it was the first day he was deliberately doing what he wasn't supposed to, and it was the first day he knew he was doing it. He KNEW not to touch the stereo but would not stop opening the cabinet and going to it, and each time I picked him up and moved him to something else. The last time I picked him up, he screamed and smacked my arm and then pinched me. I am not obsessed with the stereo, by the way. It's old, and we almost never listen to it in this age of the iPod, but he doesn't need to learn that it's okay to mess with things like this because he might do it at someone else's house and ruin something. I know he wanted to push the buttons. I don't know what a happy compromise would be. He could have pulled the thing over on top of himself the way he was climbing up to push the buttons, and it scared me.

Dennis got tired of me today, too. After I repeatedly denied him the opportunity to do what he wanted, he went to his room. I followed him after a minute, and he pointed to his crib and said "night night". Since he'd just had a nap, I wondered what he was up to. He pointed to his dvd player and said "movie" and then "Elmo", so I put in a Sesame Street dvd and let him have some alone time. He was a bit happier afterward and I got a good bit done while he was on his break!

It was a difficult day. Tonight I cooked supper, put him in the high chair, and when David came into the kitchen and started to fix a plate for Dennis, I just had to get out of there. I had intended to eat with them, really, but I needed a break and escaped to the shower while they ate their supper. I cried a little to let off some steam and then gradually relaxed. When I joined them again, they were happily playing together in the den, but David looked a little harassed as well and admitted to suffering some of the same treatment I'd been getting all day. We put him to bed at 8 despite his protests (he wanted to play in his car some more; we wanted to read the bedtime story and put him to bed--we're bigger, we won) and he went right to sleep. Let's hope he's well rested tomorrow!