Just the Way It Is

For some reason there's this weird stereotype of women being irritated when their husbands leave the seat up... I don't really understand this and for the record my wife has never been bothered with this, either.  What I'm concerned about, and maybe this comes from having four kids, but just, please, PLEASE can you flush the toilet after you've done your business?

Or, at least shut the lid or close the bathroom door?  Because we DO have a one year old whose favorite pastime is throwing things into the toilet and then stirring everything around.  WITH HER HANDS.

Yes, this kid. And those hands.
(Photo credit: my sister, Michelle)

So, our standards have lowered over the years (not that we really ever had super-high ones), but we've realized lately that there's some major slacking in some aspects of our lives right now.

Take, for instance, the whole personal hygiene thing.  My wife will be the first to admit that washing of the hair doesn't happen nearly as regularly as it once did (ponytails are a natural way to hide potentially greasy hair, after all).

Sometimes I've not really fixed my hair until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. So, recently, I just shaved it all off.  It's so much easier.

As far as the girls' hair is concerned, it's a real crapshoot as to when they get their's done (you can read more about this in my "Dad Style" post.)  I do my best, but sometimes (like a couple of nights ago), they don't really get their hair brushed and fixed until right before bed.

And then, like the other night (because I was out working on the edits to my book), it's a decision by my wife to do hair or the dishes. Which means the dishes are still there in the morning.

Then, I have to decide... do I help the three year old learn to ride a bike or do those dishes in the sink?

The three year is doing AWESOME at learning to ride a bike by the way.  Yes, with training wheels, but still, she's so determined and persistent.  The other kids were at least five before they got the hang of it!

This girl is an amazing bike rider already!
(Photo credit: my sister, Michelle)

So, the dishes sit in the sink a little longer than they probably should.

And then there's the cleaning of the rooms every night. I'm not going to admit that I have ever done this, but there's a distinct possibility that sometimes instead of cleaning at night, some parents might have just cleared a pathway from the bed to the door just so that there's no injury to a child who is trying to visit the restroom in the middle of the night...

We're going to have to get ourselves together eventually, we know. But until then, we'll make our bed right before we get in it that night, and we'll deal with a wrinkled shirt that sat in the dryer for two days, and maybe we'll have a peanut butter sandwich for dinner because we forgot to take out those chicken breasts to thaw.

It's just the way it is.