When I'm the Guilty Party.

   Do you ever have days where you are cursing the stupidity of your spouse only to realize it was YOUR fault?  I did last night. 

   My husband and I like to have learning fun with the kids, so we make games out of learning tools.  When Girl A was little we created a Color Catepillar.  She LOVED it.  We glued one to a poster board and had it laminated along with a duplicate copy of the caterpillar that we cut out and made it into a matching game using velcro dots to get the pieces to stick together.  As a result we spent at least an hour every morning and afternoon playing this game with her and listening to her giggle as she would put the wrong colors together and say "No!" and rip it down as fast as she could.  She knew all her colors by two and a half and by three was learning how to mix colors to get a new color.

   Well, the caterpillar pieces were slobbered on by her new baby brother and destroyed so we threw the whole came out when she decided to color on the poster with sharpie markers.  After 2 yrs of being without, we finally made another Casey the Color Caterpillar...he was a hit. 

(Please note: the cords right there aren't usually there...it's for the treadmill that tubby here doesn't use as often as she should!)

  With the success of Casey, we decided that numbers would be something to benefit all the kids, so we wanted to make a number snake in the same fashion. Poster board, velcro and laminating.  I printed, I cut out and I glue sticked.  I even ran to the office store on my break from class to get it laminated.  I came home with Girl A and was soooo excited to get the snake up and running.  As I was cutting out the laminate pieces she was trying to tell me the numbers by sight (she can already count to 20, but doesn't know them by sight).  Then came the moment when we were ready to apply the velcro...except...Where is the velcro?

   I look in all the Logical places, the junk drawers, the crafting baskets and on top of the fridge, no luck.  I call the Hubs, certain he was the one to put it away...he suggests he put it in places I've already looked.  I'm getting mad.  Not because I can't find it, but because I am certain my husband has once again placed it in the most illogical place!  He always does, and can't recall where he put it on the phone, but give him 10 seconds at home and he'll find it, "Here it is Hunnie!  I told you I put the  TV remote in a make up bag on the back of the toilet.  Sheesh, why didn't you think of that?"....uuuuuh, because normal people don't put the tv remote in the bathroom!!!  ANYWAY, I am cursing him out left and right to myself, my girlfriend whowas unfortunate enough to call while I was looking, my sister (again, called while looking) and my friend who I am making a diaper cake for, asking all of them "If you were my Hubby, where would you put it". 

   I finally find it, in my knitting bag!  Because, you know that's the best place for Velcro...around a bunch of yarn!!!!  More curses, more "What was he Thinking!?"  Then the guilt comes.  The more I think about where I found them, the more I start thinking "I think I put it there, it feels vaugely familiar"  Yep, I put it there, in all my stupidity, I placed the damn velcro in the knitting bag thinking to myself "I'll just set it here and in the morning I'll open up the craft cupboard and put it away" never remembering that thought and thus placing the blame on my poor Hubs.

   When he gets home I tell where I found the velcro.  He instantly apologizes with "WTF, I'm sorry Hunnie I don't know what I was thinking"  me, all red in the face, says "You weren't thinking, because I put it there."  So Ashamed!!! Even worse, the Hubs went right along with my assumption of guilt!  Have I really just forced blame upon him so much that he just assums responsibility, or is he just that fabulous a Hubby he takes responsibility so I don't feel stupid?  Either way, what a great guy, such a keeper!  Sam the Number Snake has Joined Casey the Color Caterpillar as games we play over and over and over, happily learning our colors and numbers through play.

THE END!

Dishes, my Nemesis

 Who remembers the scene in "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" were the brother is told to do the dishes and you cut away to him skeet shooting the dirty dishes from the roof? 

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Yep, wish I could do that...but I am a terrible shot and well, dishes are expensive.

I hate doing dishes for several reasons.  It's not my assigned chore, Hubby does the kitchen, I do the living room.  However that doesn't mean that sometimes he slacks on his chore to the point where I end up doing it, so when I do have to wash dishes..I'm flaming hot mad.  My Hubby is incapable of scraping a dish before setting in the sink or on the counter, so all the left over food is there waiting for me.  He is also a fan of filling things with water to "soak" for days at a time letting the water get super scummy and smelly.  He's not the only one guilty of these offenses, I occasionally do it too, but if I'm going to do the dishes, you better believe they all get done. 

WARNING: TOTALLY INRELATED SIDE NOTE, SKIP AHEAD IF IN A RUSH!

When we started dating, my first trip to the Hubby's house (yes, he owned a house when we met) I was scared to find all his dishes were dirty in his sink.  He asked if I wanted something to drink and I replied "yes, but not from that kitchen" I went to the party store and bought us both some...beverages.  I should have known that he wasn't a good dish washer.  The next time I ventured to his house his kitchen was immaculate, which was a good thing since he offered to cook me dinner ( a man that cooks you try to hold onto), so when I arrived he said "Ok, before I can cook we need to go to the store and buy some new dishes and pots and pans" "Ok...what happened to the ones you had?" "Oh, I decided just to throw them out and buy new ones instead of washing them all, I never really liked those ones anyway"  (please imagine a very shocked, jaw-dropped look, because that's how I looked at the end of that sentence). 
After buying new dishes, he managed to hold onto those for a couple of years and then after a series of moves, we lost them and decided to buy new ones.  

Back to the nemesis thing... I have a strange ability to always, ALWAYS soak myself when doing the dishes.  You would think I never learned how to play at a water table when I was little.  I don't know what it is, I can see that I'm about to drench myself and my brain is going "abort, abort, abort! Water coming in, About to get wet, ABORT!" but the relay system must be slow because I always end up wet.  I am about to take a vinyl table covering and fashion it into a waterproof apron for myself just to save me from myself and my inability to keep the water in the sink and on my dishes.  I beginning to think the dishes have some alien super power that allows them to override my brain's abort command and watch me dump water all over myself and giggle.

I imagine it goes something like this:
   Dish 1: She's been doing really good on washing us, but this is so boring.
   Dish 2: Yeah, back on planet Dishian we would be doing cannon balls and splashing water everywhere.
   Dish 1: Hey!  What do you think about using our super powers to override her brain and get her to 
dump water...on herself!!!!
   Dish 3: Hey, what are you guys talking about?
   Dish 2: Dumping water on the washer here by using our super powers.
   Dish 3: Sounds great, I'll get the rest to help out...
Insert evil giggle here.

We even have a dishwasher and I can't load that without getting soaked....fail.
Just ridiculousness.