Housework "discussion", plus Day #1!

Can a one year old be passive-aggressive? I spend 90 min to get her to take a 30 min nap, which obviously isn't worth it. It's as if she's trying to teach me a lesson so that I stop trying to get her to take a nap. That'll show me. That's what I get for trying to boss her around.  

Could this be a hereditary trait? Because I spent 2 hours today (I clocked it) wiping every top, bottom, and front surface of every object in my kitchen.  I asked Jeremiah to finish the final sanding in the renovated extension room (one day to be the new library) and he did. But he also didn't put up any sheets or covers on anything, nor did he move things out of the way. And the ceiling fan helped distribute the dust everywhere. Passive aggression? That's what I get for trying to boss him around! (he did try to clean it up himself but it needed serious attention.)

This touches on the housework "discussion" from this past weekend that I alluded to in my previous post. I'll spare you the arduous process and get to the breakthrough.  

I am feeling a lot of stress about getting work done on the house in the next month bc we are very busy and don't have much time available for house work. Why such a focus on this next month? Because during this time we'll have my FIL's help before he goes back to work in NC. So I don't want to waste this time period where we could have help.   Without extra help, I can see housework time slipping away and then next thing we know, it'll be time for my Grandmother to move in with us but the house won't be ready yet! 

Here's the dance with the house: 

• current library/office becomes my grandmother's bedroom
• current extra room (filled with baby toys) becomes the spare room/office
• current extension room (empty space with random junk) becomes the library/sitting room
• current front room area (filled with strollers) becomes a nicer front room area with actual furniture.  

And that's just the downstairs projects! There's the furniture move and decorating project resulting from the creation of C.'s new bedroom.  And we've still got some odds and ends (re: tiling and closets) to finish from our upstairs renovation that we've been doing since we moved in 3 years ago.

So our resolution from our "discussion" came when I figured out that I feel like I need lots of help on the house projects this summer bc I don't think they'll get done after the summer ends.  I don't know how much of a demand campaigning will be on our home time. But I hope Jeremiah will be so busy talking with people and giving speeches that he won't have time to work on the house. If that was the case, that would be a good sign that the campaign is going well. 

When I was able to vocalize this feeling as "widowhood", I think Jeremiah began to understand where I was coming from. As in, I expect him to be unavailable to help with most things and thus I'd be operating the house like a widow.  Plus I think it helped when I told him if he could finish the current project list by the end of this summer, he'd be off the hook for house projects for the next year and a half.  

So he said, sure, he could concede to putting in some time on the house, working well with his FIL for the next month, and following my priority list of house projects for the rest of the summer. 

Plus, he'd try to stick with an agreed-upon work schedule for the next month so that I don't stress about the days slipping by without work getting done. 

In return, he is off the hook for big projects until he gets elected (and then he'll have plenty of time?!).

My house work schedule isn't really impacted. When I want to do a big project on the house, I just do it. That's the easy part about being the more energetic partner- I never get any pressure to do something bc I'm already busy doing something!  Plus he's a great guy.

However, I must say, Jeremiah has been very busy today- he is no longer going to run for state delegate. HE IS OFFICIALLY RUNNING FOR STATE DELEGATE!  Today was the first day that you could register to run for the 2010 election and he was the second person to register (the other guy is running for senator from a different district).  He also got an EIN for "Citizens for Jeremiah Chiappelli", of which I am currently in charge. Whoo Hoo! Day #1!

best moment of the day: all four of us playing tag with the kids stumbling around (so tired) and giggling

worst moment of the day: the crying and tantrums. definitely the crying.

thoughts of the day: see above. 

Plus, I took the kids on a stroller walk to the library and my knee was hurting by the time I got back. This morning I tripped on my own pj pants running to close the upstairs gate before C. got there and fell on my knee hard.  There's no bruise so it's an internal thing. I hope it goes away. 

And the other excitement of the day was that I woke up to see strange men dismantling the fence around our chicken coop in our backyard.  Our neighbor's tree was falling down so they hired a tree removal company to cut down one of it's main branches. They moved our coop, removed our fences, and then still ended up bringing that tree down on top of our beautiful dogwood tree. Half of it still remains.