Good Thing I Took Management In College

I have often (jokingly) asked Jason "where would you be without me?!"  Although, I already know his answer... the same place he was before I came along.  Doing his own laundry, paying the bills, making his own meals, cleaning up after himself (?)...

But now...  I am the manager of this house.  That's not to say that I am the "boss."  I am a manager.  I manage the bills, the inflow and outflow of Jason's income (he makes the money, I spend it), plan the weekly menu, write the weekly grocery lists, do the grocery shopping (Jason usually joins me and pushes Elise in the cart), wash the laundry, make sure the sheets are clean, make sure we have toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, etc.  I clip coupons, make decisions about the interior design of our home,I know when anyone in this family eats, sleeps, or poops, I keep up with everyone's appointments... you get the point.

But, I also manage Elise.  Diaper changes, nap time, bath time, play time, doctor appointments, feedings, preparing her food in mass quantities, keeping an inventory of her necessities.

Most days, I feel pretty awesome about the fact that I manage to keep track of all these things and not have my head spinning around like a scene from The Exorcist.  But, then the other small percentage of the time I feel like I can't make one more decision.  If we go out to eat, Jason refuses to decide where to go and my decision making has reached it's brink.  We will proceed to go back and forth because I physically cannot pick for him what he wants to eat.... I already do that when I sit down to make the weekly menu with little or no help from him.  If I say "I don't care" it's because I don't.  I've spent all day caring about everything else on God's green earth that picking a restaurant is at the bottom of my to-care-about list.  Then comes the complaining... "I never make any decisions around this house."

I would love for Jason to decide what we are going to eat for dinner every night, decide what Elise is going to eat for all of her meals, decide what she should wear everyday, decide which bills need to be paid today or can wait until the next pay check, decide on activities for Elise and us, and so on.

I stay home with Elise everyday.  We rarely "go" anywhere.  In all the hours of the day, the busiest part is between 5-9pm.  Jason comes home from work between 5 and 6pm, I start cooking dinner, we both try to eat while watching Elise (who is into everything), then I have to make Elise something to eat, feed her, get the kitchen cleaned up (luckily I get help from Jason when he's home), I give her a bath, get her ready for bed, nurse her, and put her down.  I'm not really sure why all that has to be crammed into 4 hours when the rest of our day is a much more relaxed pace.

Now let me explain how things go when Jason isn't home, like last night for instance...

I am cutting up raw chicken to cook dinner, Elise is having a fit because she doesn't want to swing, I can't immediately pick her up because I'm up to my wrists in salmonella.  I finally am able to set her on the floor while I continue to cook.  She's opening my cabinets, pulling all my trash bags out and onto the floor, playing in the dogs water bowl, managed to get her hands on a disgusting fly swatter, hid my cell phone from me, called someone from the house phone, and left her paci right in my path between the sink and the stove so it would ram up the bottom of my foot.  All while I continue to cook dinner and pray the house doesn't burn down.

I sat down to eat and put Elise in her walker so she could scream until I was done eating.  Then it was time for her to eat.  I just left the kitchen a mess so that Jason could help himself when he got home and I could get Elise fed.  Most nights that he doesn't come home, I don't bother to cook and sometimes I don't bother to eat.  If I do, it's at 10pm after Elise has gone to bed and I can eat a bowl of cereal.

I wonder if the entire house would fall to the ground if I quit micromanaging everything?  If I quit caring about the laundry or our dinner menu would we starve and be forced to wear our clothes over and over again?  If I just blew off picking up the toys everyday would anyone notice?  Would I be more inclined to make those less important decisions about going out to eat or what to do on a Saturday night?  Would Jason start making decisions or managing aspects of our home life besides the yard?  No one will probably ever know because I'm too much of a control freak to let everything roll with the punches in fear of the world coming to an end because we're out of toilet paper and milk.