It’s no secret that routines are not really my forte.  But interestingly, it turns out that I’m a lot more routine oriented than I actually think.  Unfortunately, my way of knowing that this is the case is by using my husband’s presence as a barometer.

Let me explain.  Tonight my hubby came home at dinner time which is great in the sense that the girls got to see him before they go to bed.  It’s a rare occasion that he’s home mid-week, but it does happen from time to time.  And whilst it’s fabulous to have him home for the night, it actually upsets the balance in a huge way for me.  Knowing that he was coming home tonight, I wanted to make sure he had a nice, home cooked meal so I ended up cooking something that wasn’t as quick or as ready as it would have been had it just been me and the girls.  Usually, as soon as they get home from childcare, we hit the routine which generally means getting Miss A fed, bathed, given a bottle and put to bed before starting on Miss B’s routine of dinner, bath, books and bed. So given daddy was going to be home, I fully expected the routine to go out the door.

Miss B is a daddy’s girl through and through so the opportunity to time spent with him tends to send her a bit crazy, especially when she hasn’t seen him for a few days.  Without going through every mind numbing detail, I found myself trying to sort out dinner whilst trying to keep some forward movement on the routine front so that a 7pm bedtime didn’t blow out to a 9pm one.  So I was starting to get a bit annoyed when I found myself trying to juggle dinner and Miss B’s bath, all the while wondering why the hubby can’t figure out that by helping me out, he would be making huge difference in getting Miss B ready for bed and potentially avoid the drama filled stand-offs that happen when things are crazy.  Over the last week or so, we have had success in achieving a quiet and peaceful bedtime, but today, because of the changes, Miss B had her bath and dinner before finally falling asleep after a lot of drama (which I had to manage) at about 9.30pm.  So now I’m tired and cranky when I should be enjoying the unexpected time that we have together whilst the hubby’s home.

Many years ago I did some development courses in which I learnt a very profound concept which basically taught me that people don’t make you angry, you make yourself angry.  In essence, when you don’t articulate your expectations of someone, and they continue to fail to meet them, it isn’t them that has caused your anger or angst, it’s you that is causing it for not being clear in the first place.  It makes total sense to me, although I’m certainly not the master of my reactions despite knowing this. But I have definitely learnt when to pull my head in and ask myself whether or not the expectations that I had were actually clear to people in the first place.

And that’s what I did tonight.  I know it was my lack of clear expectation has caused my angst.  The hubby is actually pretty astute if I am to be fair.  He often keeps his distance in household matters because he knows that I have my own way of doing things in order to get by during the week whilst he’s not here, so he tends to stay at arms length lest he interrupt and make things harder for me (which of course I would probably make him very aware of!). On the weekend though, the dynamic is a little bit different.  He chips in more and picks up a big part of the household chores and parenting load which is awesome.  But it’s clear that we haven’t worked out the expectations for how to deal with his mid-week trips home and luckily, given I’m still on leave, the stakes aren’t so high.  If I get up late or the girls get to care late tomorrow its not the end of the world.  I can consider this a trial run and we can work through it before I’m actually back at work (where I would have no doubt really gotten my cranky pants on!!).

So whilst he didn’t get brownie points in some areas this evening, he does for lavishing praise upon my new haircut!  Nice segue right??? Yes, operation grey-begone is still underway and today we took another step towards the light!  I’m not sure that I love it, but I don’t hate it either.  Blonde foils have never been my favourite thing, but if that’s what I have to do to disguise those greys then so be it!

Do you get your cranky pants on whenever your partner doesn’t read your mind or do what you’re expecting of them? What do you think of the new ‘do?