The man I married

Today, while browsing through my Facebook feed, a recently divorced acquaintance posted an article from HuffPo that got stuck in my head. The title of the article, "She divorced me because I left the dishes by the sink." I immediately clicked on it.

When Husband and I argue, it's about chores. As two (tired) working parents with two different threshold for mess, it makes living together a bit tricky from time to time. I'm a neat freak who can't stand clutter, messes, and things that are disorganized. He's not so OCD about messes and clutter as I am. As such, I have much lower tolerance for mess. When the house is a mess, I become anxious, antsy, and stressed. When I feel like this, Husband utters the three words that I hate the most: "Sit down. Relax." It takes all of me to not just scream, "relax? RELAX? How can I relax when everything is chaotic?? YOU SLOB!!"

Back to the article. After I read it, every part of me just screamed, "YES! I agree with everything! Girl Power! Working Wonder Woman agrees with you. I can't wait to share it with him (husband)." But I didn't.

See, although I strongly agree with certain parts of the article, the article itself has a blame undertone that I didn't not want him to read. "Here, honey, read this article about how your behavior hurts me. You're the screw up, just like the article said. I'm perfect." No, none of that.

There was a quote in the article that I will always want but I also know the man I married.

"She wanted me to figure out all of the things that need done, and devise my own method of task management."

My husband is a software engineer. He is well respected at work and has a career that most can only dream of. When there's a big problem, he's the man to solve it. He is a master of his domain and everyone yields to him. His IQ is higher than most and his analytical skills are on point. His intelligence is intimidating. This man is a Superman at work.

He is also a man who will take 30 minutes to load the dishwasher because he is easily distracted. He forgets the laundry in the washer for days. He's a messy eater and makes a mess when he cooks. He is a creature of habit, a routine rat, and falls into a rut if the process change.

He is an introvert, quiet, and loves his TV. He loves his family but he has never had to take care of anyone when he was growing up. My husband is an only child, and for better or for worse, has a mother who took care of all this needs. He grew up in a household where they had traditional gender roles: The woman does the cooking, cleaning, child rearing and the man does not.

We work for the same software company. While he's an engineer, I am a Program Manager - someone who "device [their] own method of task management." It is my job to define direct and help engineers develop the product that we both agree on. At our company, these two professions are bound together for any projects. Naturally, we'd be married in our personal lives too. Because of this, I'm lucky enough to know how to work with my husband when we're at home.

When it comes to household chores, we struggle to find the 50/50 balance. I often do more chores, get more stressed out, get more frustrated at the situation (which is different than getting frustrated at him), and take action before he would ever initiate a chore on his own.

Plus we have what we can only describe as a Velcro Baby (now Velcro Toddler). She is so clingy and attached. She requires a lot of hugs, kisses, touching, being near her, and when she gets a chance, she sits on my lap and being to rub her head all of my face, ears, belly, and any part of skin she sees. Yes, it's weird but that's what she needs so I just let her.

It's easy to get angry with him when I'm tired, anxious, and can't get anything done because of Velcro Toddler. There are a trillion things that I want to get done and I can't because Velcro Toddler needs to "cat" herself on me yet he can easily sit on the couch and surf on his phone, san kid, not thinking about what to do next.

It's also easy to forget that we both work. We are both parents. He sleeps less than I do. No one is to blame for dishes in the sink or the laundry not getting done. We don't have enough energy to do everything in a single day. We're both trying to find that balance. We both work and we both need, desperately, to unwind but can't because we have a kid. The last thing anyone wants to do is to do chores. We both just want to sit and not be bothered so we can recharge.

My husband isn't like me. He requires reminders, checklists, and directions. But once he gets them from me, he does them without hesitation or annoyance. He knows he has to do them but he just don't know where to begin. It's fair and, as his partner, help him with his shortcomings. To give him credit, he's trying his hardest to meet me in the middle, too, but it's a large struggle for him to flex a muscle that he's never flexed before.

We try to find our groove an balance everyday and effort is all that I ask of him but chores isn't grounds for divorce in our relationship.

The working mom and the family bed

My husband and I work full-time jobs in Corporate America. That means that we send our little Evie to daycare - specifically a Montessori school down the street from our house. We follow a strict schedule to keep the work and home life balanced.

8:00: We all wake up (if Evie lets us sleeps in), one parent head downstairs with Evie for breakfast, do the morning routine, and get Evie's lunch ready. The other parent gets 1/2 hr to get ready for work. At the 8:30 mark, we swap and the other parent finish getting Evie ready (brush teeth, get dressed, pack for school.)

9:00 - 9:15: We head out the door and drop Evie off at school. My husband and I carpool and spend about 1/2 hour in traffic. Sometimes we talk about work, about Evie, about our lives. Sometimes we argue about house chores. Sometimes we sit in a comfortable silence.

9:45 - 5:00: Work. Hard stop at 5:00. We have a reminder on our calendars to drop whatever we're doing and pack up.

5:00 - 5:30: Carpool back to Montessori. We get charge a late fee if we arrive after 6PM - this is standard across all daycare. We leave at 5PM to factor in traffic. Plus we don't want Evie to be the last kid to get picked up. It's lonely and scary when all your friends go home and you're waiting for your parents, not knowing when they'll show up.

5:45: We get home. Dinner starts. I take a 20 minute shower while Husband hangs out with Evie. Husband starts dinner.

6:15: I come down and help with dinner - usually take over dinner. Evie plays or watch TV, depending on her mood.

7:45: We all sit down and eat together.

7:30: Husband takes Evie upstairs for a bath. I take the time to clean the dinner table, prep food for the next day, and prep Evie's lunch.

8:00: We hang out or watch a little TV. Evie plays for an hour.

8:30: We get Evie ready for bed: Brush her teeth and read books. One parent lays with Evie until she falls asleep. (We don't believe in Crying It Out.)

9:00 - 9:30: Evie is asleep and we both fire up our computers and work until we're tired, usually between 11 and midnight.

Repeat 5 times a week.

This gets even harder when one of us has an early morning meeting (usually me.) I end up leaving at 8 and sometimes I don't even get to see Evie wake up before I have to head out.

Because of this, because we don't believe in Crying It Out, because I was raised in a Third World Country, because we believe in our parental instincts, we all sleep in the same bed. We work so much that having her next us, even when we're asleep, means more time together. Squeezing out every moment together is the name of the game.

We've had the family bed from day one and it works for us. One day we will transition Evie to her bed when she's ready. We try every few months to see if she's ready but she ends up wake up about two hour into her sleep because we're not next to her. I usually have to carry her back to my bed to get her to go back to sleep. Evie accepts that our bed is her bed and we accept the same.

The Juggle. The Struggle. It's real.

I just came back from an LA/Disneyland trip - a trip that I had no idea I needed until I was in the middle of it.

Before I we left, I. Was. Stressed. Stressed to the point where it started to affect my health. Several trips to the doctors, pharmacy, a basket of medications, several diagnoses, and even an Urgent Care visit - all from respiratory-related issues. Bronchitis, Asthma, Asthma Attacks, Infections, Sinus problems, blah blah blah.

The day before I left, I went, yet again, to see my doctor. She looked at my file and realized that I've been having health problems since April of last year. 9 months of health problems for a fairly healthy 30-something.

"You've been sick for a while now. Your body isn't healing itself. Is something else going on with your life? Are you stressed?"

That last question, "Are you stressed?" caused me to tear up. She walked in as my doctor but now turned into my therapist.

I began to break down my life for her: I juggle a full-time, highly demanding job. I juggle a home-life, where I get very little help, and I juggle to keep my sanity. I explained to her that I don't get a break.

"That's just my life," I shrugged.

My doctor was sweet enough to listen to me for what seemed like a mini-therapy session where I cried and I told her what my day-to-day was like. I explained to her how this trip is already stressing me out because planning it was stressful.

I was stressed. I was lost. I was helpless. I couldn't do it all.

She wrote me a prescription for some meds and at the very bottom of her "recommendations" list, she wrote, "Please find a way to be less stressed." I took that piece of paper and the thought of de-stressing, and put it in my pocket. After all, I had to get back to my crazy life.

We marched on with our travel plans - take the dogs to the sitter, pack, print out boarding passes, make sure we didn't forget anything. Plan, plan, plan. Move, move, move. Spin, spin, spin. The next morning, we began the Travel Dance where we rush out the door and head to the airport. By the time we got to the gate, we were one of the last ones to board When we landed in LA, there was more moving and spinning and hectic and chaos. Lots of things that you have to do when you do the Travel Dance.

The only "downtime" I had to myself was when we were flying, and that's mostly because Evie was napping and I was on Xanax. (I'm afraid of flying.) But while I was high on my Airplane Candy, I kept thinking about what my doctor told me: Find a way to reduce stress. At this (high) point, I realized that I am juggling too much. I hold too many titles: Mom, Wife, Worker. Human being.

A lot of people hold more titles and I should have no room to complain, and believe me, I'm not complaining. All I'm saying is that, for me, I can't juggle all four titles at 100%. I had already given up on myself and I was ready to give up more, specifically my job.

As we started our vacation, I started to relax a lot. I enjoyed myself and never thought about work. I was happy again. I could focus on my family and be the mom & wife that I wanted to be. But reality also set it: We were going on a very lavish trip where we didn't have a budget. We stayed at a hotel on Rodeo Drive, we dined at the Ivy and Mr. Chow, and we didn't even bat and eye at whipping out the credit card. And that was just a three day trip in LA. Then came Disneyland, boy did we spend it up there. None of it was possible without a dual-income.

The more time I spent vacationing, the happier I became. I started to smile again. My respiratory problems went away. I barely took my meds. My body, both physically and mentally, needed this vacation more than I knew.

So now this is my struggle: My life causes me so much stress and the only way to get rid of it is to go on vacation but in order to do that, I need to make money. Now I start to wonder: Would I be happier if I quit my job so I'm not in this vicious cycle? If I took away the cause of my stress, would I need lavish vacations to feel better?

The juggle. The struggle. It's real, people.

"You can't spoil her right now"

"Hold your baby. You can't spoil her at this point."

I keep hearing this sentence and I couldn't figure out why this bothered me so much. Then, at Little Miss' one-month appointment, when I heard the pediatrician said it, it dawned on me: You can never spoil your baby by holding her, PERIOD.

To me, spoiling a child refers to materialistic things. Spoiling your baby with affection, love, touch, and closeness? That's something you're supposed to do, always. The sentence doesn't make sense; it implies that there's a stop point. Should I stop holding her after a certain point? Should I stop giving her my love and attention once she's of a certain age? No, that's ridiculous!

I, as a parent, must shower her with all the holding, love, and attention that she wants. This is the only way I can raise a secure, strong, emotionally-stable woman. I was showered with hugs and kisses by mother when I was a baby. (In fact, my mother still showers me hugs and kisses and I'm almost 30 years old!) We, as human beings, need love and affection. Countless studies have shown that being touched, hugged, and socialized improves one's health. Babies are, after all, tiny human beings.

I find the whole "spoiling" a child with basic human needs ridiculous. If I was buying my child diamond rings for her tiny little fingers, then perhaps I'm spoiling her. Loving her is not spoiling her.