Reminiscing about our teenage years

This past Friday, Lester and I met up with Stacey and Hugo to go to the St. Pius X festival, a small community fair held by a local school/church community.

It was a beautiful Friday evening, and there were a ton of families out, enjoying the fried food and ice cream, fair games and spring weather. There were rides and cupcakes, a book sale and a flea market. It was just perfect!

Hugo and Cary, firefighters on duty.

This one wanted no parts of the rides.

Dean and Hugo loved this helicopter ride.

But Cary was happy just to do the train, safe, on the ground.

They had so much fun!

 

There were also a zillion teenagers strolling around the grounds and hanging out on the steps of St. Pius X high school. They gathered in groups or meandered in pairs, couples all immersed in starry-eyed young love. Seriously, there was so much lust and hormones in the air, it was almost palpable. I felt like I needed to shower after all the heat generated by those kids.

Lester and I found ourselves staring at these kids -- most of whom were taller than I am (that's not hard, but still) -- and we were hit by so many of the same thoughts.

Look how old these kids look. Can you believe our kids will be this big one day?
Look how young they are!
The pheromones in the air are off the chain!
They think they're so cool -- remember when you cared about being cool?
They look so cool!

At one point, Lester said to me, "I can remember being these exact kids, walking around a festival just like this. I remember having thought about what I was going to wear for days and days. And when I was there, with my fresh new sneakers on, I thought I was the flyest thing at the festival. I distinctly remember feeling that all eyes were on me -- and that every move I made was for someone else's benefit."

I so totally remember that feeling! Being at a carnival with my friends and thinking half of every second, "There are BOYS here! Are they looking at us? Is [insert cute boy's name] here? I hope he comes!" Or being at an amusement park with my boyfriend and thinking, "How should I stand so I look my most adorable and cool and like I like him but I'm not, like, OVERLY liking him?"

Boy am I glad I'm past those days! Just thinking back on that time period makes me exhausted! But also, so, so weirded out to imagine that one day, our boys will be walking through the St. Pius X fair, checking out the girls and looking like mini-men.  One day, our daughter will be one of a gaggle of adorable girls, tossing her hair and trying to look disinterested in the "immature" boys who are walking through the fair, checking them out.

One day, our kids won't want us to walk around the festival with them, snapping photos and waving as they ride the kiddie rides. We'll be an after-thought, an ATM, an enforcer of the curfew.

As much as I complain about my kids being crazy and defiant and tantrum-y and irrational, Lester and I looked at those teenagers at that fair and saw our pasts -- and our future.

And it made us oh-so-grateful to have a few years more in our present.
 

Not your grandparents' chore list

My sister sent me this Q &A article today about a woman she thought would resonate with me for two reasons:

1. She had a unique story to tell and couldn't get an agent/publisher interested, so she started her own publishing company and did it herself! (You go, girl! I'm taking notes!)

2. Her story was about fatherhood, looking at it differently, based on her experience as a Mom of 2, and having her husband step up to the plate in a major, major way.

This author's experience got me to thinking about how much Lester does in and around the house, and for and with the kids. I started mentally listing the things he does, and then I started feeling self-conscious. Like, "Dang! What the heck do I do?" LOL.

When I actually thought hard about it, I am quite impressed by not only how well we divide the work in our family, but also how we defy a lot of gender norms -- Lester especially. This is not by design. We did not set out to be gender-neutral, necessarily (and in some cases, we're decidedly gender-norm-believers, like I ain't going in that alley with the rats, so I will NOT take the trash out. Sorry, feminist friends. I ain't doing it.) We just do what comes most naturally to either of us, or what we like to do (Lester loves grocery shopping; I like keeping the calendar, etc.) and it just works. Thank God.

Anyway, here's a look at how we do things in our house, broken out by partner:

Lester:

• Does all the laundry washing and folding
• Weekdays - gets the kids up, dressed and teeth brushed. Gets them their breakfast (cereal, mostly)
• Bathes the kids most nights/Brushes their teeth
• Does about 60-percent of the dishes
• Cleans out the refrigerator
• Takes out trash/recycling
• Changes our sheets
• Straightens our bedroom
• Mows the lawn/Handles yard work
• 8 times out of 10, mops and/or polishes the floors
• Handles all the finances - bill-paying, budget-making, taxes (Except I handle check-ins with the financial planner)
• Handles insurance matters
• Does all the grocery shopping and most of the Target, etc. shopping
• Handles almost all repair orders (calls plumber, exterminator, Comcast, etc.)
• Researches and plans most vacations
• Keeps track of car maintenance
• Reads to kids, plays with them 
• Is a softie when it comes to discipline
• Sets goals/rules for family

Tanika:

• Makes the grocery list/plans the meals
• Weekends - gets the kids dressed (they get themselves up) and teeth brushed
• Does all the cooking (except for some wonderful pancake breakfasts on some weekends)
• Does 40-percent of the dishes
• Bathes the kids when Lester's out at a meeting or the gym
• Changes the kids' sheets
• Straightens up the house
• Does the kids' hair (except that Lester cuts Dean's hair)
• Shops for/orders the kids' clothes/shoes
• Arranges doctor's/dentist appointments
• Handles retirement matters
• Handles almost all school-related stuff
• Researches and buy developmental stuff (toys/books/educational stuff)
• Picks out kids' clothes 
• 8 times out of 10, cleans the bathroom
• Plans and maintains ours and the kids' social calendars
• Buys gifts
• Reads to kids, plays with them (I do more singing and more "purposeful" play, I'd say, meaning I plan out what things we're going to play [because I'm TYPE A!] and Lester does more freestyling play.)
• Is stricter about discipline
• Sets goals/rules for family

As you can see, we do pretty well when it comes to fairly evenly dividing up the tasks that comprise running a household/maintaining a family. And we do it (mostly) without consternation or argument. Although as the chief laundry-doer, Lester probably would say my inability to put my clothes away after he's folded them is a major pet peeve. I do suck at putting my clothes away. Sorry, Les.

(Yet another reason why I need a new house, with a huge walk-in closet, where I can hide all my sins!)

Anyway, I look at this list and what it says about us --and the example it's setting for our kids -- and I am pretty proud of us. Yay for fair divisions of labor! Yay, us!

Note: I also look at this list and think:

Who does the real cleaning? (Miss Teresa, the once-a-month housekeeper. Sadly.)
Who the hell cleans out the oven? (No one.)

How do you guys divide up the work? Is it purposeful or accidental the way things fall in your house?