Sunday, July 01, 2007

Small real-life rant

I heard myself say this after supper this evening, in carefully clipped speech:

"You know, there's no rule that says the oldest female in a family is responsible for all the housekeeping and cooking and has to do everything all the time for everyone, unless someone should deign to do her a rare favour by helping out with something."

Alas, while the children were all witness to my rant, the spousal unit was asleep. The total extent of the effect of my rant was that a 10-year-old boy consented to finish sweeping the kitchen floor without mentioning the "slave" word again.

It felt like a very long day and, Erin's lovely performance aside, I am feeling really sick of holding the ball for everything and everyone in this family. All I wanted was half an hour to practice my viola, without things going from bad to worse in the rest of the house. Is it too much to ask that just for once they might even go from bad to less bad? That someone around her might just for once wash a mixing bowl, fold a piece of laundry, wipe their oogy stuff out of the sink, pour Fiona a bit of cashew milk, cook a meal? Apparently.

I need sleep.

8 comments:

  1. That sounds exactly like me! And why do they sound so PUT UPON and sigh and roll their eyes when asked to clean up after themselves occasionally, huh?!

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  2. Truth be told my kids have been somewhat better than the aforementioned spousal unit lately. Especially Fiona and Sophie. But I tend to take my frustration out on the kids because they're nearby (rather than being out puttering in the shop, or napping).

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  3. I hope this doesn't sound insensitive, but it is reassuring to read that you have days like this too. :)

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  4. Wow.

    I made a very similar rant in a very, very similar tone just about a week ago.

    It helped. For a few days.

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  5. Wishing you some restorative sleep and solitude, Miranda.

    And an attentive spousal unit. :)

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  6. Anonymous1:06 pm

    I'm so glad you're not compleatly superwoman ;)

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  7. I'm handing you a virtual glass of...your choice of beverage and suggesting a night out. If you were here you could come out with me to the Wooly tonight. You'd have a blast with my crunchy music teacher friend and my crunchy crazy friend and we could have a good laugh and a commiseration.
    A bop on the head to the spousal unit for not holding up his own share of balls...oops - that's more graphic than I meant it to be - lol - but you get the drift.
    Hope you are feeling better soon.

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  8. Anonymous11:05 am

    Snort! I could copy and paste this into my blog and except for the kids' names, it would be totally accurate. What's with the ability of husbands to nap whilst everything around them falls into disarray??

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