Good dog

Last night I was relaxing in the bath at what I felt was a safe hour, most likely to guarantee 15 uninterrupted minutes of blissful bubbles and reading: 10pm. Less than five minutes into my escape, Gregg knocked on the door.

The baby is crying. What should I do? Can you hear her?

Just...

Oh, great! Now he's crying too! DAMNIT!

Fine. Fine. Just shut the door. I'm coming out.

You don't need to. Just tell me what...

Shut the door, get a bottle, and I'll be there in a second.

This exchange left me chilled and Gregg pissed, feeling dismissed and snapped at. In reality, I was not annoyed in the least but wasn't enjoying the cold air his entrance let in with it. But later, as he huffed and puffed and said I was "mean to him", I realized while I had not been annoyed, damn it, I should have been. If it were he in the bath, I would not be knocking to ask him what to do if the baby cried. Or if the dog threw up on the carpet. Or if the DVR was taping some unknown show and how, oh how, could I change the channel and not lose the show. Though, upon further reflection, perhaps it is myself I should be annoyed with, having taken someone who at one time was quite capable of taking care of himself if not someone else and turned him into my third child.

Women do this all the time. Our male counterparts make a sandwich or dress our child and we look at them as one looks at a puppy who is trying desperately to follow commands but just can't quite do it — with a mix of pity, condescension and affection. Poor, poor little guy. Trying so hard and yet not. Quite. Able to do it. After 100 or so looks like this, what person would not decide to say "fuck it, I'll just ask" rather than be hit ever so softly but effectively with a look that says "oh, good for you for trying!" or more solidly smacked with a glance that says "WTF, can't you do ANYTHING?”

As women, we often feel it's our right to toss these looks about but would be crushed or furious should that same look be shot our way. As mothers in particular, we consider ourselves to be über competent and in no actual need of assistance from anyone, even though we often second guess ourselves on a middle-of-the-night basis, questioning our competence to raise children that won't someday be dependents of the state or ulcer-laden, hypersensitive adults unable to maintain a solid relationship. But perhaps I reveal too much...

I'd like to say that this exchange with Gregg and later epiphany changed me, that I have vowed to kill the "WTF" and the "GOOD FOR YOU!" look when Gregg dresses Madelena in clashing colors or her brother's clothes. But I can't, I just can't. Maybe, just maybe, I AM mean. Or just a woman who knows that while we don't want to keep our man down, we do like to keep him a little dumb — in those moments when we lay awake at night wondering if we made all the right choices for our children that day, we can say "hey, at least I didn't try to feed the baby pepperoni or try to put her diaper on backwards today. And that makes me just a little bit superior to the hunk of man meat lying next to me." And with that, we can finally go peacefully to sleep.