Gud, I think you're married to my mom.

Also, she tends to intrepret things as "you don't care about me" that also comes from the same source.

The thing is, she has to realize that not watering the plants doesn't negate caring for your kids singlehandedly for four days. And working on top of it. *That's* caring. That's being a committed, loving partner and parent.

I just hope you know that. I want her to see it, too, but I'm more interested in *you* knowing that, at least from what I read here, you're doing everything you can do to make your marriage work.

Gud, I think you're married to my mom.

I'm proud of you, son. Sorry about the sucky people making doing your job difficult.

I'm proud of you, son. Sorry about the sucky people making doing your job difficult.

Psst. Tell him it's OK if he dates a caucasian devil woman...

And working on top of it.

I didn't, I took time off. The only working was around the house. The kids were super good and made it easy.

Nodding along and seconding, thirding and fourthing what everyone else has said, especially juliana and Hec and Aimée and erika and... well, especially everybody.

And also, what erika said about a girl sometimes happily giving anything to know that her dad is even having an emotion. You don't want to burden Emaryn with needing to fix you when you're sad, but it doesn't sound at all like that's what you're doing. It won't break her to know that her father feels sad sometimes, that things can be tough for grownups too. And her response speaks volumes about her kindness and empathy -- and also about your parenting, and about the atmosphere you provide for her. There are so many households where, even if one parent sprang an emotional leak and everyone noticed, no one would dare say anything about it. You're clearly a safe and comforting person to her, and she wants you to feel safe and comforted too. And that's very, very good.

Thanks all. I've got to offload and run though, I'm getting work done, but I need to put in full effort on work right now.

In Shallow Fashion news, I am bidding on these [link]

I lurves tham.

Emmett's last day is June 16th, and school starts (usually) just before Labor Day. But they also get the extra "ski week" off in February.

By "extra" do you mean that they get two weeks off in February, or just a week off? Our kids start school (usually the Wednesday) after Labor Day, get a week off in February, a week off in April, and then if they miss snow days, they have to make them up. June 23 isn't all that late, up here. I remember going to the 28th or so, when I was a kid. In '78, the governor let the schools off the hook for some of the missed days, which was good, or we'd have been going into July.

a lot of lashing out when she's stressed

I'm deeply sorry for you dudes putting up with this today. Living with that noise and manipulation and blame and guilt-tripping and flying off the handle in bullshit-insane-with-anger-over-your-failings temper fits at will totally sucks. I know. I'm glad mine experience with that was all over long ago, but even remembering it is a burden to me.

The important thing to keep in mind is that a person like that knows they are not playing fair. It's dirty pool and it is damaging for all concerned. Therefore, I say it becomes allowable to consider the things one might do to defend one's own sanity and sense of worth.

This post brought to you by Too Much Information, but what the hell. I feel inspired by the display of sheer guts around here.