Now of sleeping.

Me: Gah! You  left the pizza box out.


Huband: And....


Me: And?? I asked you last night to throw in the recycling and now it smells like stale pizza in the kitchen!


Husband: And...


Me: Don't patrionize me. I do a lot around here, y'know and you totally don't respect that 'cuz if you did, you would do what I ask you to do instead of looking at me like I have three heads! God! What am I? Some fifties housewife??!


Husband: Christ, I'll put the damn pizza box away. Listen, is it, you know, that time...??


Me: Ah!!! Move or I'll show you where you can put that damn pizza box!

What was with me and the hubs constantly bickering? I was annoyed; he was annoying. And honestly, who cares about a pizza box, really? Well, apparantly, this is what our arguing had been reduced to-he didn't want to be bossed around, and I didn't want to feel like a hired housekeeper. We had been down this path constantly over the past year; sqaubbling back and forth over the most trivial things. It had never been like this for us before, and believe me, we did not enter parenthood lightly. We knew it would be difficult at first. What was up with us?
My husband and I met way back in university and bonded almost immediately. He studied hard. I, well... I studied English, so after graduation when he was prepared for home ownership and was settling in a great job, I wondered what the hell I was going to do with my Liberal Arts degree (the sleepless wonder is soooo not studying American Poetry of the 1780s when he goes to Uni!). I decided to teach overseas and explore the world. It didn't take long for my (then) boyfriend to quit his job, sell the car and join me. We've been inseperable ever since. So how was it that my partner, my travel mate, my rational thinker, and my alway reliable guy and I were fighting over the most asinane things? Sure, I guess I could blame sleep deprivation, but there was something more at play that was happening.
I remember watching an episode of Dr.Phil where he said that everytime you argue in front of your kids, you damage them. That, and something about looking at a rooster while the fox waits in the den. The point was, arguing is never good for the kids and here we were, arguing like a couple of emo sixteen year olds with damaged egos. In some ways, the tension was simply just the change of having this super huge responsibilty in the house. The adjustment to having to care of the little one was big for us. For 10 years, it had been just the two of us, with the exception of Charlie for the last 3 (and really, Charlie may have prepared us for the kind of bickering that led to statements like: "I changed him last time," but in no way did she compare to baby). Suddenly, (ok, not so sudden; we did have 9 months to prepare for this) we were thrusted into parenthood and I think neither of us expected it to be such hard work( I know, I know, insert eye-roll here). It is a 24 hour, 7 day a week job. Sure, it is absolutely the best thing we have ever done, but it can be a tireless, thankless job and things, like the occasional pizza box being left out overnight, can really get the blood boiling.
I suppose when it really comes down to it, both of us are looking for some form of validation. My husband wants me to recognize (and acknowledge) that he works his butt off daily, with a crappy commute, on little sleep, and a brown-bag lunch of leftovers (hello, E.I people!) And I want him to recognize that I don't punch out for lunch or a coffee break, that I seem to straighten up the house a little bit all day only for it to look just as disasterous as the hour before, and that sometimes I miss that crappy commute.
At the end of the day, the bickering isn't what we focus on; usually my husband is the first to apologize and I am grateful for that. We can't be perfect, but we try. I just say to my husband: Always listen to me, and we'll be just fine. There, that wasn't so hard, was it?