8/31/21 Picking Up Everyone's Slack?

     I decided to be a team player and help out with the chores the past few days.  Baby A has been cutting the grass outside, not that he is great at it, but he does eventually do it, if I get on him for about a week.  Now that school has started, I feel a little bad for him, he is at school all day, then has football practice until at least 8:00pm most nights.  This past weekend, he did go out with some friends to the mall, but I think there was a penalty for that in that he felt depleted when the weekend ended.  Wife says she has been feeling the same way and I get it, she is driving back and forth all week, so it makes sense that she is feeling burned out from the road.  Last week we had what I thought was a good discussion on expectations and desires.

    She expects and desires I clean everything, no, just kidding.  I mean basically she brought up that I have so much free time and that is true.  She is also having to drive every day to San Antonio and back, the trip itself is not bad, my brother has been doing a slightly longer run to Laredo from our hometown, but he does it with no traffic and as he says, he can fly above 80, if he feels like it, it is just open road.  The highway between Austin and SA is a fucking mess.  There are too many people trying to live here in the area and growth has outpaced our roads.  Every time I have joined Wife, there is an automatic slow down to a stop in San Marcos, I always expect there to be an accident, but no, it is just stupid people who have to merge all the way over or something to get off the highway, I don't exactly know, but we always slow down and lose a good 10-15 minutes.  Then there is the construction before getting to New Braunfels, they are building two crossovers and the highway is all tore up right now, which causes another huge slow down.

    As a consequence, I told Wife that fine, I will pick up the slack and keep the house clean, but on my terms.  I am not going to sweep on Friday afternoon because she says so.  We agreed I would sweep once a week, vacuum, I do routinely keep the clothes washed and if the boys don't take out the trash, I do it as well.  Hell, I'll even change the sheets on the bed every other week or so, but she can't tell me to do shit like I am her child.  This week started out good, I have cut the grass in both front and back and pool is looking pretty clean, so right now the outside is looking about as good as it can look, even if my family all pointed and exclaimed "your grass is dry and dead!"  Yeah, but it's cut and looks nice, so suck it. In return I guess she agreed to continue working, I guess.  These big discussions always end up with me getting more responsibilities put on my back, but I guess I have all the free time.