Being involved with the family

Matthew sat down on the bed beside me.
I layed face down, a few tears had spilled onto the sheets in front of me and my mascara, the only makeup I was wearing, had smeared a little under my eyes.  I looked a little bit of a mess.  But the crying kids, dirty house, and time being a few hours after 4 p.m. was obvious in my face.  He already knew.
"How was your day?"  He asked anyway.
"It was hard,"  I said.  "The kids screamed and fussed, complained, asked me for things all day, what to do, and were all over the place.  I also watched a few extra kids for a while too, although that wasn't too bad.  And I think I have a sinus infection and overdid it."
"I'm sorry."  He said.
He had been working extra hours at work and so I was trying really hard to have him come home to not a complete mess-physically or emotionally.
"I saw you made squash."  He said.
I had already fed the kids their dinner since he was a little late coming home and I never got around to giving them squash.  I called it good with the spaghetti and green beans.
"I know.  I like squash."  I said, remembering how none of it had been touched.  "But I was too tired to eat it."
I started crying again.
Matthew let out a light laugh.
I looked at him.  And finally, realizing how it sounded to have started crying over uneaten squash, while at the same time feeling like someone was caring and listening to my day, I smiled and maybe had a teeny giggle.
Matthew took care of the kids that evening while I took a warm bath and tried to get my emotions in place a little more.

I remembered one of the first conversations I had with him about family when we were dating.  This was a very important topic and he started telling me his feelings about it.
"I want to do well in my career, but my family comes first.  I want to make sure I have enough time to spend with my family."  The conversation went on a little and then we hung up.

Dang.

He said exactly what I was wanting--someone who wanted to do well in their career but not at the expense of their family.  I didn't want someone who just wanted to make a lot of money.  I wanted someone who wanted to spend a lot of time with our family.

Matthew calls every single day on his way home from work.
"How are you?  Do you need me to pick up anything on the way home?"  are questions he always asks.  And even though he knows what my answer to the "How are you question" is probably going to be, he asks anyway.
I try to sound positive even when the kids are screaming in the background and pulling on my legs.  I try to not let all of the emotions of the day out on that one answer that I could give him.  Sometimes it is hard, because someone is actually caring and asking me and asking me at probably the hardest or one of the hardest times of day.

After our crazy dinner every night, Matthew takes the three little boys and gives them a bath and gets their jammies on.  I usually do dishes and then relax.  Sometimes I help put on the jammies, but he almost does all the bedtime stuff by himself.  There are times when even though I feel quite exhausted, I still try to help get them in bed, because Matthew has also had a long day without breaks.  I think I have only given the little boys less than 10 baths in their lives.  I hardly ever help brush their teeth (this week excluded) that I do not even know what color toothbrush each of them has.  And when I asked Eli last night when I bravely volunteered so Matthew could rest, Eli lied and stole John's toothbrush.  I don't know if it is lying at 23 months, but I think he knew it wasn't his, but wanted to try the red toothbrush instead of the blue one.  John didn't like that idea.

I make dinner most of the time, but somedays I have had a little person following me around the kitchen, trying to get things out of the fridge, and crying, and so cooking has been difficult.  On those days Matthew comes home and cheerfully decides he will make dinner.  He makes a great omelet and we all love it.  He also makes a great ham fried rice.  I remember one time he so enthusiastically decided to make pumpkin pancakes.  We were all pretty hungry and it was getting late.  After he had made quite a large batch, it was finally time to taste one.  They looked delicious.  He took a bite and spit it out in the trash.  He stared at me with a sickened look.
"What?"  I asked.
Matthew went to the cupboard.  He pulled out the spices.  "Uhh, I think I put Cumin in instead of Cinnamon.  Do you want to try one to see how bad it is?"
I thought of how quickly he had just spit his bite out into the trash.
"No thanks."  I said.
"In my defense,"  he said holding up both the Cumin and the Cinnamon, "They look quite the same.  It's quite easy to mistake them."
I paused.  "Except that one says Cumin and the other says Cinnamon."
He stared at me.  I smiled a little.  I think we ended up having cereal that night.

Matthew will take the kids to the park on the weekends to give me a break.  He will take one or two with him when he goes on shopping trips.  He has taken all of the older four when the twins were younger.  He came back one day.
"How was it?"  I asked.  I would not have taken all four shopping.
"It was okay."  He answered.
I didn't see how it could be okay, or where he could have put the twins and the food and watched Mary and Nathan.
"Except John was trying to eat the celery and bananas that I put in the cart and the twins were screaming for a bit of it, and trying to throw things out of the cart..."  I don't remember the rest.
I guess that counts as okay...

Matthew bought Nathan and Mary a baseball hat and Nathan a glove so Mary could use Nathan's old glove and took them out to play baseball at a field near our house.  He has a sheepish look as he showed me the hats.  Matthew is not a spender and even spending a little extra money on hats was something that probably stretched him a little.  But he loves spending times with his kids.

He helps clean on the weekends and spent a few years cleaning the bathrooms almost every single Saturday with Mary and Nathan until he felt they could clean it themselves.  I never volunteered for this line of work.

Matthew doesn't love doing dishes.  I do most of them, but I don't mind, because he does bathrooms most of the time.

Matthew took the kids to a park this last weekend.  I was possibly going to stay home and rest from a little cold I had, but Matthew turned to me.  "Do you want to come?"  He asked.
I did.
"I might take a walk at the park if that's okay."  I said.  "I don't want to leave you watching all the kids too long."
"I didn't want you to come to help watch the kids.  I just wanted you to be with us."

That made me smile inside.

We do not have a perfect marriage.  Neither one of us are perfect.  We don't always agree.  But I am grateful for the partnership in marriage with my husband.  We don't really have assigned roles, we just help each other and the family as needed.  I am grateful for a husband who is involved and helpful.  An extra bonus is he lets me cry about uneaten squash with only a small laugh and then he tries to make me feel better.