Mars and Venus

I like to make jokes about how different my husband and I are when we try and communicate and I frequently site the popular "Mars and Venus" scenario. But, when I think about it, its very different from Martians and Venetians trying to communicate. It reminds me of the trip I took last year to Guatemala. I really speak very little Spanish, and yet, I could generally understand, through context and through guessing and through sign language what a person was trying to communicate to me. In fact, I found the language barrier to be fun more often than it was frustrating. It was exciting to see how different emotions and vocabulary could be acted out and how many different ways there are to explain a word such as "hot"... the food is spicy, the food is warm from the oven, there is not air conditioning in the taxi cab.
So, when my husband and I try and communicate it is usually frustrating and indirect. sometimes we even try and communicate through magic and ESP. Often, I am thinking what I want him to know and I am even in other parts of the house talking to myself or the pile of laundry or the stack of dishes in the sink, and I want him to know what I want. Likewise, he says nothing and does nothing and then doesn't understand when he gets nothing...

Back to work

So Lee went back to work today, and actually around my house it felt good. He had his lunch packed and seemed in charge and ready to leave the responsibilities of the kids good bye. Because, as much as the summer is fun and being home is fun, it means that you have to take care of more than just yourself. When it is your day to work, you can leave the laundry and the dishes for the other person bc you will be gone and they will be home. So today, I got it all, but also when you are home and it is just you, you can boss everyone else. So I had a nice morning bossing everyone around. Then I had a gouchy afternoon folding laundry while Lee got to work.
I am starting t really feel sad that the summer is over, I am not ready to start the nightly painao practice and homework fights. I keep thinking that this will be the easy year. Then my rational side realizes that every year is better and worse that the year before, although in completly different ways.

Whats wrong with parents these days?

I know that much has been written about kids and sports and if parents would just butt out that kids would all play nicely - perhaps you could even go so far as to say that if all parents butt out that all our kids would actually be professional athletes... mhh.. some thing to consider. Anyway, as I am working on the intramural soccer teams and trying to get all the girls in best color tshirt for their skin tone and all the boys on teams with the kids that they haven't had a fight with in the last two seasons, well I really notice how few parents volunteer - bc currently I have 10 teams and only 6 coaches - and how many parents make special requests. Why is it that the parents that scream and squawk the most are the ones that never even make it to the games. How about the crappy comment that says please place Danny on the same team as Adam, Josh and Derek bc we all car pool - come on! I know better than that - we do not carpool in the suburbs - even if we like to think that the reason that we bought the huge 10 passenger SUV that should be outlawed everywhere except the desert - we actually buy those big cars bc we are going to car pool!
This fall I will just try and experiment with fall soccer. Because there are not enough coaches I will let each team loose on their own, and I bet that they make it to the state tournament. Just get all the coaches out of the way and the kids really will work it out for themselves....