Testing Our Commitment

Yesterday was Jeff’s first big test.  It was Monday, Martin Luther King Day, so he had a paid day off thanks to the county’s generous holiday line up.  It was his first full day at home without a sporting event on television, or an ice fishing outing to bail him out.  The unbelievable reality that there is a whole lot of time in a day and that there really is no television allowed in our home was sinking in.  He first noticed this anomaly Sunday night around bed time and I think he was in shock at first. He just sat in his chair dumbfounded.  He may have even cursed the holiday in his mind simply because it forced him to face this overwhelming reality. But the following morning after he had a night to sleep on it,  he decided to embrace the idea. Eventually he did what any decent, self respecting, man would do and he got busy. Really, really busy.  He was so busy I barely saw him for his entire day off.  He cleaned like I have never seen the man clean before and he organized like I have never seen him organize before and he kept himself busy. 

First, he took on the project of moving AJ into his new, big-boy, bed.  This sounds like a quick and easy task.  In actuality, it was very involved and required a lot of work.  Before the bed was actually properly stowed in the kid’s room several tasks had to be completed.  A trip to pick the bed up from his grandma’s house was necessary.  A dismantling of the old bed had to be completed. A thorough cleaning of the area which happened to be the one time I saw Jeff because he recruited me for the task was also necessary and an assembling of the new bed had to be completed.  He worked on this job with a new sense of urgency that I pretty sure was a result of his realization that there truly would be no TV allowed.  I have only rarely seen that type of urgency in Jeff and it is usually only associated with him trying to get me naked when I am not in the mood! Well, he had that entire, complex, involved, big-boy bed, project completed within a couple of hours. 

He then moved to the basement.  He intended to clean the dryer vents.  He informed me that particular undesirable task had been on his “to do” list for some time now.  Well the dryer vent project went so well that it snowballed, out of control I might add, and he eventually cleaned the entire basement. He had brooms, dustpans, boxes and garbage bags everywhere. Amazingly, there seemed to be a system to his madness.  Yes the whole darn basement was cleaned, swept and vacuumed before dinner last night. I kid you not.  I would not joke about such a serious matter.

I discovered another wonderful thing about the library; they have a bin of free magazines.  People can take what they like and leave what they have already read for others to enjoy.  And it is all completely free and as far as I can tell they are not even tracked (I hope not because I probably took more than my fair share, but in my defense they will be returned once we read them).  I stocked Jeff up with a few manly magazines and brought a few feminine ones home for me.  He spent the rest of the night looking through the magazines.  He actually read some of the articles and Jeff doesn’t read so it says a lot about the quality of magazines you can get from the free bin at the library.  As an added bonus, I really believe yesterday gave Jeff a new appreciation for his job.  I think he is truly thankful that he is at work today.

While yesterday was Jeff’s big test with the NOTV deal, today is mine.  Yesterday with the bra mishap was bad, but today proved even worse.  It was 8:34AM and I was giving serious consideration to turning the TV on and spending, not just a few moments, but the entire day with the kids in our pajamas in front of it.  I wanted to just relax and possibly not even move, at all today (other than to change diapers and fetch new snacks).  We could just snack and watch TV all day.  It sounded wonderful, glorious even.  

I should just do it.  If you hadn’t already guessed it, I have some serious PMS stuff going on. To further exacerbate the situation, I am still overly tired from the lack of sleep I have been getting lately and the more I thought about it the more appealing TV kept getting.   As I contemplated the prospect of watching TV, I weighed the pros and cons.  I had to consider my options carefully.  Kara would’ve loved it.  She has asked for movies a couple of times in the past week.  AJ would’ve been disappointed because if I was vegged out in front of the TV, I would not be playing with him or reading books to him.  And Hazel, well Hazel she is still getting her one year molars so I am pretty sure she was going to be cranky without regard to the status of the TV. 

Then I thought, I could call on reinforcements, a friend.  Maybe a friend can save me from myself!  It is really snowy out though no one wants to drive in this mess. I am just going to do it.  At the precise moment when I had decided to pick up the remote and hit the power button, I was saved!  There really is a God and he was watching out for me this morning that much I know.  My friend Kim Vandenbosch called to see if her and her kids could come over to play in the snow with us!  The invitation was one of perfection.  It would solve my TV conundrum and as an added bonus I would get some much needed social interactions with another woman.  The best part, she was going to fetch me some more feminine hygiene items because I had noticed I was about to run out!  Tune in tomorrow to hear how the rest of the day went.