My Wife’s Idea of Saturday “Quick shopping”
Nov 11th, 2006 by dank
My wife and I have four kids under the age of 7 and she stays home and runs the show every day. Heaven knows it’s a tough job and she works her fingers to the bones every day. So she’s started this trend of taking off on Saturdays for “quick trips” to the store.
Every week I can count on it. It’ll be late morning and the kids are watching cartoons or playing with toys and I’m trying to fight through a list of “chores” she’s given me. Then she’ll say “hey honey, I’m just going to run to the store to grab some things.” The actual translation of this is “I’m going to no less than 3 malls, Target, Walmart, maybe stop to get a pedicure and my hair done, and I’ll see you in 5 hours.”
Usually this is fine, she deserves some time away from the insanity that our home can sometimes become. I just have two issues with it really. 1) Just say how long you’re going to be gone so I have an idea what my day is going to be like. I mean, I’m a serious college football watcher on most fall Saturdays so this impacts me and my teams (yes, I’m a very superstitious football watcher). 2) Please, please, please take your STINKING CELL PHONE WITH YOU!!! I think it’s embedded in the female DNA to either not take their cell phone with them when they shop, or take it with them and not turn it on, or take it with them with about 5 minutes worth of standby battery life left on it. Each Saturday I have many questions for my wife when I’m at home running the show. Questions my wife is the only person on earth that can answer.
I don’t know how my dad’s generation handled Saturday escape shopping trips (I come from a family of 8 kids). I know they had less stress because there were no cell phones back then so they didn’t get the angst build up of not being able to get a hold of their wives. But I cannot imagine dealing with 8 kids alone. I distinctly remember my mom melting down from time to time and escaping for entire days. For the kids it’s usually party time because dad is generally a softie when it comes to playing video games, watching TV for hours and eating candy. I guess that’s the only recourse I have on Escape Saturdays.
WHOA!!!!
Jeremy!! Listen to yourself here! LOL!
I am a Mum of 4, granted they are nearly all grown up (whatever that term is meant to imply!), and I work full time. Didn’t always work when the kids were younger and yes I can empathise with the need to just get away from all the responsibilities of having to watch over, feed, clean, amuse, and generally be at the beck and call of the kids – usually on a 24/7 basis.
We didn’t have mobile (cell) phones then either, and it wsa a blessing to just leave all the responsibility at home with Daddy for a few hours. After all he had none of the disomfort of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing them as babes …shall I go on?….so why shouldn’t he suffer a few hours with them out of a whole week! ;)
Anyhow, I digress………it is impossible to state prior to leaving on our “short trips to the store” exactly how long we will be. We don’t know how long the queues will be at the checkout, which store has a “24 hour only sale” on, what friends we will run into whose news we have to hear, and it is so hard to keep a check on time when you are carrying all those bags and can’t access your watch!
As for not taking her phone with her…well if she did, she wouldn’t be relieving herself of any of the stress at all would she….cos she would have swopped all the tension and pressure of worrying about her children, for the stress of having you phone her every 2 minutes asking what should you feed the kids for lunch, complaining you can’t find little Johnny’s comforter, or that little Billy appears to have eaten the bow from little Amys toy pony, and that you can’t find your matching lucky socks that you have to wear while watching your football game! And you should be more concerned with the amount of life left in your wife’s batteries rather that that of her phone……..
Here’s a solution. Tell yourself she is going to be gone for the whole day…don’t stress yourself over it….TIVO the game so that if you do miss some it isn’t a major disaster. And when she does return from that hard days shopping…go run her a nice hot bath and let her know how grateful you are to her for the oher 6 days each week she puts up with what you can just about cope with for a few hours each Saturday ! I should be very careful if I were you , cos if you carry on as you are, that Saturday afternoon may well turn into a whole wekend before long….and goodness only knows what state you would be in on her return! LOL! :D
Jill:)
Are you sure you’re not my husband??? Hehe. Your story reads just how our Saturday’s go, all the way down to the cell phone. Honestly it isn’t on purpose that the cell only has an ounce of life left in it. :D Saturdays are the “finally a shopping spree away from kids” day. Unfortunatly yesterday was family picture day and my shopping will have to wait until next week! Sigh…
Actually Jill, there are several “authors” on the site now, so this one isn’t mine, though it could be! :) I am still laughing so hard at this one dank! I had to call my wife it right away to read it and laugh with me. She is actually very good about letting me know how long she will be gone, but the cell phone one was a home run. She is at least past step 1 in her program though, she admits she has a problem. Cell phone gone and dad home “parenting” (not babysitting in our household, it is called parenting) is an example of Murphy’s Law in action. Whenever there is something I really need to get a hold of my wife about, yep, the phone is dead, not on, in the car or otherwise not where she can hear it. Arrgggghhh! :)
Jeremy….a thousand apologies :D
Where’s the edit button when you need one ?
However…..it seems that there is widespread frustration on Saturdays throught the whole State……..maybe now is the time for one of you to set up a “Saturday helpline” for bereft,frustrated Fathers who find themelves launched into parenting/babyitting with only a weeks notice…..I am sure it will come in handy ;)
Jill
Not just in your state…perhaps this is a more widespread problem. Men that have no idea how to feed/bath/change/entertain children. Do I feel a National Crisis coming on??
Saturday helpline for fathers, that’d be great! I love it! Of course, they might be overwhelmed by heavy use from dads becoming dependent on this source of info. It would have to be something completely anonymous with privacy protection insured…no male wants to becoming public that they are asking for help/directions.
Don’t get me started on directions!!!! Direvctions pertaining to travel I mean …..
Why is it men feel that it against the law to ask for directions when travelling anywhere? Rather than ask (which is of course the far more sensible way of handling the “I am not lost – just taking a short cut” scenario), we have to suffer going up and down the motorway/highway, Mum trying to placate the kids who are innocently pointing out that they have seen a ton of McD’s on the same stretch of the road ( albeit it is the SAME McD’s that we have passed at least 8 times)……..with Dad trying to bluff his way out of the situation! Thank heavens for Sat Nav is all I am going to say on the matter……I would like to meet the lady (hey it had to be a lady obviously ;))who invented it and hug her real tight :D
Jill :D
Dank, if you know she’s going to be gone for 5 hours and not just “running to the store to grab some things”, what’s the problem? My husband (of 22 yearss) does this all the time. He tells me he’s going over to visit his mom for a little while. I translate that to, “I’m getting the heck out of here, away from you and these stinking teenagers, and I might never come back!” It’s ok; he always comes back. :)
And how come when I call him on his cell phone, I’m the one that’s at fault because he received five phone calls between the three stinking teenagers within the last 10 minutes prior to my phone call? Why am I supposed to be clarvoyant?
I sure wish my mom had taken a few Saturdays to run to the store to grab a few things. My folks had five kids, and I can’t remember my mom ever taking any time for herself. I wish she had. It would have done her a lot of good, and it also would have helped we kids cultivate a closer relationship to our Dad BEFORE he was actually an old man.
I love the helpline idea with experienced mom’s “womanning” the phones (manning the phones just didn’t sound right).
Comming from the person this topic was written by, I just want to say “Thank you Jill!!!”
Sorry, I wrote that last comment wrong. My 4 yr. old was talking to me at the same time I was typing. I meant to say, “Comming from the person this topic was written about”, “Thank you Jill”.
Amyk – you are welcome! We may be on different sides of the ocean but us gals have to stick together!
As a little aside…..when I had my 4th baby – we had just moved house and he was really an “after thought” – well actually he wasn’t a thought at all but hey! Anyway …my hubby then had to alter his work schedule so he minded him during the week while I worked and I had every weekend at home. Bear in mind our other children were 8, 13, and 15 at this point so he really only had one little person to worry about. So how was it that during the time he was house husband, in the first 2 years we had to replace 2 lounge carpets and a patio door…….all due to the fact that Daddy couldn’t quite get the grip of not leaving stuff lying around…paint, golf balls etc……Harry was having a field day LOL! May have been a hard lesson (and an expensive one) for him to learn , but I certainly got some credit for raising the other 3 after that :D
Jill
A Saturday afternoon on me own…ha…chance would be a fine thing, since i became a single parent, my kids seem to think i need protecting or need help with the shopping..(They’re 16 and 19 now, they can stay at home on their own). I know its very sweet, but honestly, i can protect myself, and i also know how to use a mobile phone if i need to. But i guess that would be the other thing wouldn’t it, if they ‘allowed’ me to go shopping on my own, they’d be forever calling just to check i’m ok and when would i be home. (At what age do kids leave home these days, sounds like another topic…lol)
Ah yes, the electronic leash known as the cell/mobile phone.
*ICK* I have a love/loathe relationship with the bloody thing, and my husband used to work for Nextel, so we have the two-way radio bit. I hate doing something and hearing the “beep beep beep” of my husband wanting something…”when are you coming home” “aren’t you done yet” “do you know what your son did” or another bit of bit of annoyance. Especially if it is in the middle of sewing night (you know where I am, what I am doing and how long it usually takes-why are you telling me the score of the game that I really don’t care about?)
It was useful in the car accident though, to call for help.