Short Fact Dictator has begun blogging for Momversation.com and in one of this week's entries I reminisce (not so fondly) about the burgeoning sense of rage I developed towards my darling husband in the months after Snoodie's birth.
To review:But, I must say, things have not been nearly so dire during Crinkles' infancy - and I give all the credit to Don Draper.
You see, David and I are DVD addicts. We spent our courtship watching all six seasons of 'The Sopranos' back-to-back; our first months of marriage were consumed by episode after episode of 'Lost'; and we passed many of Snoodie's early days devouring the regrettably short-lived 'Arrested Development'.
These days, while sitting up for late-night feedings with Crinkles, David and I been making our way through the first three years of Mad Men.
In case you aren't familiar, the show is set in the early sixties at a NYC ad firm and features a cast made up entirely of the most attractive people in Christendom.
My mother (who graduated college in 1957 and went to work in Washington, D.C.) is my "60's veracity" go-to woman, and since we've been watching the show she's gotten used to my daily question-filled phone call.
"OK, dudes groping secretary's butts and calling everyone 'my girl' and 'honey'?" YES.
"Wait, four different people smoking in the same elevator?" CORRECT.
"Hold up, was everyone just drunk at work all of the time." WELL, A LOT OF THE TIME, SURE.
Such queries inevitably lead to a conversation about how things were for my mom back in the day when she and my dad were first starting our family. While my mother always credits my father for being very "hands on," she does so in contrast to a lot of dads at the time, for whom the idea of "doing mommy things" was anathema. (We've often heard the story of one family friend who told my mother in all seriousness about the time his wife was SO sick he had to hold her up to change their son's diaper.) Even my father, for all his "hands-on-ness", could not hide the quizzical and "not in my day" look on his face last Christmas when both his sons-in-law were wandering around the house with their kids in Baby Bjorns.
The times, I suppose, they have been changin'
All this pondering of yesteryear has severely cut down on my husband-centered rage. Instead of spending precious time lamenting the fact that I do more than my share of the household chores, in these post-Mad Men marathon days I find myself grateful that at least David is not off lingering over cigarettes and martinis (and God knows what else) in the city. I delight that he seemingly longs to rush home and throw off his jacket to fearlessly change diapers, run bathtime, and chase Snoodie's little naked butt towards his room for storytime and bed.
So while I may pine a bit for Don Draper one or two hours a night on my TV, it turns out that watching him mostly makes me thankful for my thoroughly modern man.....
