Don't Send A Man To Do A Mommy's Job

Mister Man is doing summer school via his preschool, which means his routine so far this summer has been pretty much the same as it has been for the last nine months. The exception is that instead of me getting him ready and on the bus every day, I’ve left those duties – for the most part – to my husband. Instead I’ve been working or catching up on some much needed sleep or hanging out with Little Miss.

Before summer school started – and especially since it started on a Monday, which means that I’m working – I gave my husband the overview. I told him what time the bus comes, reminded him about the backpack, told him Wednesday was swimming day, etc.

On the first Monday, I settled down to work a little before 8 and let my husband do his job. As he’s rushing Mister Man out the door – what, the bus is here already?! – I stepped away from the computer to go see who his bus driver would be. Lucky us, it was the morning bus driver he had during the year, who we loved.

As Mister Man is climbing aboard the bus, I asked my husband what he sent for snack today. Snack? My husband ran quickly into the house, and the nice bus driver waited patiently. My husband dropped a Ziplock baggie into Mister Man’s backpack, and off he went.

The next morning was an off day at work for me, so I was getting Mister Man ready. As I went to put a snack in his backpack (strawberries), I realized my husband had never gone through his backpack the night before. I pulled out all the papers of work that Mister Man had done before. At the bottom of the backpack lay a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I held up the bag and showed it to my husband.

Me: Umm, what are these?
Him: That’s odd. Mister Man must not have eaten his snack yesterday.
Me: Uhhh, you can’t send anything homemade for snack. It’s sort of a district-wide policy.
Him: I didn’t know that.
Me: You teach in the district. How can you not know that? And what about the healthy snack policy?
Him: We have a healthy snack policy?
Me: Uhhh yeah… remember the paper that was hanging on the cabinet all year talking about go and slow and whoa foods? It had examples of each for what to send and not send for snack?
Him: Total blank look
Me: You never even noticed the bright red sheet of paper, did you?
Him: There was a red sheet of paper?

Really, that should have been my clue for Wednesday, when I was also working – fortunately from home. Remember, Wednesday swim day? As I was getting Little Miss dressed, I called downstairs and asked what swimsuit Mister Man was wearing that day (you’re supposed to put it on under your clothes and send a set of clean underwear).

The scampering of feet I heard indicated that no suit had been prepared. A minute or so later, I called out asking what towel he was sending. Given the answer I received, I walked to the linen closet, grabbed his Thomas towel and tossed it downstairs.

When the bus came, I went out to say goodbye to Mister Man. As he was getting on the bus, it dawned on me that my husband may not have thought to put our name on the towel. I unzippered the backpack and discovered… yep, a swimsuit and no towel.

My husband ran inside to get the towel and a Sharpie. As he started coming out the door, I saw that he had one of our bath towels and not the Thomas towel that I’d brought downstairs and put on the steps by the door so no one could miss it. Needless to say, we’re lucky we have a patient bus driver, as it took a few minutes to straighten out the towel issue.

We have only two weeks left of summer school now. The good news is that my husband is finally starting to remember all the things he needs to do each morning. Granted, his snack is usually graham crackers, but he did remember to put the swimsuit on under Mister Man’s clothes last week and put the underwear in the backpack.

But we still have a problem with emptying the backpack. For some reason, that never gets done (well, except by me). Fortunately, Mister Man doesn’t yet have homework. By the time he’s in elementary school though, I somehow have to get my husband to learn to empty the backpack.

But really, 90% accuracy is pretty good, right? For a guy at least….