For the Men

So, everybody's been going over (and over and over) the whole Rosen/Romney dust-up. And I'm not going to, other than to say that being a stay home Mom is a whole lotta work. Other people, men and women, have said that a lot more eloquently and forcefully than I can. That's not what this post is for. This post is for the men that make stay home mommism possible.

 This is one of my favorite pictures of James. This is more or less what he'd like to be doing every day, along with composing music, writing children's video games, improving his already considerable cooking skills, learning more about carpentry, and just enjoying his family. But those aren't the things he does every day.

 He gets up early (for a night owl, anyway)and goes to work at Amazon. There, he writes software that's awesome, but not as much fun as children's video games would be. He eats a lunch that's good, but not as good as it would have been if he could have made it. He listens to music that's not his while he's wracking his brains trying to figure out why "X" piece of code isn't working. He sits at a desk that is literally a door on blocks, instead of at the beautiful table we made together. And he earns enough money to make sure that I can stay home. He comes home exhausted from sheer mental effort. He comes home just in time to make sure he can eat with the boys and enjoy their company for a while (which, in case your experience with five-and-two-year-old boys is out of date, is also a form of work) before they have to go to bed, because he misses them. And then, with the little time he has left, he tries to decompress enough to sleep. So he can get up and do it all the next morning. Oh, and somewhere in there, he squeezes in a workout.

 It's not fair. Yes, I do a lot of work around here, and he does a lot of work in Seattle, but... I'm not shot at the end of the day-- but he is, because he does this for us. I had time to do something that I wanted to today, just for me-- because he does this for us. I have time to work out in the middle of the day, because we pay for a membership at the Y-- because he does this for us. I have a beautiful home-- because he does this for us. I have an incredible life, because he does this for us.

 It's so easy to run down men. You can hear everything from "Oppressive patriarchy!" to "Lazy" to "If he'd just do dishes" in an afternoon. Sometimes from the same person! But men aren't what they're painted as. Generally speaking, they're not monsters, or jerks, or eternal teenage boys. They're wonderful people who get up and take care of their families as best they can. They're people who sacrifice their free time and hobbies and money and dreams because they've found something worth that sacrifice and are brave enough to see it through. Men are incredible.

Especially you, James. Love you:)