Pet peeves

Like everyone, I have lots of pet peeves, and I've just had to deal with two big ones this evening--both connected to my husband.

C had several make-up softball games tonight, so I was on dinner, bath, and bedtime duty by myself. The evening went smoothly until I started nursing S before his bedtime. As usual, he instantly fell asleep, although not soundly. After about 15 minutes of nursing on one side, I switched him to the other, as I typically do. For some reason, tonight he woke up screaming and screamed for 15 minutes. This in itself is not unheard of although it is somewhat unusual. I managed to get him calmed down and nursing again, but every 10 minutes or so he would thrash and cry for a few minutes. I tried walking him, I tried rocking him, and nothing worked. So after 45 minutes without any luck, I finally gave in and called C, as I knew both games were over and he was likely drinking beer in the parking lot of the softball field, and told him the situation, and asked him to come home and give me a hand. The first pet peeve: I do not like to ask for help. I especially do not like to ask for help when I know my husband is surrounded by a bunch of other beer-drinking men, many of whom do not have children. I know a lot of these guys--I used to play softball with them myself--so I can only imagine the hard time they gave C about being called home. I know that is all macho crap and doesn't really mean much, but I still hate that I had to call him to ask for help.

So he came home, and he was able to do what I couldn't--he successfully rocked S to sleep in about 15 minutes with minimal crying. For some reason, S refuses to let me rock him to sleep. It's nursing until he's asleep or nothing. Once C was done and fairly certain S wasn't going to wake up, I told him if he wanted to go back out that was ok with me. Second pet peeve: he said you don't want me to, do you? Well, dear husband, I wouldn't have said it was ok if it wasn't. He then proceeded to say he didn't want to go, and then he decided he did after finding out if one of his friends was still at the ball park. Then he asked me at least three more times if it was all right with me if he went, which increasingly irritated me. He eventually did go back out, but only after he had really annoyed me. I hate it when he doesn't take me at my word. When I asked him why he had to question me, he gave me a very lame answer: "I'm stupid." I hate that sort of response as much as his need to think I'm not telling him the truth.

I try very hard not to be the sort of wife who makes her husband figure out what she means. If I wanted him to stay home and hang out with me, I wouldn't have told him to go drink beer in a parking lot, and I would have asked him to stay home.