The Broken Down View

Well... The old internet's been out for a couple of days. May I apologize to my faithful followers. I must admit that I have had little time to blog over the past week anyway. I've been very preoccupied celebrating my 'birthday week'... and let me assure you that I will be blogging about birthday celebrations around here, since they are the source of many discrepancies... not this year, I am proud to say, but just in general... our biggest 'blowouts' here in the Rockey house almost always take place on a holiday or birthday. Stay tuned... more to come.

Now to the topic of the day... THE CABLE GUY.

As David left for work this morning, he let me know that the FIOS guy would be here between 8:00 and 12:00.

"Great." I said with a hint of sarcasm.

I rarely leave the house, but today seemed like a good morning to get out for a bit. Subconsciously, I'm sure the only reason that I really wanted to get out of the house was probably because I knew I couldn't. The human heart is funny that way.

Of course, David replied with his typical 'glass half full' attitude and a shrug of the shoulders.

"Well... it's before nap time." he says nonchalantly.

First of all... don't get me started on the nonchalant 'shoulder shrug'. It comes naturally to my husband, just like everything else. For instance... David had the kids for most of the weekend, since I had an unusually insane schedule. As I came in late sunday evening, he proceeded to tell me that the kids took 3 hour naps at the same time... so he reseeded the yard and got a nap in himself. Then they went out on the town for the evening, got home at 9:00 and , by the way, they went to bed perfectly. This is typical for anything my husband does. Life has always been easy for him... so I guess a shoulder shrug would be in order.

Anyway, I felt twinge of rage surge through my body as he shrugged his shoulders and started off to work. Now, don't get me wrong, I suppressed it quickly and we parted ways with a romantic, impromptu waltz around the kitchen followed by a twirl, dip and passionate kiss. We're very whimsical like that.
But, in the back of my mind I thought "Man... that guy has no clue what goes on here all day."

Anyway, I waited around for the cable guy to get here, hoping to catch him before Elliot's morning nap, but as 10:30 rolled around I had a very cranky little boy on my hands, so I decided to go ahead and put him down. Well... after spending ten minutes getting Baby Brotha to sleep... at the exact moment that I am laying him down... here it comes... hysterical, barking dog followed by loud banging on the front door. You see, most likely 'Cable Guy' has never been home trying to juggle sleeping babies... and his vicious knock proves my theory.

I quickly answered the door then checked on Elliot... and luckily he had soothed himself back to sleep. I took a deep breath as I prematurely assumed that the crisis had been avoided.

I guess I could go into annoying details of the next hour and a half of the day, but I'll just leave you with a brief picture.

Cable Guy, roaming around my front and back yard for 30 minutes, then finally pulling out a metal, clanking ladder... right outside of Baby Brotha's window. Cable Guy gets off the ladder and scoots it loudly across the perimeter of the house for the next hour. Of course Elliot was awake by then as Millie Precious barked for the entire hour.

Then I suddenly flash back to David's nonchalant shoulder shrug. That's it! He's about to get an ear full.
Not the 'I'm mad at you' ear full, but the 'I really wish you could try and understand' ear full.

Ear full went something like this...

"Hey baby, How's your day going? Oh, good... glad you got your new truck all fixed up this morning. Sounds like fun. What? You're walking into P.F. Changs for lunch? Oh, that's great... I'll keep it quick. Remember that nonchalant shoulder shrug you gave me as I expressed a little annoyance about the Cable Guy coming? Well... I just want to give you a little glimpse into my day. Now, I know that this is absolutely not your fault and there's nothing you can do about it, but I want you to understand why I get annoyed by your 'glass half full, nonchalant shoulder shrug'.
 Cable guy. Banging on the front door as I'm laying Elliot down. Nap time... out the window. Yes... that's Millie barking hysterically, she's been at it for an hour. Thank God (and my dear friend Jennifer) that Evangeline is quietly watching 'LITTLE STEWART' the whole time. But that is just God's Grace on me. So... no nap, cranky baby, barking dog and I'm answering the door every ten minutes in between cleaning bathrooms and feeding children, in my opinion, that deserves a ROUND OF APPLAUSE... not a shoulder shrug.
I love you so much, baby. Thanks for listening. I can't wait to see you when you get home. Have a great day!"