Runaway October

Marie over at Trail Mix did a rewrite of the infa­mous “Good Wife’s Guide”. She did a great job mak­ing it more “home maker” friendly and up to date. Unfor­tu­nately, it just shows how far I am from hav­ing a per­fect house. So I thought I’d rewrite her rewrite, for enter­tai­ment purposes.

• Have din­ner ready. Plan ahead. Once-a-month cook­ing, and plan­ning your menus in advance can really help make this eas­ier. He’ll appre­ci­ate it, the kids will appre­ci­ate it, and you’ll have one less thing to worry about. Try to have his favorites as often as pos­si­ble and you’ll [have] him brag­ging you up to all of his friends.
  • Plan out menus ahead of time, mak­ing sure to include lots of scrump­tious choices. Buy mostly every­thing you need, for­get­ting only the impor­tant ingre­di­ents. For­get to defrost any­thing. Make excuses and whip together some Ham­burger Helper.
• Pre­pare your­self. Take 15 min­utes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. If your hus­band works in an office and you’re at home, be very aware that women who work with him dress ‘for the office’ with nice shoes, skirts, make-up, and nice hair. Make sure that what he comes home to looks just as good. (I got this advice from a pastor’s wife)
  • Try to shower weekly. Be very aware that women who work with him dress “for the office”. Let this effect your self-esteem and become con­vinced that you’ll always look like a water-buffalo for the rest of your life.
• Try to talk about some­thing more than Johnny’s potty at sup­per. Engage in intel­li­gent, inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion with him. Make sure he’s happy to be at home with you. Read inter­est­ing blogs and sites so that you have things to talk about.
  • Read blogs that inter­est you and stop your brain from dis­in­te­grat­ing. Try to share your inter­ests with your hus­band. Real­ize that he’s not lis­ten­ing and change the sub­ject back to him. Appear to under­stand when he talks about Dis­tri­b­u­tions, Emu­la­tions, and pack­age Updates.
• Clear away clut­ter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your hus­band arrives.
  • Try to make it to the front door when he gets home with­out trip­ping and send­ing the already scream­ing baby flying.
• Gather up school­books, toys, paper, etc and then run a dust cloth over the tables. The last thing any­one wants to see when they walk in the door is clut­ter, mess and dirt.
  • Shove every­thing in the closet or garage. He never goes into them anyway.
• Over the cooler months of the year you should pre­pare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your hus­band will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, cater­ing for his com­fort will give you immense per­sonal sat­is­fac­tion. (I’m not even touch­ing that. As sex­ist as that might sound, most peo­ple who choose to be at home full-time, as their cho­sen pro­fes­sion, really do gain per­sonal sat­is­fac­tion from mak­ing loved ones feel cared for.)
  • Find a YouTube of a burn­ing log fire and set it as your screen­saver. Maybe he’ll notice.
• Pre­pare the chil­dren. Take a few min­utes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair, and if nec­es­sary, change their clothes. They are lit­tle trea­sures and he would like to see them play­ing the part.
  • Get chil­dren dressed for the first time that day. Diapers/underpants at least.
• Min­i­mize all noise. At the time of his arrival, elim­i­nate all noise of the washer, dryer or vac­uum. Try to encour­age the chil­dren to be quiet. Again, the last thing any­one wants is chaos when they enter the house. Extend this prin­ci­ple to times when any­one enters the house. (Gryphon says that he’s happy with hugs and kisses and then “Just let me catch my breath before supper.”)
  • Ask the kids to bring things to a dull roar. Pull ear buds out of your ears, you should be able to hear him speak now.
• Be happy to see him.
  • You really are happy to see another adult in KiddyWorld.
• Greet him with a warm smile and show sin­cer­ity in your desire to please him. The truth is, a happy, con­tent hus­band, who knows that you’re com­mit­ted to his hap­pi­ness, is more likely to do the things you want.
  • A happy, con­tent hus­band means you’re over­stressed and doing the work of two peo­ple. This will cause you to be committed.
• Lis­ten to him. You may have a dozen impor­tant things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Trust me, there are women who would gladly let him vent about his day over a nice, quiet glass of wine, and they’ll pat his hand and sym­pa­thize about how you just don’t lis­ten. Don’t let that look like an appeal­ing option for him.
  • Don’t bother telling him those impor­tant things. He’ll just for­get and it’ll end up being your fault.
• Make the evening a pleas­ant time for fam­ily and then for each other. Recon­nect after being apart. If you have cer­tain rit­u­als at meal time, your chil­dren will remem­ber them and copy some­day. My mother always set the table prop­erly no mat­ter what we were eat­ing. Today I still love cloth nap­kins and tablecloths.
  • I can’t even touch this one. If it was easy to turn a choatic day into a peace­ful night I’d do it. Alas, chaos reigns supreme.
• Your goal: try to make your home a place of peace, order and tran­quil­ity where your hus­band can renew him­self in body and spirit.
  • Good Goal. Unat­tain­able, but good.
• Don’t greet him with com­plaints and prob­lems. There’s a time for that, but not when he first walks in the door.
  • The time for that is in your head. If you actu­ally voice your com­plaints and prob­lems they’ll get laughed off as jokes.
• Don’t com­plain if he’s late home for din­ner once in a while, but you’re a fool not to ques­tion if it hap­pens often.
  • You know that if you actu­ally get din­ner done and on time he’ll be late. With­out fail.
• Be a part­ner. Not a nag, not a door­mat, not his boss. Remem­ber that men view our friendly reminders as crit­i­cism, and they don’t usu­ally deal well with that. Boost him up, com­pli­ment him, make sure he knows that he’s your per­sonal hero, your knight in shin­ing armor, and the only man you want.
  • A part­ner­ship works both ways. Might as well be a door­mat or a nag because the only boost­ing you’ll get is from your bra and com­pli­ments come from your mom.
• A good wife knows her role in the mar­riage and fam­ily and how impor­tant she is to her hus­band and chil­dren. She knows her strengths and weak­nesses and works hard to always improve herself.
  • A good wife knows that she is impor­tant because were she to stop work­ing 24/7 the house would catch fire, the kids would starve and the hus­band would never be to work on time.

I would love to be the “good” wife. First I’d have to get mar­ried, then I’d need to hire a maid, nanny and cook. Those are my first two goals.

What do you think?

You might also like these related posts:

• On Being a Stay-At-Home Mama
• Menu Help?
• Christ­mas ’07
• 2008 Res­o­lu­tions
• I’m torn