I learned something new about myself today

I don't really know if it is something NEW, really, just something that I never really thought about before.

Todd and I had gone to the store and picked up something for dinner tonight. Spaghetti with salad. Easy enough, right? So, we get home and Jonas wants to take a walk on the dike and Todd does the honors. Yay! I can actually come in the house and pee without a toddler keeping me company. This is the single best thing ever. If you are a mom you will completely agree with me. Having done my bathroom business, I go to the kitchen and begin the dinner preparations. Well, I TRY to begin dinner prep only to see that Todd has done exactly 9 out of about 30 dishes in the sink from last nights Chicken curry dinner. You see, what he does is washes the biggest things and loads up the dish rack and wanders away. I am sure he fully intends to come back and do another round. He always gets sidetracked and never finishes. And I am stuck with not only last nights dishes and leftover noodles that have cemented themselves in the colander - but ice cold murky dishwater that he never emptied from the sink. LOVELY, I think to myself with a sigh. So, I begin the dishes and am simultaneously trying to brown the turkey, boil the water for spaghetti, make up the salad and keep a toddler occupied - they have since come inside and Todd has sequestered himself at the computer on Myspace...and then he takes his 35 books into the bathroom for what can only be considered a marathon training session of some sort. Anyway, I am getting more and more steamed because I am cooking, cleaning and having attention demanded from a nearly 2 year old. Todd finally emerged ( triumphant) from the bathroom after he hears me trying to do everything at once. I don't know how he could have possibly missed this on his way into the bathroom, but I guess when nature calls for a guy, you can't concentrate on anything else. I tried to kindly tell him that I would really REALLY appreciate it if he did more than 9 dishes in a sitting. He seemed to listen. I then went to strain the noodles from the boiling water and neglected to notice that the plug was still in the sink. Well, I emptied that water/noodle jumble into the colander and the water just swirled up and around the colander and SAT there. Mmmm...soapy slimy pasta for dinner everyone! Come and get it! Woo!

At this point I was kind of staring into the sink when Mr. Helpful himself comes over and looks in and sighs "Why didn't you just strain the noodles the way I do?" ( He does this thing where he puts the colander inside the pot 'o boiling water and strains it that way - I am sure that isn't safe). I looked at him and gaped a bit like a fish. I weakly claimed that we could rinse the noodles, knowing that neither one of us would eat and we certainly wouldn't want to feed it to Jonas. I quick looked and found more noodles to cook, to which Todd morosely asked if there would be enough for his lunch tomorrow. I assured him there would be and dinner was back on track...until I peeled the cucumber and it flew out of my hand and smack into the trash can. I decided that I was just not meant to have a good night and snuffled a bit about my self imposed pity party.

I got dinner on the table after Todd told me to snap out of it. He then proceeded to ask what had been bothering me lately because I have been getting in a progressively worse mood for a while now. I hadn't realized that I had been in a bad mood, so I said that nothing has been bothering me and asked what he meant. He said that I have been complaining non stop. About people that I work with, about everything, really. He said that I jump on anything I perceive as getting shorted on, too. Wow. Talk about a sting. So, I sat there and thought. I guess I rally am negative about the people I work with or know. My one friend is constantly calling me to whine about something or other and is never happy with anything EVER, it seems. I guess it has really rubbed off on me and I need to find a way to turn this around, because I certainly don't want to be THAT person, know what I mean? So, I guess I am going to have to stuff that negativity down inside somewhere and let my happy person out. The biggest problem I am having with this is, I thought I WAS that happy person. The person with the sunshiny attitude, that positive go getter. I had this view of myself that was apparently completely and utterly wrong. It hurts when you find out that you have worked so hard to be something and thought you were successful at it only to learn that you suck big time. So, here's to a new and happy person. Let's hope!