- I took Lizzy for dentist and my heart was turned for a good 90 min. She had a big molar that we’ve been fixing for a while and every time she goes to a procedure I get nervous how painful it would be for her. I heard a lot of cries yesterday and it was soooo hard to bare it. I texted husband that I was devastated, wanting to run into the room and “rescue” her from the torture. She was fine the rest of the afternoon and probably forgot about it. But I was deeply affected. I just wanted to hug her for the rest of the day. She’s 5 and I am surprised that I thought this would get easier, it doesn’t. It’s so true HAVING KIDS TO HAVE YOUR HEART HANG OUTSIDE OF YOUR BODY.
- We had another session of outdoor boxing class with Rey. The guy who trained for the first time. Later I went to the gym twice and didn’t like the experience as much as with Rey. To start, he seems a nice guy. Our session is 90 min with him, exclusively boxing, no circuit training but rounds of 3 min each in repeat. Husband got hungry by 8:30am so he left early and I ended up doing 30 min with Rey doing both rounds. I was finished when we finished. As we walked back, I asked him how he is coping with the pandemic. Gyms are closed again, meaning he’s unemployed again. He told me that it is very hard. When the gym is closed and there is no client coming in to train, he gets nothing, zero, not even for food from the gym. Even when gym was open recently, very few people comes. When someone comes to train, he gets only 1 dollar out of 10 dollar that the gym charges the client. WTF? 1 dollar? that’s so little. When he trains us outdoor, it’s all for him. After I told husband this, he said let’s train with him then. I fully agree. The pandemic has been hard for every body, especially those that works with no-work-no-pay. We can’t help everyone, but when we can, I definitely should. I also introduced him to a mom friend who also wants to try boxing. hopefully she likes him too.
- Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed with work and running a household, to the point that I resent my husband. I know he does more than some of my friends husband but I also feel that keeping going like that, I’ll burn out. So I told him I’ll make a list of things that need to be done by someone for our family, and he can pick what he’ll take care of. Here’s the list I came up with, probably not comprehensive but most of it, and our agreed division. I think writing it out was helpful for both of us to see what entails to run a household, and what I’ve been doing prior to this (90%). Now that we know our division, I won’t feel I’m forcing/begging him to do things as they are his chosen responsibilities. I am still doing more and that is okay. Let’s see how it goes.
Household tasks
- Buy groceries big load (husband)
- Order groceries (wife)
- Buy small things (both)
- Plan meals daily (wife)
- Pay bills (husband)
- Fix car (husband)
- Schedule kids activities: piano lizzy, piano Sofia, kumon, mandarin, mandarin kids, Hansika, soccer, piano practice (wife)
- Take Sofia to soccer (both)
- Take Sofia to golf (wife)
- Pay kids activities fees (husband)
- Check homework: Lizzy kumon math, Sofia kumon math, Lizzy workbooks, mandarin Sofia (husband)
- Plan family activities/trips (wife)
- School communication (wife)
- Plan kids play dates (wife)
- Buy kids clothes (wife)
- Buy kids school supplies (both)
- Fish tank maintenance (husband)
- Remind kids to connect to classes (both)
- Monthly finance (wife)
- US house maintenance (wife)
I know that we are privilege to have helpers to do cleaning/cooking/take kids to things when we can’t. As long as we appreciate each others’ effort and run a household as teammates, this system could work with or without helper. 🙂
Q: how do you divide tasks with your significant other?
Our New Journey 
I always think I do more, too. I definitely do like ALL of the kids admin stuff (signing up for activities, dealing with teacher emails, etc.). I think my husband doesn’t even realize how much time goes into that. We share the cleaning, but I do more day to day cleaning like wiping down the countertops, etc. I also do way more of “organizing” things- like, he never cleans out closets or the kitchen drawers. He cuts the grass and does basic yard work, and he also does all of our laundry. I usually grocery shop…I feel like I’d like him to start taking some of this over though. He is fine with it, but I always just feel like it’s easier for me to do just do it. We both deal with money stuff some but I tend to be the one to update our spreadsheet/budget. I definitely feel like I am more in charge of many household things, but he is pretty good about helping out. Way better than many guys, I think. I just don’t think he fully realizes the “mental” burden that many moms have to deal with. He just will ask me, what’s going on this week? And not realize the time and effort that went in to making everything happen/ get scheduled/ etc.
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