What do you get when you cross a mustang and a bobcat?... Marital Problems.

When I started working on Wife. Mom. Cynic., I was looking to arguments between Sweetness and me to serve as a constant source of material for my blog. Our fights can, after all, be quite entertaining. Take the time we had a knock-down-drag-out over which onesie Zach was going to wear to the SMU vs. Texas State football game – our alma maters. Zach had a SMU onesie that Sweetness insisted that he wear, but I had made a big sign that read, “What do you get when you cross a Mustang and a Bobcat?” And then it had an arrow that pointed down off the sign. The idea was to hold the sign up and then put Zach underneath the sign – as in, this is what you get when you cross the two. Get the idea? Well, if the point of the sign that I worked so hard on, was to show what you get when you cross a Mustang and a Bobcat, my argument was, "Why the heck would he be wearing a SMU Mustangs onesie?" That doesn’t reflect hybrid!

We almost didn’t go to the game over that one.

But somewhere along the way our arguments have begun to taper off. Not completely because we had a good one yesterday. One of those pre-work fights that start in the bathroom, move to the kitchen and end up in the garage when one person tears off to the office. It’d been awhile, so we were due for another one. This one was because Zach’s nanny was really late getting to our house and we both needed to leave to get to work, so the argument was over who was going to stay home with Zach and wait for her.

This is where it gets ugly.

Sweetness proceeds to say, and I paraphrase, that he needed to be the one to leave because his job was more important than mine.

*Gasp*...Clutch my pearls...regain composure.

Through clenched teeth, I explained to him that although I work from home most of the time, my job goes far beyond what I do professionally. Let’s talk about all those loads of clothes I washed and folded the night before, or that dinner I cooked and the dishes I washed (put in the dishwasher.) And let’s not forget about who, most days, gets to be locked in the house with a 2-year-old having conversations about cookies and counting to five and watching television shows, like the one on now, where a family of brown bear puppets is in the bed, dressed in pajamas, teaching us what it means to hibernate.

Seriously, I should’ve grabbed my own golf club and nine-ironed somebody with it.

We both went to work pissed off. But then at about 2:15 p.m., in a much appreciated act of contrition, Sweetness sent me a text message. I sexted him back. And it was aaaaaall good in the ‘hood.

We’re getting better at communicating and it makes a big difference. I guess we figure if we want to be old people together, it would probably be in our best interest not to kill each other before then. So that means we have to be nice when we don’t feel like it. We have to always forgive the other person’s many screw-ups. We have to pick our battles, which is very difficult for me because I would argue over sunshine if given the opportunity. And most importantly, we have to accept each other’s differences. Why somebody would ever brush their teeth, then put their entire head in the bathroom sink and put their mouth on the faucet to collect water to rinse with, I’ll never understand, but I’ve accepted it. Guh-ross.

Oh and by the way, the sign I made for the SMU/Texas State football game got us on NBC 5’s sports highlights that night, just as I intended.