Dear FireMan: (LONGer than I intended)

I love you. I really do. And I love & appreciate that you work hard. I really do. And I really appreciate the work you did last night to completely clean out our jungle of a basement. I really, really do.

However, please stop being pissy because I did not kiss your feet when I came home after being gone for 12 hours. Please stop acting like I spent all day shopping or chatting with my girlfriends, when in fact my day consisted of :
 - working 8 hours outside of the home
 - driving 45 minutes to my therapy appt
 - therapy appt
 - driving 45 min to my parents' house
 - eating supper
 - fighting to give FireGirl a bath
 - feeding FireGirl her snack & getting her ready for bed
 - driving 45 minutes back home

I really do appreciate the work you do. I do. I had actually planned on showing you my appreciation (wink, wink) last night. I miss you. I love you. And I appreciate your hard work.

But when you make comments about how I need to get myself home to help or your throwing my stuff out, or how you're not doing such-and-such because you worked today so I should do it, or any other comment implying that I did not, or do not, work - well... it makes it difficult for me to appreciate you so much. It makes me not want to "appreciate" you at all (wink, wink). It kinda makes me want you to go back to the firehouse.

You worked really hard for about five hours last night cleaning out the basement. I know it was hard work. I know it was. I'm thankful that you did it.

But I work hard to. After coming home from my eight hour day at work, I usually spend 1-2 hours doing housework, not counting taking care of FireGirl (feedings, baths, dressing, diapers, etc). No, it's not five hours at a stretch. No, it doesn't yield the dramatic results of cleaning an entire basement in an evening. But it's also not once every few months. It's pretty much every night. And it gives us all clean clothes to wear and clean dishes to eat off of, and food in our cupboards.

So, next time, before you get all pissy because I didn't bow down to kiss your feet for doing whatever your one dramatic job was that you completed, ask yourself when was the last time you bowed down & kissed my feet for keeping this house running, for taking care of our daughter. Ask yourself when was the last time you showed me a little appreciation for the constant work that I do around the house, and think about how all those "little" things that I do daily add up to quite a bit more than any one chunk of time that you spend doing your big, dramatic tasks.

Thank you.