It’s not often my husband and I fight. We might bicker a little, and there are those “hormonal times” where I hit the fan because of stupid things he might say or do, but in general we get along very well. However, there is one thing we just can’t seem to get around – and I don’t think we will for as long as we have little ones. It is the never-ending weekend-question: who gets to sleep in and who’s getting up with the kids!?

Neither one of us are morning people. During the week we have no choice but to get up early, but when the weekend arrives, we both embrace the fact that we don’t have to be anywhere by a certain time. Saturday morning rolls by and we lay in bed, pretending we can’t hear the woken child. We’re both waiting for the other person to make a move, and we’re getting increasingly more annoyed when no move is being made. Finally one of us will get up, with various angry things mumbled along the way. And for the remainder of the day, the person who got up will make sure to point this out to the other person with comments about being tired and how nice it must have been to sleep in!

We decided that it was time to do something about this whole scenario. Some friends of ours told us, that they simply decide and agree who gets to sleep in the night prior. It seemed like one of those bullet proof why-didn’t-we-think-of-that-ideas. I found out that the reason we didn’t think of this, might have something to do with the fact that we have very different ideas of what it means to let someone sleep in! Let me specify by walking you through this past weekend:

It was easily agreed that my husband would sleep in on the first morning, since he had been out playing poker the night prior. At 6.am the baby wakes up and this is how wife of the century (that would be me) handles this. (If this passage had a soundtrack, it would be secret agent spy stuff, similar to the mission impossible theme). At the first sound of the baby waking up I slip out from under the blanket with quiet precision. I quiet the baby-babble with a swift pacifier-in-mouth-move and with silent meticulousness grab necessary effects such as middle-child’s baby monitor before exiting the room as I softly whisper I love you to my dreaming husband (……okay, maybe that last part was an exaggeration, but this is my story after all!) For the rest of that day, we had a lovely time, and I was very excited to be sleeping in the next morning. I even stayed up a bit longer than I usually would and had myself an extra glass of wine…….

BUT!!!! (and if this passage had a soundtrack it would be heavy metal!). The next morning husband is passed out when the baby wakes up. I have to kick him several times before he starts moaning, yawning and stretching, with enough volume to make a walrus feel inadequate. He proceeds to have VERY LOUD, granted very sweet, fatherly conversation with his daughter -  “Aww are you awake”, “ohhh you slept so good”, “I looove you”! And then he decides that maybe he doesn’t want to get up? maybe he can just make the bottle and bring the baby back into the bed and feed her there, resulting in both of them being loud, right next to me, and baby continuously pulling at the back of my hair! I am wide awake and furious!! I am not trying to sway anyone here (yes I am), but I think we can easily agree who seems to understand the concept of letting someone sleep in and who doesn’t!?

I’m sure most couples have their arguments, the one thing they just can’t seem to get around. Who knows, maybe it adds some excitement to a relationship? One thing I DO KNOW is that next weekend when the question rises Who’s getting up? My husband is! And if he has anything else to say about this matter, well then he can get his own blog and write about it!