Gotta Have Faith da Faith da Faith

You know all those jokes about the wife always being right and the husband being too stupid to figure it out till after the fact? Well, it's the opposite in our house. Steve is always right. And I'm not saying that with a hint of sarcasm either. Really! I can't tell you how many times I've ended up calling him in the middle of the day to say out loud those 3 words nobody likes to say: You were right! However, even after 11 years of marriage, I still always have to come up with reasons to doubt him. I don't know why, it's like some kind of sick reflex, a lesson I cannot learn, which is to just have some faith in my husband!
Lately, I think I might finally be making strides in this area though. We've had a lot of stuff break around the house lately. I don't consider us the Do-It-Yourself types, but Steve does fix computers and printers for a living so he's been transferring that knowledge to appliances lately. Our washer broke twice earlier this year and both times Steve was able to figure out the problem and fix it. I was impressed. So, when, in the last 2 weeks our basement tv, the washer (yes, again!) and our microwave broke and Steve wanted to try and fix them, I swallowed my doubt and said, yeah, go ahead and let's see what you can do. He was able to figure out the problem with the tv, order the needed part and fix it. He then figured out what was wrong with the washer and is in the process of ordering the part for that as well. The microwave, alas, could not be saved (we knew what the problem was but it proved to be unfixable). But 2 out of 3 is not bad at all! I'm getting really proud of him by this point. I'm seriously impressed at his fixing abilities. I don't know if I'm ready for him to rip up our flooring and install some laminate like he's been wanting to do for the past few years himself, but I'm pretty much ready to hand him anything appliance related over to him to give it a try. He's got a real talent and has even inspired me to maybe overcome my fear of decorating the house myself for fear of doing a bad job because having a little faith in him means I might have a little in myself as well.

Distracted Mom Syndrome

My family swears I'm going deaf. Seriously. The hubs has even gone so far as to subtly suggest that a hearing test isn't out of the question. It' s because half the time anyone talks to me I answer with "What?" or "What was that? Can you repeat that?" However, I am here today to defend my hearing, so don't worry people, it's not deafness, it's DMS--Distracted Mom Syndrome. Never heard of it? Well, I bet you can guess what it's referring to. It's what happens when you have 4 different voices constantly coming at you from all sides when you are trying to do ________________(fill in the blank). Yep, from doing the dishes, to getting dressed, to making meals, it's not enough to have to concentrate on these tasks without answering a hundred questions and/or needs at once as well. So it's a problem of concentration I say, not hearing. I'm not much of a multi-tasker. In fact, once upon a time my preferred method of doing things was one at a time. I have a great ability to focus on one thing at a time and then move on to the next thing. However, my acute ability to focus, while serving me in the past, is a pure hindrance as a mom. Having my focus constantly broken is what has led to my "hearing loss" dear family. If only they could form a line and ask me something one at a time once I was done with something. Only, I've noticed, I'm never done with my "somethings" and so am I just trying to avoid my family? Maybe... And I was joking about the forming a line thing too...
Anyways, what is a mom to do? If you, like me, are afflicted with DMS are we to just drop everything and serve those little needs that are constantly bombarding us? Like anything else, I'm sure there's some kind of balance that can be reached, but till then, I'll stick with the prescription of hiding in a corner with a book for awhile till the voices die down...ok, or maybe I'll work harder to teach my kids to wait or do more things for themselves or maybe I will just go get those hearing aids and then proceed to turn them off between the hours of 10-2 so mommy can have a hearing break :)