Here’s a chance for YOU to give the advice…
Question:
Should you tell your spouse when they have bad breath? What if you are out in public?
Speak up in the comments.
Quick Tip: Keeping Comfortable At Night With Frozen Food
This month is Survive The Heat In Your Bed month. The Donkey provides tips on staying cool in the hot summer nights.
Otter Pops To The Rescue
With Summer in full swing, I decided to provide several tips on keeping cool at night. Sleeping next to someone in the Summer heat is no easy task, especially when your bedroom is on the third floor and your thermostat is on the second. My wife always seems to feel cold and likes to sleep with a blanket and curl up next to me, but I just can’t take it in the Summer.
This first idea is inexpensive and relatively easy to implement. Purchase a box of Otter Pops and freeze them as soon as you get home. When you are going to bed that night, grab a few Otter Pops. You now have a few options. First, you could create a frozen barrier by lining the Otter Pops down the middle of the bed. Unlike the Eskimos of yore, your wife will be unlikely to cross the uninhabitable tundra. Second, you could lay the Otter Pops horizontally on the bed in a single column. Place your sheet over the tasty treats and lay down on them. Third, you might simply put a few in the bottom of your pillow case. I’ve heard your head is the key to regulating body heat, so this might be an easy solution.
If things are really bad, you might need to grab a few bags of frozen vegetables or meat. My wife could potentially roll over the Otter Pops, get even colder, and then try harder to get our bodies to generate synergistic heat. With a bag of broccoli and some frozen steaks in her way, your wife will be unable to cross the treacherous conditions.
Feel free to email pictures if you decide to try this, and I will post them on the blog.
Is it OK For a Husband and Wife To Display PDA?
Here’s a chance for YOU to give the advice.
Question:
What do you think is the appropriate amount of PDA* between a couple?
Let us know in the comments.
*PDA=Public Displays of Affection
Don’t Compare Your Wife’s Figure to the Magazines–Especially Tabloids!
Lesson 24: Mama Mia!
My wife and I always laugh when our kids point out that we look like someone on the street. For me, my kids usually point to a scrawny Hispanic male whose hair is shaved short; and for my wife, my kids usually point to a female with curly dark hair. We never think the kids are even close, but it is usually comical. This last time was the funniest yet.
Wife Lesson: Don’t tell your wife that she looks like someone if that person is found in a sensational magazine or if that person could be mistaken for an animal.
Every Saturday I bring our 3 boys grocery shopping. It isn’t a problem until we get to the checkout line because I end up picking the most inept person in the store. This last week I decided to pass the time by reading one of those weird magazines that have the made up stories. I flipped through the pages and came across an article about the fattest baby ever born. It said something like, “Fattest couple gives birth to fattest baby.” I laughed as I looked at the ridiculous picture – obviously doctored. My oldest son looked over my shoulder, pointed to the mother, and said, “That looks like mommy.” Stunned, I ignored his comment and turned around so he wouldn’t see me laughing. I snapped a photo with my phone, put the magazine away, and came home. So far I hadn’t done anything wrong.
My mistake came when I got home. I was planning on not telling my wife about the incident, but it was too funny to pass up. “Look who our kids thought you looked like,” I said as I showed her the picture on my phone. She was even more shocked than I was, and she obviously regretted seeing the picture. I tried to assure her that the photo did not resemble her at all, but the damage was done.
My suggestion: Kids say funny things, but sometimes they should be forgotten and not shared. I should have walked over to People magazine and gotten a picture of Jessica Simpson or something.
It’s a Boy, and He Needs a Name!
Our Own Basketball Team
As one of our friends mentioned, it’s too bad The Donkey is so short, because–including Daddy–we will now have our own little basketball team. And I will go from being outnumbered to being completely overwhelmed and possibly going insane.
That’s right–for those of you who didn’t already catch it on our Twitter Feed, we are having boy #4.
I always said that I didn’t mind whether we had a boy or a girl, and I wasn’t just being diplomatic. I tried and tried to figure out which I preferred, but I came up with pros and cons on either side, and it was all pretty balanced. I would have been excited either way, but now that I know it’s a boy, I’m excited AND relaxed–the clothes are all ready, I’ve had lots of practice with boys, I know (somewhat) what to expect, etc.
So, the official baby-naming debates and discussions have begun. It will be a while before I make my decision–right now I am just in the name-gathering phase. So , I need your help. Help me make a good list of names by listing 3-5 of your favorite boy names in the comments.
He Said She Said: Wife To Receive Baby Naming Priveleges
Disgrace
We finally set up our Twitter feed (see our announcement below)– and just in time too. Today we find out if we are having a boy or girl. I will twitter the event during the ultrasound. This is a big deal since all of the grandchildren on my side are boys (currently 9 in a row). We have 3 of them, but luck might run out today, and I could be the first to disgrace the family. Tune in today at 10 am.
I guess I was already disgraced this week by the results of the poll. I thought I proposed such a great way to decide the names for our kids, but look what happened. Barring some miracle, my wife will get to choose the baby’s name. I just don’t think I can get used to Shane, Rusty, or Butch. The good news is that I may have talked her into letting the readers decide the name, so keep your fingers crossed.
Back to twittering. We plan on twittering several events, namely the delivery of this next baby. This will help those husbands who have never experienced the grossness of a delivery. Someone has been spreading that it is a magnificent event, but I am here to tell you that it is nasty! More to come in late October/early November…
I will also try to twitter on other occasions:
- While I am getting yelled at by my wife
- While I am doing household chores for my wife
- While I spy on my wife at the gym
- While my wife is eating
- While I respond to difficult questions posed by my wife
- While my wife plucks whiskers
Anyway, I’m sure twittering will cause me marital pain at times, but it’s for the good of the blog and will get some more marriage advice out there.
- Current Great Debate Standings:
- The Donkey: 5
- West is Best?
- Down on The Farm
- Pain in The Hoof
- Babysitting Blues
- Up in Arms
- The Wife: 7
- R is For Rudy
- I Want to Get Away
- A Gaseous Explosion from The Inner Crevasse
- Just What I Always Wanted
- Wrapped Around Her Finger
- Dining Out Dillemma
- Name Game
- Draw: 1
- Should The Wife Get a Cell Phone?
WifeAdvice.com Now Twittering
What are you doing?
The Donkey and The Wife have now joined the world of Twittering. For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is a service that allows you to publish mini-updates that people can access in a variety of ways (text, IM, web). We are publishing our Twitter feed right here in the sidebar, but you can also go directly to our WifeAdvice.com Twitter profile to see our twitter archives and sign up to “follow” us. Of course this won’t replace our posts, it will just be another way for us to paint an accurate picture of what life is like for a donkey and his wife. (For more info about Twitter, including a great video and details on starting your own Twitter feed, visit Twitter.)
And while we’re on the topic, here are a few other ways to keep up with us:
- Subscribe to the WifeAdvice.com site feed (What’s a feed?)
- Subscribe to receive WifeAdvice.com updates via email.
- Visit the WifeAdvice.com Facebook page, and become a fan!
Husbands: Be Careful When Telling Your Wife What Time You’ll Be Home
Better Safe Than Sorry
I am going to share a gem of wisdom with you today. It may seem counterintuitive, but hear me out:
Don’t try to be accurate when guessing your arrival time at home.
I can’t tell you how often this has come back to bite me. Each day my wife emails, IMs, or calls me to find out when I will be leaving work. Most of the time I get this call around 4:30pm. I look around at work and realize people have already begun to go home. I notice that my phone isn’t ringing as much and the emails aren’t coming in anymore.
“Looks like I will be leaving no later than 5, so I should be home around 5:15,” I say confidently.
But what happens every day? Something. Anything. Someone comes in, my boss calls me into his office, I’ll see someone on the way out and get delayed, and I’ll end up coming home later than I told my wife. And how does my wife take this? Terribly. She has been counting down the minutes for her tag team partner to get into the ring, tag her hand, and take over.
My wife’s demeanor begins to worsen with each minute that I am late. I realize on the way home that I am in trouble and think, “Why did I tell her I would be home at 5:15?” Several months ago I decided a new approach: I would completely over estimate how long it would take me to get home. One day my wife called to ask the question, and I responded, “I’ll be home at 6:15.”
“Wow, that’s late. Work must be busy. OK, see you then.”
I was shocked. She didn’t seem mad at all and I just added another hour to my normal response to her daunting question! I tried to hurry home fearing that it was a trap. Of course I got held up for a while, but I made it home at 5:45pm. I opened the door and saw my wife’s surprised face. “You’re home early,” she said happily.
Early? Really? I am 30 minutes later than normal, and yet she seems happy? As the night continued on I thought about the paradox I just stumbled upon. My wife gets extremely frustrated when I don’t meet her expectations, but I have 100% control over what her expectations are. What incentive is there for me to provide an accurate approximation when asked when I will be coming home? None whatsoever. From that moment on I have overestimated my arrival time every day, and it has paid off. Instead of an angry wife, I come home to a happy wife who thinks, “Man, this guy comes home early for me every day.”
Don’t forget: Overestimate every time. Seriously. Try it out if you haven’t already learned this secret. You’ll be shocked with wonderment. What a brilliant realization. I have a little more admiration for guys like the founding fathers when they drafted the Constitution because they too had their minds opened to a moment of brilliance.
Photo by: Darren Hester
He Said She Said: Should the Husband or Wife Choose the Baby’s Name?
Name Game
It’s been a while since we held a debate here, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped disagreeing with each other. Today’s debate is fresh and still unresolved: Who should get to name our next child?
He Said
My wife is pregnant and this Friday we find out if it is a boy or girl. She insists that she is choosing the name no matter what. We have 3 boys already, and my wife claims that I have chosen the names for all 3. But this isn’t true. I have simply suggested 3 great names so far - all of which she has agreed to and liked. I never forced my wife to stick with the names. She could have thought of better names and I would have gone with them. I have been trying to reason with her over the last few weeks, but she is simply refusing to budge.
I recently told her that if she refuses to negotiate a name, then I will refuse to call the child by the name she chooses. Last week I was thinking about how crazy this is, and I offered a compromise: If we have a girl, I will let my wife choose the first name, but I would like to choose the middle name. If it is a boy, then I will choose the first name and she can choose the middle name. Is this not reasonable? I am not sure how this isn’t fair for both of us.
I should mention that she will point out that two of our kids’ names are the same as my brothers’ and one the other is the same as a good friend of mine, but that doesn’t really mean much. We have chosen very common names (Tommy, Michael, and David), so there are bound to be people with the same names. Plus I am pretty sure that she suggested ‘David’ at one point anyway.
I now plead to you, oh wise decision makers. Let the past be the past because we aren’t historians and can’t accurately relate who said what regarding our children’s names. Let’s move forward and do things fairly.
She Said
The past is the past, and fortunately I can accurately remember it all. The deal The Donkey is offering is the same deal he offered when we had our first baby. Before the ultrasound he got me to agree that he would pick the name for a boy, but I could pick one for a girl. And that is exactly what we did. For the next two children, we didn’t have that official deal, but he has always had the naming privilege, simply due to the fact that he would veto each and every name that I suggested. For each child, I have researched and made lists of names. I would work on the list until I came up with 10-15 names that I was willing to consider. The Donkey, on the other hand has written down two names and said, “these are the only choices I will agree to.” And, like he said, so far all three names have been based on one of his brothers or best friends.
Also, the fact that I have agreed to and been happy about the names is just an example of my willingness to make things work. Contrary to The Donkey’s statement, NONE of the names were suggested by me, and some of them were names I had negative associations with–but I was willing to let the negative feelings go in order to love my kids’ names.
As always, this is a very simple case. It’s my turn. I should get to choose this child’s name, regardless of whether it’s a girl or a boy. I am at least willing to give The Donkey very limited veto power. I will make a list of names, then narrow it down to 2-3 that I like. He can tell me if he is vehemently opposed to one of those names, but other than that, the choice should be mine.
What do you think? Cast your vote below to help us decide…
Update: This poll has been closed. See results here.
Father’s Day Weekend: He May Be Clueless, But He’s a Great Dad
Donkey Makes a Great Dad
It’s a well known, well-documented fact that The Donkey isn’t overly supportive during pregnancies. This fact will only be confirmed as we continue to write about the remaining months of my pregnancy, not to mention the labor and delivery. So, why in the world would I choose to have a 4th child with this man? The simple fact is, The Donkey happens to be a fantastic father. My attempts to honor him yesterday were pretty pathetic, but a quick summary of our weekend will certainly prove my point:
Friday: The Donkey comes home early to help me get ready for a birthday party for Dimples. He corrals kids, helps serve food, cleans up after dinner. That night he helps put the kids to bed.
Saturday: The Donkey has an early-morning meeting for a church assignment. As soon as he gets home he plays some soccer outside with the boys, then puts sunscreen on everyone and they all pile in the van and head for the zoo–without me. They stay for a few hours during which our boy Monkey makes 3 requests for potty-stops. After the zoo, they come home for a quick lunch (which The Donkey makes). He puts Dimples down for a nap, then takes the two older boys out to see Kung Fu Panda (this time there are no less than 4 potty requests from Monkey). After that, he takes a quick trip to the gym (which I was happy to let him do, since the kids and I have to sneak off and get a Father’s Day gift. TIP: Never, ever take 3 children with you to Guitar Center, even if you are just planning to walk in, grab a Nirvana book, and walk out. Trust me, it will not go well.) When he’s back from the gym, The Donkey gives the kids a snack, then takes all three kids to run a few errands–grocery shopping for the week, a movie rental, and some takeout for us. He gets home, puts all the groceries away, we eat dinner, and he helps put the kids to bed.
Sunday: Despite the fact that my husband gave me an entire child-free day the day before, I still don’t manage to have everything ready for a nice, peaceful morning of breakfast and honoring Daddy. Instead, the kids and I are scrambling around trying to wrap presents and write cards before The Donkey comes home from an early-morning meeting. When his meeting is canceled, and he arrives home a full hour before we expected him, he graciously ignores my stressed-out, emotional outburst. He proceeds to empty and load the dishwasher, and tries to fix the boys’ broken closet door, which he knows has been bothering me. The boys and I finish our quick-wrapping and card design (black pen on plain white paper), and unceremoniously give Daddy his gifts. He enjoys his cards and guitar music books (yes, I finally managed to set up the guitar lessons I promised him). At this point, we’re in danger of being late, so while I jump in the shower, The Donkey gets the boys completely dressed for church. After church, I’m busy with an assignment, so he brings them home and gets lunch ready for everybody.
I think I’ll stop there. That’s just one little slice of our life, not to mention the fact that The Donkey knows how to pack a diaper bag, does not to be given special instructions when I’m away from home (even overnight), and can get the kids to bed in half the time that I can.
Boy Wonder wrote his Father’s Day letter all by himself yesterday, and I think he said it best:
Dear Daddy,
I love you because you hug me a lot and because you take me to seven eleven a lot and because you get me what I want but not always but you did last time you mixed lots of Slurpees together and you play blanket monster I always want you to get me but sometimes you get [Monkey] or [Dimples] the end.
Love, [Boy Wonder]
Nine months of clueless comments, no empathy, being treated like I’m “faking it,” all ending with a labor and delivery where he complains about how uncomfortable he is? I’ll take it, any day.
