"When are they fucking going to develop button technology that will understand urgency?!"

The couple that antagonizes each other’s OCD issues together, stays together. Well. It provides entertainment for us anyway. I’ve talked about this before, but to reiterate; when I first started dating my husband I discovered his closet. Oh my lawd. I stood in front of it in awe. His work clothes were on dark colored hangers, his non work clothes were on white hangers, and both were organized by color. Until then most of my roommates/ex had been slobs, and I was just discovering the satisfaction of keeping shit clean. I knew that someone with this level of organization however, would bring forth an entirely different set of problems. Was I willing to trade the annoyance of having to nag a grown fucking person to keep shit picked up for the arguments that would come from my potential inability to keep things clean enough? Oh hell yes. I took it as a challenge almost. Would I be able to keep up? No. Of course not. There’s a big difference between being clean, and being OCD about things. He’s certainly not alone. For me, I prefer just to do it myself. There’s no way you can do it the way I do it, so just leave it be! He does when it comes to the baby’s books, he’ll pick them up from time to time, but often, he leaves that job for me. Thank you. He’ll put away the groceries, but I will go behind him and do it again. For him however, he would prefer I just do it ‘as well’ as he does. The stupid stainFULL steal kitchen appliances. I don’t care what I wipe them down with; they still look like G ate 12 lollipops and then drooled all over them. So I’m over it. I clean them and leave them be. This annoys him and I tell him to do it his damn self. It’s a push on who’s worse than the other. I am a scheduler. This comes partly from a chaotic household, and probably in bigger part from working in a group home for small girls for 10 years. When kids are older, there are more pressing issues to address, and they have more activities outside of the home. When they came to us, they were usually pretty fresh from the abusive situations, and a schedule was the best thing ever for them. To the point that when things had to be changed, for whatever reason, there were generally repercussions. Meltdowns etc. We had a menu on the fridge for them to consult, and know exactly what meal they were having when. The times we did each thing throughout the day were posted on the board, and appointments were on the calendar that they had access to. This made them feel safe. Turns out, it makes me happy too. I spend most of Monday, and sometimes Tuesday morning doing laundry. Every week. On Tuesday nights, after G is in bed, we dump out the laundry on our bed and put it all away. He does his closet of course, because I was never able to figure out which shirt is what and I put them on the wrong hangers. I do my clothes, and the sheets, because he does it wrong, and we both do the rest of the household laundry. I fold and put G’s clothes away while she plays in her room. And ‘helps’. It’s starting to take longer. Breakfast is generally between 8:45 and 9, we go out to play at 10:30, lunch is at 11:30, and nap is 12 to 3. I make our bed, eat lunch, do my hair and makeup, and read/write blogs or just generally dick around on the internet. We then do whatever errands need to be done, have a play date, or go outside to play. Dinner is at 6. Bath is at 7:15, story time at 8, and bedtime at 8:30. I vacuum on Mondays and Thursdays, and clean the bathrooms when it’s needed. The kitchen/picking up is done every night. I’m not even kidding. I match my undies to my bra, and have been eating the same foods for lunch for a year. I know. When G started eating baby food, we bought colorful little plastic bowls and plastic spoons. When I made her food, the spoon and bowl matched. Always. I would wash a spoon if needed. I thought I was pretty sly about this. I didn’t discuss it, or require others do it when they fed her. One day J made her food for me to feed to her. As I fed her, I made conversation; “Can you believe daddy made you a turquoise bowl with a yellow and red spoon?! Crazy daddy.” My father in law sitting across the table snorted. I didn’t know he was paying attention so I asked what was up. “He said you’d say that.” My jaw dropped. He did it on purpose!! Just to mess with me!! But he is not alone. Our stairs and hallway have multiple sets of light switches, one at either end. I watch my husband flip the switch, realize they don’t all match, walk to the other end of the hall, flip the other switch, then come back and turn the light BACK ON to continue what he was doing. It’s too funny to resist. I mess with those switches on purpose just watch his insanity ensue. But he’s figuring it out; “You mess with the lights just to fuck with me don’t you?!” He asked one day. I looked at him all innocent and said; “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” We are well aware that our requirements are unattainable for the other, and we have accepted this willingly. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a sense of humor about it. At the other’s expense of course.