The Irritability Factor

Wednesday June 3rd, 2009 – Day 80

My normal happy-go-lucky attitude has been hiding ever since I got pregnant and my tolerance has decreased while my irritability has increased. After our friends shared some of their stories, Chris decides to tell one about me. I had no idea what he was going to say and it just sounded so much funnier after the fact. Last weekend I was trying to take a nap, and our basement steps are right next to our bedroom. Chris was figuring out the dimensions of the dishwasher we are needing to buy, by measuring the old dishwasher that we put in the basement earlier that day. To give you some inside information, when Chris runs down the basement steps, it has always been an annoyance because it sounds like thunder or a herd of cattle…he has tried to walk calmly, but since they are just planks of plywood – no matter what – it sounds like a herd of cattle going down and up the steps. So back to the story of me taking a nap and Chris measuring our old dishwasher. So I’m sleeping away enjoying a nice mid-day snooze when I woke up to the sound of a herd of cattle that just went down the stairs to the basement…as soon as I realized it was Chris running down, I immediately hear another herd of cattle run back up. Already, my annoyance meter started to go off, but I figured it was over and I can go back to sleep. Right as I laid my head back down – again, I hear Chris run down and then shortly after run back up the stairs. My annoyance factor started buzzing again, but I really tried to think that I’m the one that is napping in the middle of the day and he is eagerly working to get the house fixed up and I let it go. Then, it wasn’t a second later, I hear Chris run down and up the stairs again. Now by this time, I’m getting pretty ticked and I can’t believe he has gone down and up 3 times within 5 minutes. I count to 10 and breathe and just try yet again to close my eyes and catch some zzz’s. THEN, as soon as I practically was asleep again, I hear that herd of cattle yet again and this time I’m fuming with irritability thinking ‘why on earth does he feel the need to go downstairs AGAIN and AGAIN when he knows I’m sleeping and he knows I hate the basement steps already’. But I say to myself, I’m going to let it slide, BUT if he does it one more time, he’s so in trouble. Well, it pains me to tell you that I hear the basement door open and before he even got to the bottom of the steps for the 5th time, I was standing in the doorway looking down with my hands on my hips and my feet spread shoulder width apart saying ‘Is it really necessary to go down to the basement 5 times in 10 minutes, really?!?’ Of course, he was apologizing and I did feel bad, but seriously why?! He explained that he had to measure the width and then he'd run back down and measure the height, then he’d run back down to measure something else…I just said back ‘ever heard of a paper and pen’. So at this point, I think we are settled and I go back to the bedroom, jump in bed and close my eyes. About 10 minutes later, I hear the basement door slowly open and I wonder, ‘am I going to hear ANOTHER herd of cattle, ugh’…but I didn’t – I could hear a creak here and there, but nothing compared to earlier, so I was satisfied and went to bed. Now when Chris was telling this story to our friends – they were laughing until they cried and at first I didn’t see the humor, but then after hearing Chris’s side of it – I laughed until I cried too. The funny part was when Chris was telling us how that last time, he was trying to go down the stairs by spreading his legs as wide as they can go, tip-toeing down and literally sliding down the rail so there wasn’t any noise. The poor guy! All of his hard work to help me and baby and here I am yelling at him, lol