Babe, do this. Babe, do that.....

As I was driving around running errands and doing the odd jobs of the day, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion came over me. Now that mommy is with baby, my load is double and the pressure mounting. Grocery shopping, batting my eye lashes at the car maintenance staff to get the extra perks, cooking, driving, getting the remote, cutting up meat so mom can eat one handed while baby eats, going back and forth to the kitchen for the things you forgot for yourself and the things you forgot for her, crawling out of the warm bed to turn off a light she left on, and your share of baby duty, all are now your responsibility. Things I could have said no to before, I can't say no to now. I could get away with, "no babe, I'm watching the game right now," or "come on babe, it's 3 feet from you," or even, "I really don't feel like it right now," that last one didn't happen too often. But in the height of all the pressure and the multiplication of tasks that are now mine, the moment I want to begin to complain, I hear an echo in my head of my wife's voice saying," I GAVE BIRTH." What can a man say to that? It's the "win all" answer to every gripe. We can't, nor do I think we ever want to experience that pain.