My husband’s had to work a lot of late hours lately. His software project is on a tight schedule, and so the whole development team has been putting in a lot of extra time. We work for the same company, and I even have a minor part of his project, so I’m getting to see the situation from lots of angles. There’s the go-team angle: I’m a fellow employee who knows what the guys are going through, and wants them to succeed. There’s the sympathetic wife angle: my poor guy’s had to give up most of his evenings and his weekend time the past two weeks, and has come dragging in the door 9:00 or later in the evening. And then there’s the ticked-off wife angle: it’s been two weeks of mostly eating dinners by myself, taking care of our home and daughter by myself, and handling anything that comes up by myself. Not that it’s fault, but as each day passes where the workload doesn’t end (for him or me), I lose my patience more and more easily. And that minor work I’m supposed to be doing for the same project is getting ignored, because I don’t have any extra time to put in since I’m doing parental/home front double duty.

Theoretically, the deadline for the work to be done was yesterday. So, I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, hubby would be able to take the afternoon off and enjoy the fruit of some of those extra hours he put in early in the pay period by soaking up some sunshine today. And I had lined up a few activities for me for this weekend and next week, now that I’d have a little breathing room on the home front. But it’s 10:45 at night with my husband still at work. His intent is to work horrendously late tonight (he promised me he’d be home by the time I wake up tomorrow), if need be, so that he doesn’t go in for the rest of the weekend and can actually spend some time with our daughter. Getting home so late at night, she’s been in bed before he’s gotten home every night this week.

Cora and I are doing fine, though I’ve gotten lax on meal preparation: cereal, some cheese and a hot dog make a reasonably well-balanced diet for a toddler, right? And mom will just have a bowl of cereal and maybe a frozen burrito. There just doesn’t seem to be much point to making a real meal – dealing with a fussy toddler, making a mess in the kitchen, cleaning up that mess – all for the sake of eating by yourself (unless you count the food smearer and dropper known as Cora as great dinner company). I’m not sure what Jason’s eating – some combination of canned soups, PopTarts from the vending machine, and whatever else is easily available. Makes fewer dishes to clean this way, anyway.

I came home really mad tonight, but I think I’ve cooled off. Now I’m just tired. Going to bed to recharge for my software widow day tomorrow.