Bad Cop

Every week, my darling husband spends roughly 44,5 hours with his family. He uses this precious time to watch sports with our son, play Monopoly with our daughter and play silly games on the i-pad with both of them.

Stuff that I feign an interest in during the week, only to fail miserably. I do try though. The other night I even watched a bit of Champions League with my son. I have to admit though that I just sat and suffered in silence. He tried to make up for it by talking incessantly about the players on the field, the coaches, the players on the bench and God knows what else. Somehow, I don't think we'll be doing that again any time soon.
I am as horrible when I, after much nagging, grudgingly agree to a round of Monopoly. Playing board games for me really is all about winning. I can't help myself. I am just very competitive. The fact that my daughter doesn't care whether she wins or loses and plays accordingly, drives me insane.  My husband on the other hand,  finds it endearing.
He by the way allready moved to the Netherlands to start a new job, while the children and I are staying in Switzerland to finish the school year. It's not great, especially since we got so used to having him around a bit more over the last (jobless) months, but still infintely better than trying to move the whole family within a fortnight.
Since my husband left, I have struggled most with homework and mealtimes, especially since the two seem to collide in our house most days. At first, I quite enjoyed letting myself, the house and the quality of cooking go a little bit. Eating hot dogs, pizza's, or tinned soup, while watching utter crap on the telly. Marvellous!
But as the weeks went by, I felt that we needed vegetables back in our lives. And now I am 'bad cop' all the time. With no one to back me up, I enforce healthy eating, as well as finishing homework on time, tidying ones own bedroom and a myriad of other household rules.
So now, I completely hate my husband. I loath being a single parent as I feel that I spend all my time policing the children and not nearly enough time enjoying them. My husband on the other hand gets to play the relaxed, superdad during the weekends, throwing in visits to Mc Donald's and the nearest tropical pool extravaganza.
How absolutely wonderful it is though to have 44,5 hours of guilt free whinging. Every week! To have a lie in on a Saturday and a Sunday, to be rewarded lots of nice family reunion dinners at all our favourite local restaurants, to not have to accompany the family to the nearest tropical pool extravaganza. I might even get used to it.