Baby Hates Power Tools

I'm not sure there are too many moms that can say that their baby hates the sound of a jigsaw in action. I honestly hope that I am wrong about that... or am I?

Today I found out that it is impossible to multi-task while using power tools. What I mean is that it is far easier to wash the dishes and hold the baby, fold laundry and hold the baby, build a web site and hold the baby. It is quite physically impossible to hold the baby while you are using a jigsaw (that is unless you want to risk... well we won't even go there).

I was in charge of installing a new dog door. Well, I guess technically not "in charge" but if I didn't do it, then it wouldn't get done, and it really needed to get done before the dog sitter took over for the week.

There are quite a few things like this that fall onto my plate in our household: installing a new garbage disposal, fixing a leaking faucet, mounting a new toilet. It's not that I know how to do any of these things. With the toilet, I had forgotten to put one of the gaskets in place so it looked quite perfect, that is, until I flushed. A full tank of water expelled itself all over the floor and by the end I was dripping wet and topless with wrenches in both hands, screaming, and laughing (thank god that part) with a two year old looking at me wide-eyed as if mommy had lost her mind.

The one thing that I've learned while acting as handyman for our house is that I should NOT read feminist lit while doing so (The Beauty Myth comes to mind). The two in combination are deadly. The division of labor in our household is stated verbatim in stats sited in those kinds of books, but having to play handyman pushes it into tilt, and I am generally not laughing but stewing over the figures, wrench in hand.

As I said, I don't know how to do most of the things that a handyman does, but they are quite necessary, so I just do them. My husband doesn't understand the "just do it" part. Holding a wrench must cause some kind of disconnect in his brain, that makes him utterly useless in these situations. What is so frustrating is that I have to hear over and over what a brilliant man he is (being a mathematician and all). Maybe mathematicians are not required to care for themselves in our world. Maybe I am a math slave.

Maybe there is just a difference in how we were brought up. I am an overly stoic New Englander (I say this as a fault). I grew up in the woods. He is a non-practicing Jew from LA. City boy. I only bring up the Jewish part because of the utterly tasteless joke about "How many Jews does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" (there are several punchlines to this, most along the lines of "One to call the cleaning lady and two to feel guilty about it"---the sick ones about Auschwitz are completely irrelevant). The joke is age old, so much that there is an environmental movement centered around it involving installing energy-efficient lights in their homes for the celebration of lights.

The joke is stereotypical, and racist, of course. It's an over-generalization, but in our household there are 7 light bulbs that are out, and someone complaining very loudly that it's too dark. So, I have to laugh at the joke.

I am proud of the fact that I have done all of these things, yes, but given an hour of spare time, I don't think that I would put it into doing them (especially the toilet). I had a daylight fantasy of becoming a handy-woman for a living today. The dream quickly degraded into who my clientele might be. On the plus side, maybe little old ladies would want to hire me, because I would be safer than having a man come into the house. On the downside, I'd get men hiring me to look at my ass while I screwed in a light bulb. Maybe this is just an over-exageration. Maybe not. Why do I even need to think of this?

The real question is, if I did not own a jigsaw, who would install the dog door? Would I have to hire a handyman to do it? How long would it be left undone? So, it is utterly necessary.

So getting back to my feelings about whether or not more women should use jigsaws. Truth is, I don't know too many couples where both partners have a set of power tools (or ones that they share). Maybe I am hanging with the wrong set. Growing up, my father did all of the handyman work. He built our house. He introduced me to sawsalls, hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers. I helped. I learned a little... I learned that if you take something apart, you can put it back together again with new parts (you better have damn well been paying attention when you took it apart). I learned that if there is information written about how to do something (such as instructions), eventually you can figure it out.

I watched my oldest daughter help "poppop" take apart her crib when she was about two and a half. She held the screwdriver, and he actually showed her how to use it. He loosened the screws enough, so she could feel a sense of accomplishment when it finally came loose. She was ecstatic to help.

She came home from school today, and looked at the tools scattered all over the floor, and very proudly said "Mommy. You DID it!". When everybody was settled in, I put the tools away, and started to wash the dishes and cook dinner. She went upstairs to put her "jammies" on. When she came down, my little princess was wearing blue pajamas with wrenches, and hammers, and saws on them. She never wears these (think PRINCESS), but tonight, I guess she was inspired. I bought them for her a couple of years back (she's finally grown into them).

Her father was sitting at the table and she looked at him and said "Look Dada, I have tool jammies on"

"Oh yeah, where did you get those?"

"Pop-pop bought them for me"

I think she's on the right track.