Yes, I realize how lucky I am

When I was a sophomore in college, my roommate got really sick early on and went home for the rest of the year. It's the only time in my life I've ever lived alone. Free from having to conform to another's lifestyle, I lived happily among piles of unfolded laundry, books, papers, and, my main staple during those four years, bags of gummy bears.

Despite, and probably as a result of, growing up with a mother who had everything in its proper place and would throw my clothes in the dew covered yard whenever I left them scattered on my bedroom floor, the domesticity gene skipped over me. I'd much rather be reading, watching tv, sleeping, or outside counting and cataloging blades of grass by shades of green, than emptying out the dishwasher.

Luckily, I married a man whose hobby it is to compare and contrast different types of hard wood floor cleaners. Tragedy struck our house the day Orange Glo came out with a new formula that left streaks, OH GOD NOT STREAKS!, on his precious floorboards. While Ton Ton obsessed over finding the new perfect product to clean the hardwood, I drank beer and watched TV.

As you can see, our house is the place where traditional gender roles came to retire. We've set up a couple lawn chairs for them and they bask in the sunshine drinking piña coladas all day. As soon as somebody figures out a way for men to lactate they (the gender roles, that is) will forever pass away to that better place in the sky.

In all fairness, I've been trying to be better about maintaining a tidy home, or as Ton Ton likes to call it: acting like a real human person, since Luki was born. I now realize that constantly buying new underwear is not the most fiscally responsible way to deal with laundry, and would like my son to learn so from an early age.

Still, it is my husband who captains the cleanliness ship. So, when he was sick all last week with "a cold that almost orphaned Luki" -- Ton Ton exaggerates almost as well as he dusts -- our Lysol powered Titanic hit an iceberg.

The thing is, I can't act like a real human person if Ton Ton is too high off Sudafed to remind me of it. Without his constant nagging helpful suggestions about picking up my shoes off the living room floor or hanging up my towel after I'm done using it, our house began to resemble my old college pad. Except this time, I wasn't happy in the squalor.

Yeap, it looks like Ton Ton's fervor for organization has started to rub off on me. It's not enough to motivate me to clean, but at least I'm no longer comfortable in a messy home. That's a step in the right direction, right?

Fortunately, Ton is feeling better and things have returned to their natural order:

That's me behind the camera in a pair of boxer shorts, a beer in hand.