watch your language

I am constantly amazed at how different children can communicate with mom versus dad. My husband, god bless him, has never understood the language of our children. He never quite picked up on the "I'm hungry" cry versus the "I'm tired" cry when they were infants. I found this strange in the beginning because I understood immediately what the boys were trying to tell us. As the boys start to talk, I am still blown over that he doesn't get what they are saying. Garrett talks a lot and is saying new words every day. I get what he is saying instantly. Smoothie comes out a bit like mootie but it's close. Hudson just calls it dink - drink. For weeks, Garrett has been saying "diapee" for diaper when he needs to go to the bathroom (#2). I have pointed this out a couple of times to my husband and was sure that he too thought it was as cute as I did and that he understood what it meant. Last night, poor Garrett stood in front of him saying diapee for what seemed like an eternity and my husband just stared at him like he had two heads. After a bit, I just couldn't take anymore, I looked at my husband and said "don't you know what he is trying to tell you". He looked at me and said, "no, I really don't". This threw me into high gear (pregnancy has taken me to a new emotional level) and proceeded to verbally flog him as to how I couldn't believe that he didn't know what Garrett was talking about. The poor kid has been asking for diapers to go poo for a couple of weeks and wasn't my husband paying attention when I pointed out to him that Garrett said diaper so cutely! This didn't go over well and resulted in no more conversation between us for the rest of the evening - except for "I love you, I'm going to bed".

I woke up this morning frustrated and a bit angry - keep in mind that I'm pregnant and more emotional than I have ever been in my lifetime. Didn't my husband pay attention to our children? Didn't he think that they are as exceptionally smart as I do? Does all he want to do is plop in front of the TV when he gets home? (totally different argument from another day but one that I thought I would dwell on because... well, I'm pregnant and can revisit stupid things as often as I would like) The truth is that my husband is a wonderful father. He loves his kids and it shows. He plays with them when he gets home from work (thus the ridiculousness the dwelling on the TV watching) and he helps out around the house, A LOT. This aspect of men, that they don't understand what their kids are talking about must be some genetic hard wiring issue. My mother says that it was the same with my father and most of my girlfriends say that their husbands suffer the same affliction. I guess that my kids will survive and that they will figure out how to tell their dad that they are thirsty and might have a huge accident on the floor if he doesn't figure out what they are talking about. I should just keep my mouth shut!