Harold Arnold: Your Relationship Rocks Coach!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Cry for help

Previous episode
Celia has been put on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy, despite that the move to their new house is only one week away.

Current episode
Rob sent his mother-in-law to the grocery store, as much as to get food as to get her out of the way.  “And bring empty boxes, too!” he called after as she left.  As stunned as he had been at the hospital, reality had set in and he was now focused and energetic. 

Then he gave away his last three Starbucks shifts to other workers, so although he officially had one more week he would in fact be finished with his moonlighting gig.  Finally he sat down on the coffee table facing Celia, who was resting on the sofa, just as she got off the phone with her principal.  She had her laptop open on her lap and a notebook and pen nearby.

Celia looked at him and sighed.  “I don’t want you to have to take vacation time now.  But I don’t know what else to do.  I can make lists until my hand falls off but unless there is someone here besides my mother doing them, there won’t be enough hours in the day.”

“I’ve been working two jobs anyway,” Rob said.  “I can spend evenings this week getting things ready here”—

“Things are almost ready here,” Celia said.  “The issue on this end is cleaning the apartment after we’ve moved so we get the whole deposit back.  That’s going to be the new crib and changing table.” 
“It won’t be that big a deal,” Rob said.  “I’ll”—

“Rob, we need you at the house, and unfortunately I don’t trust Mom to clean well enough that we get our money back.  I don’t trust Mom to shop economically.  Mostly, I just don’t trust her to not create more work for us”—

“I can take vacation next week so the house is ready before we move in and right afterwards to get us unpacked,” he said.  “Thankfully, we don’t have that much stuff.”

“What needs to be done on the house?”  Celia flipped through her lists.  “Maybe we can scale this back somehow”—

Rob took the list from her and looked at the various repair and upgrade tasks they had detailed.  “As long as the nursery and the kitchen are good to go, we can do the rest as we go along.”

“I just want you to be able to be home with us after the baby is born and NOT to be working on the house.  So we three can be a family.”  Celia shook her head.  “I’m so sorry, Rob.” 

“Please don’t apologize.  You and our baby come first and everything else is way down on the list.  I’ve got it covered.”

Rob kissed Celia, asked her if he could get her anything, and telling her he needed to get something from the car, left the apartment.  As soon as he closed the front door he dialed his mother.

“Mom,” he said when she answered.  “I need your help.”  He explained the situation as briefly as he could.

“Of course I’ll help, Rob.  Poor Celia.  I’m glad you called.  What do you need?”

How does this plan work out?