Lu Jie Wei

Lu Jie Wei... (Jason's Chinese name)

Jason, The Stay-At-Home Dad

Jason stays at home most mornings until Marianne, the babysitter, arrives. All you women out there will probably be jealous of me when you hear this next bit. Keep in mind that he watches Gabrielle and gets in a good dose of PBS cartoons, too. Every morning, he gets up and unloads/reloads the dishwasher. (Don't think I haven't noticed, babe!) He often does a load of clothes, and when I get home the house always looks decent, because he knows that it embarasses me to have people over to a messy house. Gentlemen, if you haven't figured it out, a lot of women feel this way. I bet you can score lots of points in the romance game if you help her pick up before people come over. Anyway, I digress.

One night as we were going to sleep, I commented that the sheets smelled unusually good. I knew that he'd washed and changed them that morning. (Two points for Jason!) So I says, "Man, these sheets smell great. What'd you wash them in? Do we have some of that lavender detergent? I thought that was Natalie's." Jason says, "I dunno. I used the stuff in the blue bottle." I said, "Oh, you mean the white bottle with the blue label." "No," says Jason,"the blue bottle." This continues for a few more rounds until I realize aloud, "Jason, that's Downy." Yes, he asked what it was. And yes, he was really, really upset that someone makes liquid fabric softener. And I quote:

"That's STUPID!"

Jason, The Competitor

Soccer field. John Madden video game. Tetris. Solitaire. It doesn't matter what the game is; he wants to win! When he doesn't win, you'll hear a similar sentiment:

"Man, this game is STUPID."

Note that when we've played Tetris on his PlayStation2 for the last 4 nights, it's been pretty evenly matched. In case you've never seen or played it, Tetris is kind of like building a puzzle under pressure. Remember the episode where Lucy and Ethel couldn't keep up with the candies coming down the conveyor belt and they stuffed chocolates everywhere? It feels like that. I feel that Tetris is great therapy for your marriage. Why? It's the only time you have an alibi to say things like, "You don't even challenge me," or yell "COMIN' ATCHA!" or snicker at one another. And I am better at Tetris than him, even though he's the competitive one.

Jason, The Teacher

I love to see Jason developing his skills as a teacher. Maybe that's because I'm a teacher, but I think it's just because we all want to be proud of our spouse. And no doubt, he has a passion for teaching. We started a Sunday School class two weeks ago for young couples. I think it's difficult to lead your peers, but he seems relaxed and comfortable teaching the Word. And that I'm proud of.

Gabby's lucky to have a great teacher for a Daddy. You can imagine all that she'll benefit. Unfortunately, he's going to teach her to be a trouble-maker, too. Right now, the Tennessee/Florida game is on, and Jason has decided that Gabby should learn how to do the Gator chomp. "Wouldn't that be so funny to have her do that when we go back to Grandma Bettye's?!" Ummmmm, Jason....

Don't be STUPID.