This is a weird one. It’s not even a big deal. It’s just one of those things I didn’t see coming when I started staying home with the kids.

I work from home so I’m with the kids ALL THE TIME. From the moment I wake up on Monday morning to Friday night I’m pretty much with the children. If I have to, I take the kids to business meetings with me. But I’m with them all the time and we work well with each other. They’re really very well behaved. Part of it is because we have patterns.

It’s kind of a strange thing and I’m sure many of you have dealt with it. Five days a week you’re in charge. What you say goes – to the extent that your children actually listen to you anyway. If you decide to take the kids to the park. You go. If you think television today is a bad idea. It stays off. If I’m thinking we’re going to the library, we go. I decide what we’re doing for dinner. I decide if I’m cleaning the dishes right after we eat or do I wait until after I get the kids in bed.

Like I said, what I say goes. Not that I don’t ask them what they want to do but in the end I’m the decider.

But then comes the weekend and then all of a sudden my wife comes back and she’s got 50 percent of the vote. And that throws me off. When I make decisions, I sometimes have to pull back because I know it hurts her a little for me just to make decisions for the day without consulting her.

And I’m thrown off when she throws her ideas in the mix because we have our routines. We have set bath times. We do pony tails here, not braids. We do lots of dresses, not pants (except if we’re going on slides). She cares if their socks match their shirts or at least something else they’re wearing, I…well that thought never even crossed my mind.

But my wife often has other ideas and when she acts on them and throws off my expectations, and it makes me stumble a little and it’s everything I have in me not to say something stupid like, “this isn’t how we do things.”

I’m grateful to have her home when she’s home but I’m also thrown off a little too. Anyone else get that?