Laundry Fairy, C'est Moi

Scott has been talking about his socks.

First it was: "I'm low on socks."

Then: "Every pair of socks I pull on has a hole in the toe."

And, in a more frantic pitch: "I am running out of socks!"

I have a color-coded rating system modeled after the Homeland Security Threat Level color scheme to help me determine my response level to Scott. This helps me maintain my busy inner life calculating how many pilates classes it takes to counteract the impact of a large serving of Sedutto's Birthday Cake Ice Cream while still maintaining critical communications. Blue means no response is necessary, for things like "what's this thing on the bottom of my foot?" or "we really need to put together a household budget." Yellow requires an elevated response, for things like "does this match?" or "where should we order dinner from?" Orange requires my immediate but brief attention -- things such as "what do you want for your birthday?" or "is the baby too young for Ambesol?" Red should be only used in the extreme case when I absolutely can't miss a word, questions like "will you marry me?" or "is that cab driver texting with the kids in the car?"

Socks are always blue, or so I had thought. Because, truly, why is he bothering me with this? And yet, he persisted, finally bellowing: "I need socks!" with the same urgency as another man might say "He's got a gun!"

"Then get some," I answered calmly. Scott looked at me as if I had just suggested he gather moon rocks. That's when it dawned on me. Scott doesn't know where socks come from.

He had never procured a pair of socks on his own. His mother, Roberta, still brought him socks for special occasions, socks with tiny dreidels on them for Hanukkah or bedecked with little candy canes in a nod to my insistence we celebrate Christmas. Scott still has socks from college with the days of the week on them in faded marker written by his mother.

Then he had his ex-wife, who spun casseroles into socks, or performed whatever alchemy it was that filled the sock drawer.

And now here he was, looking to me to fill the void and go sock-picking.

I looked at him with new eyes. This law firm partner who runs a global litigation department soon won't be able to put on his shoes in the morning absent my intervention. And despite the fact that I had just given up my own fairly lucrative career in the law to stay at home and raise Henry, I had to wonder: How does it feel to be that vulnerable?

You may be asking yourself why Scott doesn't just google "socks" and buy some over the Internet like his three-year-old son would. It's because Scott has never performed a single transaction on the web. He once tried to order movie tickets on line and couldn't follow the prompts unassisted. He can convert zlotys to dollars in his head, but he can't fill out an address screen. He will sprout wings before he has an Amazon password.

Scott is the opposite of an idiot savant. He is brilliant in all ways, except when it comes to the pedestrian things in life, like loading the dishwasher, purchasing socks or googling driving directions. But I have come to realize that these deficits are critical to our relationship, especially as I recreate myself from General Counsel to Domestic Diva. It helps keep us in balance, the yin/yang of our relationship depends upon it. We need each other. I need him to support us financially and rub my feet and he needs me for everything else.

This extends to the children. At eight, Emma is so precocious that if we didn't have a Wii, I think she might seek emancipation and lease herself a studio apartment. I am here to remind her that because she's not allowed to touch the stove or cross the street without holding an adult's hand, she probably wouldn't fare all that well on her own. Quinny is ridiculously handsome. Unlike his father, he knows his way around a computer and I once caught him googling "agent." But as I told him, until he's 100 percent potty-trained, Gap Kids is not going to want him modeling their pants, no matter how cute he looks in them.

And in this way, like Sisyphus, I find meaning in my loading and unloading the dishwasher, meal after meal, day after day, night after night.

Last week, we were going away for the weekend. After I had held the baby football style and rushed like a wide receiver across the length of our apartment gathering snacks and googling driving directions, I found Scott and the children sitting on our bed in their underwear.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "Why aren't you packing?"

"We're waiting for the laundry fairy," Emma said sweetly.

And you know what? They really were.