A few days before giving birth, I asked my husband, Jake, to arrange care for our dog, Rich. He assured me his mom, Abigail, would handle it.<\/p>\n
After a rough labor, we returned home, exhausted but happy\u2014only to find a note from Abigail: \u201cYou owe me $600 for feeding and walking Rich. My time costs money. You have my bank details.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n At first, I thought it was a joke. It wasn\u2019t. A week later, when she visited the baby, her first words were, \u201cWhen can I expect my money, Doris?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Smiling, I said, \u201cOf course, Abigail. I\u2019ll pay\u2014on one condition.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I handed her a folder listing every favor and expense Jake and I had covered for her\u2014moving costs, car repairs, babysitting. Total? Far more than $600.<\/p>\n She sputtered, \u201cThis is ridiculous! Family doesn\u2019t charge each other!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cExactly,\u201d<\/em> I shot back. \u201cBut since you started it, I\u2019d say we\u2019re even.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Stunned, she stormed out. Jake chuckled, wrapping me in his arms. \u201cNo one should mess with my wife.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I smiled, scratching Rich\u2019s ears. Abigail might not have learned her lesson, but she wouldn\u2019t ask for that $600 again. And if she did? I still had the folder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few days before giving birth, I asked my husband, Jake, to arrange care for our dog, Rich. He assured me his mom, Abigail, would handle it. After a rough labor, we returned home, exhausted but happy\u2014only to find a note from Abigail: \u201cYou owe me $600 for feeding and walking Rich. My time costs …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions\/1204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}