In a noble and dignified attempt to understand what his own pregnant wife goes through every day, Owen dons a 35 lb. pregnancy simulation suit and performs ordinary household tasks. Turns out, cleaning the bathroom and emptying the dishwasher is tough in his condition. Brought to you by OxiClean Baby. DadLabs Ep 339 Daditude.

Daddy Owen: This episode of Daditude is brought to you by Oxi Clean. Cleaning up the house is a big deal, especially as we’re planning a home birth and you’re going to have a mess there anyway – so we’re cleaning a lot. Wonder bellies activate. For a month empathy belly.

We have a method to decide who does what. In chores we do paper, rock, scissors. Winner puts away the groceries, the loser does the dishwasher.

Jodi: I always choose rock.

Daddy Owen: So you do the groceries

Jodi: Okay, I’ll do the groceries and you get the dishwasher. Sometimes I win – sometimes I lose. I always choose rock.

Daddy Owen: Its kind of low

Jodi: Yeah be careful

Daddy Owen: Whoever invented the dishwashing machine was not pregnant at the time. Oh boy, I’m just going to gather all the plates at once. You have to kind of get down really low and then you put the clean ones up high so you’re kind of moving between these two things and that kind of movement is difficult when you’ve got 30lbs of extra body on the front of you – your belly kind of gets in the way of the toaster.

Jodi: I’m glad Owen had the chance to experience what its like to try and get the dishes out of the dishwasher and into the shelves. Its really hard to do, it’s the belly and the gravity and the strange array of cabinets – its not easy.

Daddy Owen: It’s all about upper body strength. In fact, a lot of the dishes, if Jodi hadn’t made some of the dishes, I would have just said screw it lets throw them away. Its not the leaning down, it’s the getting back up. But she hates it when I do that – she really does. She’s ‘environmentally sensitive’. I don’t know – it seems like an easier solution because the trashcans right at the level you need it you know? – Its perfect.

I think its pretty much done. Bathroom clean time is never a fun time – it’s a lot of work in there. Paper, rock, scissors over who cleans the bathroom. Oh yeah, you always do rock don’t you?

Jodi: I do

Daddy Owen: Because I keep thinking scissors are pointy – they are like a weapon, paper seems so wimpy. I find the bathtub, you have to find a way to straddle the tub and not get the tub dirty. Its good, its fine – you better get that kitchen cleaned or I’ll be pissed. Don’t wear shoes in the bathtub, what have I been walking on?

The toilet! I always thought that the toilet and the bath seemed to me to be self-cleaning you know? You flush and you bath and that makes sense to me but in the toilet, you’ve really got to get in there and you’ve really got to scrub and things are growing and eww! And you know sometimes every now and then, it gets kind of clunky in there and its like your toilet’s choking and you have to do the Heimlich on the toilet, and find whatever is clogging up the breath hole of your commode.

A clogged toilet is a bit like a treasure hunt waiting to happen. Waldo’s there and he’s all nervous, and you get in there, and its like, is it going to be a magazine or a pack of Ritz crackers or a Twinkie? It could just be a Twinkie that’s absorbed – I don’t even know. More often than not, it’s a my little pony, and the weird thing is it has nothing to do with my daughter.

Jodi: I’m fairly certain that’s the first time Owen has ever cleaned a toilet in our house and a bathtub.