A little rant. I have some long standing friends. Lately, they have been rubbing me the wrong way. It just seems that they are so judgemental, especially over material things. I.e. yesterday. Another friend bought a house that is very similar to mine. Farmhouse style, siding, basement, large front porch. Other friends in the group have stated numerous times, they would never live in a siding house and don't know why anyone would build one, they wouldn't pay much for that house. I got annoyed yesterday and said I like siding and think brick would be boring on my house. I then told Dh it was time to go. This is about the 10th time this had happened and I had heard enough.
It's other things. I am taking the kid's to FL. Then you get the comment that they could care less about FL and would never go there again. Ok...? Or why won't we go out and buy a new aTV to ride? Because I don't want to spend my money on something that would sit in my garage 360 days a year?
This is all just irking me for some reason. I grew up less advantaged than my friends, so it is very important to me to provide not a grand home, but a nice home, nice experiences for my family . I'm proud of all we have and we had no help. I feel like all I work for is being insulted.
It is not 89 here. It did this weird snow/sleet pellet thing on Friday, so that was a fun drive home; now it's supposed to be in the 50s for a bit. But, I have jambalaya leftovers for lunch and a double handful of tootsie rolls until then, it's going to be a good day.
It might rain today. Wish I'd realized that before wearing a dress and no tights.. brrrr.
We had some friends over for dinner last night. It occurred to me afterward that while we've known them for almost 3 years, we've never spent time with just our family and theirs. It was a really nice night. Our kids played together so freaking well I wanted to cry. There wasn't much shouting, no crying, etc, etc. Heaven. Playing with her best friend involves a lot of tears. It probably helped that this was a boy who wasn't constantly attempting to wear her princess dresses...
89?! Here I was happy with the "heat wave" of 50 that we're getting today and tomorrow.
Mini celebration: I bought myself a giant bouquet of flowers at the grocery store and it's making my kitchen so cheery! I'm ready for spring!
I'm feeling really good about all we accomplished this weekend. We actually got a ton of chores done, the house is relatively clean, and we even had time to just relax and visit with the in laws on Saturday. I wish all our weekends could be this chill.
Tomorrow I'm having my one year review, so I'm excited about that. This year has been awesome and I am pretty sure a raise is in my future. I took a pay cut to start this job, which didn't impact our ability to pay bills, but did cut into our "fun money" each month. A little more buffer will be nice to have.
And my vent this week? My kids have become obnoxious dinner eaters. They refuse basically any food I cook, even something they ate willingly the day before. They don't sit and eat, they take forever, and it's a constant battle. I'm ready to just send them to bed with no dinner one night to see if that kicks the habit. They've always been really good eaters, so I have no clue what's going on. I feel like part of the problem is our house - we don't have a dining room or kitchen table to sit at. Our counter has bar stools that overlook the living room and that's it. We never have the TV on during meals, but I feel like it just doesn't set the tone that a meal is a separate time to sit and eat when it's basically happening in the middle of our living room. Anyone have tips on fighting the dinner time battle?
Post by librarychica on Mar 20, 2017 10:10:43 GMT -5
twinmomma, I always put something they Iike as part of the meal and require a "polite bite" of each thing. Also, no complaining about the food. They can say they don't prefer something or that they think something is too spicy, but I will not tolerate a litany of complaints. If they then refuse to eat the rest or decide they just aren't eating the thing they like that night, they can have their milk and go to bed hungry (or not hungry because sometimes they just are not). If they want something before bed and didn't take a decent shot at dinner, I will reheat that for them. I won't force them to eat, but I try and emphasize that it isn't going to be your favorite each night "sometimes dinner is just okay and that is good enough." I let the 5yo decide on dinner (within reason) and help cook it once a week or so and I load their lunches up with veggies because that is their best meal.
The "they" in this response is mostly the 5yo. It's aspirational with the 2yo, for sure.
Post by justcheckingin73 on Mar 20, 2017 10:15:47 GMT -5
Had a pretty good weekend. On Friday, my dh's firm had a March Madness party at a local restaurant. Good food, booze and it was all free. Except for our babysitter (dd). It was so much fun and a nice break from tax season.
Saturday, my dd went to see Beauty and the Beast with a friend so I decided that ds and I would go see the Batman movie. It was fun - we had recliners and shared some popcorn - it was so nice and relaxing. That night though, ds got sick twice. I didn't sleep well since I was anticipating more but apparently he got everything out. Very strange.
Sunday my SIL came over with my nephew so dh could do her taxes. We had a good lunch, some park time and after they left I got in a 4 mile run. I signed up for the Soldier Field 10 mile run which is over Memorial weekend so I've got to train. The most I've run is 6 miles so I need to keep building up to 10. I can't wait for the run. I got a hotel room so we can have a little weekend in the city. Hopefully I can walk when I'm done.
librarychica, I think I'm getting annoyed because the dinner will literally be everything they would normally eat and they still refuse. Last night I fed them chicken with ranch dressing to dip and fresh bread. And they told me it was gross. This is something I pack for lunch at least once a week. The night before it was a recipe they've raved over and told me they love. Then suddenly, it was something they hate and refused to eat. It's so frustrating, since I take the time to meal plan and choose things they will eat. I think we have to just lay down the law with going hungry. They'll figure it out.
Post by CoverGirl82 on Mar 20, 2017 10:22:09 GMT -5
twinmomma , dinner is a definite battle at my house. Seriously, there are maybe 6 meals we can all agree on right now. DS will finally eat chicken now, so I'm hoping our meal options will start expanding soon.
Vent: We had strong thunderstorms last night, and they were never in the weather forecast all weekend. We all slept terribly. Then the power went out around 3 am, but thankfully it came back on around 6:30 am. I was a little late to work, but at least I could wash my hair and do my makeup at home.
Celebration: We made it through the weekend with everyone staying healthy! The prior two years DH has gone away for a weekend in March for this state bowling tournament he does with his cousins and some friends, the kids or I have gotten sick. Next year the bowling tournament is in our area, yay!
Random: MIL is trying to invite herself on our next Disney trip. I honestly don't mind if she comes, but she's on a limited income (disability), and if her trip deviates at all from ours (dates we're there, where we stay, etc.), it will make planning more complicated. And then I worry that if she comes, she'll try and get SIL and her family to come, and I don't have time to figure out table service reservations and FastPasses for everyone. (And I don't trust MIL or SIL to do them.)
Post by traveltheworld on Mar 20, 2017 10:28:48 GMT -5
Speaking of dinner time battles - DD has now decided she won't eat meat again. She periodically goes through days/weeks where she refuses to eat any meat, and there's no reasoning with a 2 year old. She is already so skinny, I might resort to bribing her with MacDoland chicken nuggets. DS is at least eating well, albeit at the speed of a snail. The kids just talks too much!
We had a chill weekend. DH's brother, SIL, cousin and cousin-in-law(?) came over last night and brought take-out, it was nice.
Vent: how is it that I wake at 4am , yet still get to work half an hour late? Oh yes, by waking the child with the coffee grinder noise. And then dealing with her tears at not being able to help grind the beans. And then spending ages trying to wake my SO from the dead. Etc etc etc.
Weekend was nice. We braved the children's museum on Saturday, and yesterday took a short hike.
Celebration: We only have appointments this morning and then hopefully we can have a productive afternoon. We are so not getting anything accomplished during working hours but the days are getting so long working late to get something accomplished.
Vent: DD or DH would not leave me alone yesterday to WFH. It was a very stressful day and I already said I'm driving to the office next weekend to work in peace on Sunday which upset both of them. But the deal is to WFH they have to let me work and that didn't happen.
Spring was yesterday upper 50s sunny with a chilly breeze...today is back to winter upper 40s and rain!
Post by supertrooper1 on Mar 20, 2017 11:23:39 GMT -5
It's sunny here but I had to scrape the windows on my work vehicle this morning.
Celebration: I got a potentially big case over the weekend at work. I'm excited about it.
Vent: I'm involved in an big multi-agency operation today and it's going to be a big CF. Our intel department organized it and didn't ask me my opinion, even though it's in my area of expertise and not theirs. They had the time of day that we can do it wrong, so we were going to have 30 or 40 law enforcement officers sitting around for 4 hours because the organizers don't know what they're doing. No one was listening to me when I said the time was wrong, so I had to go up the chain of command to get things changed. So I'm sitting back today to watch the circus, but I'll be a good sport about it.
Post by greenmonkey1 on Mar 20, 2017 11:28:50 GMT -5
DS2 (2.5) is really into door locks right now. Apparently he locked himself, DH, and DS1 in his bedroom this morning (lock is on the outside, he locked the door then pulled it shut from the inside). Thankfully the kids were locked in which DH who managed to take the door off the hinges so no worries about the kids hurting themselves or each other. But now I am thinking maybe I should take all the doorknobs off the doors? Replace doorknobs (except ours) with non-locking doorknobs (do those exist)? Problems we never had with DS1. DS2 is much more of an imp.
Thankfully this happened with DH rather than me because I would not have been physically able to get the door off the hinges. Too short, no chair in that room, and 8 months pregnant. We would have been calling my Dad or DH to come and rescue us.
I am WFH with "W" firmly in quotation marks. First day back from spring break and I suck. I have gotten some things done but none for my employer :/.
But, we lost my sFIL yesterday morning. His 2.5 year battle with stage 4 lung cancer ended quietly Sunday morning. So far DD is handling it well. I explained that his body stopped working like it ran out of batteries, and she said, "No, it's like when a toy robot gets water in it." I said that was a really good analogy of what cancer does to bodies, and she said, "Yeah but the robot doesn't feel anything." She's so mature and astute. DH went to his mom's yesterday afternoon so I am solo parenting until the memorial. That means WFH. The "W" is just pitiful. But to be fair, my boss owes me an email with a status update on my work from last week when I was off, so I can't accomplish much without it. Meanwhile, time to hire someone to do some work on the outside of the home.
greenmonkey1, not sure if it would work for you, but when DS went through that stage with doors, we found these foam animal shapes (on Amazon of course) that you put on top of doors to prevent them from closing. Worked for us since we don't like our interior doors closed anyhow. And when I leave the house, I don't leave without keys even if I'm just picking up the mail Oh, and we got those jingle bell straps at Christmas time and put them on the door knobs to the exterior doors, so we can hear if he tries to leave.
A little rant. I have some long standing friends. Lately, they have been rubbing me the wrong way. It just seems that they are so judgemental, especially over material things. I.e. yesterday. Another friend bought a house that is very similar to mine. Farmhouse style, siding, basement, large front porch. Other friends in the group have stated numerous times, they would never live in a siding house and don't know why anyone would build one, they wouldn't pay much for that house. I got annoyed yesterday and said I like siding and think brick would be boring on my house. I then told Dh it was time to go. This is about the 10th time this had happened and I had heard enough.
It's other things. I am taking the kid's to FL. Then you get the comment that they could care less about FL and would never go there again. Ok...? Or why won't we go out and buy a new aTV to ride? Because I don't want to spend my money on something that would sit in my garage 360 days a year?
This is all just irking me for some reason. I grew up less advantaged than my friends, so it is very important to me to provide not a grand home, but a nice home, nice experiences for my family . I'm proud of all we have and we had no help. I feel like all I work for is being insulted.
Need a thicker skin?
I can have thin skin at times, and those types of comments would annoy me. I have people in my life (my sister, DH's mom and aunts) who can be judgemental or opinionated. I tend to be more soft spoken, so I can feel ganged up on when a conversation starts moving along the lines that you mentioned.
Two approaches I take, depending on my mood and who I'm dealing with. A lot of times, I will just not engage at all in whatever they are being judgy or bossy about. I've found that the more I try to justify my point of view ("I think siding can look nice", "I don't think we'd get much use out of a tv for the car"), the more it just invites people like that to try to convince me of their views. Instead, I'll either change the subject and/or give a neutral reply ("Maybe we'll look into getting a tv").
Other times, if I feel like speaking up I feel like it is easier to assert my opinion early, before the group gets too caught up in the initial judgemental opinion. With a group, I often notice that people who don't have a strong opinion will jump on the bandwagon and join in if one or two people are strongly voicing the same opinion. But if someone speaks up early, people are much less likely to pile on. ("It's not for everyone, but I really like siding on houses. Our house has siding and I think it adds a lot of character").
greenmonkey1 - we have locks that you can open from the other side with a quarter (or something flat). We have always had those - and it's what our friends have. I can't imagine real locks! May be a regional thing?
The weekend was the usual whirlwind with 5 games on Saturday, getting DH running shoes for his birthday and shopping for DD's birthday. DH and I watched a redbox movie - that was awesome.
DH said he knows something is up but that he will not permit his doctor to change his medicine. We discussed and he "may" "discuss" it. Then he was worried they would commit him!?! I just can't keep talking him down off imaginary ledges. He at least was nicer this weekend.
rere26 - I can't stand situations like that. We have (had?) a group that talked about where they "summered" and referred to their children as "women of summercamp" name. I just ... can't. Judgy and ostentatious all wrapped up in one - those convos make me distance myself.
Post by greenmonkey1 on Mar 20, 2017 13:33:02 GMT -5
2chatter The knobs have holes on the other side that I believe you are supposed to be able to jimmy open with a toothpick? Because who carries a toothpick around? Or is an expert lock jimmier. Who knows. Maybe it is a regional thing. I don't remember having locks on the doors growing up.
sudokufan Thanks for the suggestion, I will look for those door guard things. I too do not leave the house without keys. Or the car.
2chatter, I'm glad to know that he realizes something may be off...like welcome to the world man.
We had a nice weekend. We went to my ILs on Saturday for a late celebration of DD's birthday. That was fun. Sunday I took DD to get her toes done (she's 3). I guess it was too soon because she loved splashing her feet in the blue water but didn't want them going near her with the "paint." Then we went out to eat with some friends at a restaurant a couple of our friends recently opened. It was so good! DS in particular had a blast playing with the other kids. With all this talk about him being behind or whatever, it was nice to see him just playing with kids, being a kid. KWIM? I mean, it just emphasizes that he's pretty normal.
We had a really good, but busy weekend. Somehow I keep ending up folding laundry at like 10pm on Sunday night because I couldn't get to it earlier. Next week is Spring Break and all activities are off starting on Saturday. I kind of can't wait for a quiet week.
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