Vent post

[waverly]

Put your vents here:

I saw some dumb stuff commented on social media (not aimed at me), so I figured other people would have vents too.

Mine is my dad who lives in SA keeps emailing me to tell me he wants to take my kids on a trip. Well that's very nice of you.  But considering we have no passports (mine expired and the kids never had them), and can't get passports anytime soon and as U.S. citizens not really allowed in a lot of countries including Canada how are we supposed to get there?  In the middle of a pandemic?  Countries don't even have international flights right now.

Oh I understand he says, what age can I take them there?  Um how about never?  He visits maybe once every 3 years and spends the entirety of the visit ignoring them. His looking after children skills are not good.  He is completely out of touch with reality anymore- just a retired narcissist who only spends his time thinking about himself, so he has no idea how to think about anyone else.  He e-mailed me all through the lockdown and even sent me a used travel guide book in the mail.  DUDE- I can't travel, and even if I could visiting your crazy is not the top of my list.  If you want to see your family how about you don't live in a foreign country.  Otherwise I can't help you.  I've probably gotten 50 e-mails on traveling and conspiracy theories since this all started.  I've got actual problems- keep your made up conspiracy theory problems to yourself. 

[twinmomma]

Beau's son is a PICKY eater. He's got a ton of food allergies, so I totally understand how it's happened and a lot of it is outside his control. But I have always been of the "dinner is what's on your plate, take it or leave it" mentality with my kids. I make meals I know they'll like, but I don't custom make separate stuff for everyone. And if they decide they suddenly don't like something, too bad, I'm not a short order chef. I don't have the time or patience for that. So I am struggling hard with cooking dinner for all five of us, since it usually means I make a full dinner, four of us eat it, and then beau ends up heating up something else for his son to eat later. It drives me insane. He in no way expects me to cater to his son's dietary restrictions or preferences, but it still just makes me crazy.

[rere]

twinmomma,same vent here.

I used to love to cook. I have entire Pinterest board that should be named, things I will never get to cook. My kids are horrible. I was always of the mind, you have to try it and you get what I cook. Even to the point of putting their uneaten meal in the fridge, and if they were hungry, getting it back out. I have evolved into cooking the same thing over and over. When I try an new recipe it usually ends up uneaten. They don't complain much, just wont eat it.

DH is no better. He has somehow evolved into a 12 year old when it comes to food. Pizza, burgers, nachos, basically bar food. When we got married he liked things that were real meals. I tried a new stir-fry last week, he was like eh.

It just sucks. I love to spend a Sunday, trying a new soup, drinking a glass of wine. Best I can get is a pot of chili, weekly I suppose.

[phdmomma]

twinmomma, rere, I routinely use the phrase "I am not a short order cook". The deal at our house is that if 3/4 people will eat a recipe it is a keeper and can go into the rotation. DD will eat just about anything, particularly if it looks like we really like it. DS will eat almost nothing. Soon, this will evolve into something like, if you do not like dinner you can go eat a peanut butter sandwich. He has gotten worse with time, there a things that I know he has loved in the past, and had suddenly decided that he doesn't like. DH is somewhere in between DD and DS, not as an adventurous an eater as DD and I are (or at least I was until I had to be gluten free), but will eat a variety of things. Mostly meat and carb based things.

My vent, I know that in person events are locked down due to the county right now for work. But a 2 hour zoom call from 6-8pm at night is note a fun social hour. Particularly when I am wrangling two kids. If you really want people to participate, please do these things during the daytime. I dialed in last night, because they gave one of my graduate students funding. But did not want to be there.

[k3am]

twinmomma, my kids are very very picky. If we're doing an easy dinner (from freezer to oven, no work on my part) I'll often also throw in something ONE of them will like (they also.. don't like the same things.) If I'm cooking a real dinner?? I am not making anything else. This doesn't mean they try what we make though. They just don't eat. They're both still alive. For a while, if they didn't eat what we served, I let them have a piece of plain bread.. but they liked it a little too much, so now that's off the table (unless we have company and I want quiet.)

[sandandsea]

We let the boys make their own food if they don’t like what I make. They are 8 & 4 so this usually ends up being yogurt. string cheese, Pb sandwich or cereal. Ds1 has learned to make some things in his own and will make eggs, Mac and cheese, spaghetti, ramen and other easy things for both of them if he doesn’t like something. But ds1 is a great eater and usually likes and will eat everything. DS2 is our problem.

[twinmomma]

You're all making me feel better about this situation I guess. I'm also big on "family dinner" time and all sitting down together to eat, so I think we just have to come up with a better routine for all of it. I've been following the Instagram account Kids Eat In Color to get ideas on how to try and get him to eat more foods too.

[waverly]

I've given up on kids eating. I mean I still feed them (or actually DH does), but he gets all upset and I am like well if you don't like it then don't eat it but you aren't getting anything else. Considering they put on weight during quarantine eating peanut butter sandwiches I don't think they are starving by any means.

I read all the picky eating books and tried all the methods. I think it is DS's sensory issues. DD will eat more.

[mae0111]

DD1 eats nearly nothing. We just fight about so many things that I rarely add food to the list. Food falls into 3 categories for her.

1. Food she likes (plain pasta, one type of chicken fingers, pizza, cheese, bread)
2. Food she will tolerate (certain fruits, plain steak, pork tenderloin)
3. Foods that she will actually throw up on the table if she is forced to eat them (everything else)

#3 has actually happened. Like, she said “I will try that food if you put it in my mouth, ready, go, PUKE”. There are definitely some sensory issues at play with her. But most of it is just being stubborn. She won’t even try stuff anymore. Her loss 🤷‍♀️

My vent: I’ve had a few potential clients pop up over the last week or so. DH is wholly unsupportive. I called him on it, and it turns out that he needs me to do work on his marketing stuff, and he wants it done now. So he doesn’t want me to take on more work until his stuff is done. Fair enough... but could have been handled differently.

[k3am]

I have also given up on feeding my kids. They get a plate with food on it - that's our job as a parents - but I'm not forcing them to put it in their mouths. All I care about is that they sit at the table and try to be pleasant.

[k3am]

Vent: I just finished up a meeting where I basically wanted to reach through the phone and strangle someone. He has a problem with how I'm handling one of my relationships, but HE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO OPINE ON IT TWO WEEKS AGO. And then today, out of nowhere, in a meeting with every manager that reviews my work, he goes off on the same deal complaining about things that HE APPROVED. His time to speak up and make changes was two weeks ago. I wish I was cool and calm in handling it, but every person in the meeting knew I was pissed.

I did get a text that it has already been escalated to our CEO, so at least I'm not the only one upset on my behalf.

[rere]

One of my coworkers went to the director and told him that she, myself, and 4 other people are shouldering this entire COVID disaster. She is the only one on his senior team. The rest, including my boss are doing? We have even hired 20 contact tracers, and it is still us. Great. WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT.

Plus 2 departments sent me emails wanting me to handle situations, because I would be better to do it. NOPE! I have to figure it out just like everyone else.

[k3am]

I present to you my 7 year olds dinner. This is both the before and after picture.

[mommyatty]

We had homemade chicken and dumplings for dinner. By “we” I mean the adults. The kids had some of the rotisserie chicken and some microwaved carrots. Those are some of the very few foods DS eats. Plain chicken. Plain carrots. My kids won’t eat any foods that touch other foods. No soups, sandwiches, casseroles, sauces on noodles. So there’s no hiding anything. No blending carrots into spaghetti sauce because they don’t eat spaghetti sauce. No sneaking spinach in. It’s maddening.

I mainly just keep out bits of ingredients and they get the individual ingredients by themselves. We eat turkey burgers. They eat a bun and whatever we have on the side. We eat pulled pork sandwiches. They eat the plain pork, no sauce, with the bun. The weirdos.

[callmekd]

Sept 16, 2020 15:02:25 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

You're all making me feel better about this situation I guess. I'm also big on "family dinner" time and all sitting down together to eat, so I think we just have to come up with a better routine for all of it. I've been following the Instagram account Kids Eat In Color to get ideas on how to try and get him to eat more foods too.

I love that IG page. She posts a lot of great stuff.

[sdlaura]

Yeah, our kids are picky too, and we suck at making them eat more things. They have a rotation of a kid main (mac n cheese, pizza, chicken nuggets, PB&J, etc), with a fruit and a vegetable. They usually eat half the main, none of the vegetables, and ask for more fruit.

I was a super picky eater as a kid, though - I remember I would go with a friend’s family to a burger place and my parents had to pack me a PB&J because I wouldn’t eat burgers or fries. And now I eat generally super healthy and varied foods. So there is hope

[waverly]

DH threw a huge fit this morning. His work is really stressful to him and he can't handle me asking a tech question for e-learning. I can't deal with it. I would like to trade him in with a better handling stress model.

[mrsGreeko]

Count me in on the picky eater kid train. One is so picky she literally starved herself rather than eat non preferred foods. She’s been on a med to stimulate her appetite. We go for weight checks.

Despite all that I still don’t make separate food for her for dinner. I make sure to include fruit (because she basically lives on fruit and since she doesn’t eat most veggies that’s how she gets most fiber and nutrients that are found in both) so she will at least eat something. We’ve always allowed them to have a bedtime snack (which is basically dinner for them, but they make it and they eat it after family dinner is over where we all eat the same thing). Shrug, it’s hard and exhausting and frustrating that she won’t just effing eat the delicious food I put before her. However, there are glimpses of life beyond. A few years ago she wouldn’t eat basically any meat, now she will eat steak, chicken, some pork, ground beef, fish, etc. So it seems that just continually offering food to the garbage gods for years and years eventually results in actual food going into her mouth. .

[waverly]

Update: the school is going to trade in her chromebook and possible DS's as well for a different one.

[186momx]

DH wants to put shop lights under our patio so he can have an outdoor working space to do stuff now that it is getting dark earlier. I told him no, multiple times over the last 2 weeks. We got a new porch light and it is super bright which brought up the damn shop lights again. I again said no and no told him to stop suggesting it as it will be no. We have x-mas lights with big bulbs strung around the perimeter that we can turn on for ambiance but they don't give him enough light to run tools and such.

[xctsclrx]

waverly aww I sympathize with you both. Sometimes after work I literally can't answer another question or make another decision. I mentally can't do it. I really think that's why women can't decide what to eat a lot. We carry so much mental load that we can't make one more.

Sometimes I invite people out to eat so they have to pick dinner I mean it's take out right now so, but you get my drift.


My vent;

My son is a rule follower people pleaser, his teacher has different colored days for how well they behave and work on their lessons (kindergarten for reference)

Red-parent contact
Yellow- needed re direction
Green- ready to learn
Blue- great day
Purple- super day


My kid is crying when he comes.home and has a green day. He doesn't know how to get a purple day and he strives for perfection. He is literally crying because he doesn't know what he is doing wrong. Ugh I can't seem to explain it to him.

[mellym]

I'm super stressed and feel frazzled between hybrid learning and normal work on top of an ERP implementation and throw in a new leadership development program. I was working late last night after the kids went to bed and DH came by to give me a kiss and I gave him the look of death. Like Dude, NOW what do you want from me!? I feel so bad.

[waverly]

I asked a tech question on our school page, and I regret it because someone it evolved into how they are superior e-learning parents to me. Gigantic eyeroll.

The one mom I don't know well. The other one is head of class moms and last year was a raging bitch to a mom who signed up to be class mom to 2 classes. She had to run the parties at the same time. Yes, she was told and wasn't supposed to do this. But the head of the class moms acted like this was life's biggest tragedy in the history of the world. I have now talked myself out of volunteering to be class mom. I was considering it this year because I wouldn't have to run parties, but now I remember why I stayed away.

[erbear]

My technology totally failed at back to school night tonight and I wanted to cry. I am pretty good with technology. I'm all over Zoom. I've been so scattered that I brought home my computer tonight and not my charger, so I had to do BTSN on my husband's computer, which is a PC and everything looked different. My boss messed up the Zoom link so half the parents couldn't get in and I was trying to remove the password, but I couldn't figure out how to get to the settings on his computer and it was a total shitshow. 

[sdlaura]

Don’t feel bad erbear - that’s so totally normal these days. I’m sure most of the parents have had the same thing happen at their jobs when trying to run a big meeting.