Dear beau's son, Your compliments are melting my heart lately! First, being told I'm the best amusement park buddy is amazing. Sorry I have to work and can't come with you today! And second, when your dad said that if I was an ice cream flavor I'd be vanilla (because I'm so pale lol), you chiming in with "Oh no, you'd be FRENCH vanilla!" was the best. It totally made my day! Love ya! Bonus "mom"
Dear beau, I really think sometimes you don't understand what I'm doing all day. I might be home, but I'm working full time. I can't just go to the amusement park for the afternoon or take half the week off next week to go on a mini vacation. Wandering out to the kitchen to chat with you off and on doesn't mean I have all this flexible free time. You're just my coffee break/water cooler buddy. Signed, Stop asking me to do fun stuff that I can't do
Dear PCP, I appreciate the advice to wait a few weeks before getting my third dose in case more guidance comes out. But... I'm supposed to go back to the office in 4 weeks. I'd really like to have that done and in my system before my exposure to the world increases by a lot. I also have no kids next weekend, so I can rest if I feel like crap. Sorry, Ignoring your advice
Post by supertrooper1 on Aug 18, 2021 10:53:46 GMT -5
Dear neck, I don't know what I did to cause this pain, but I wish it would go away. Nothing I do seems to help, so I guess it's time to schedule a doctor's appointment. Signed, Can't turn my head
Dear interrogatory paperwork, I hate you. 58 pages of financial, parenting, and invasive personal questions is ridiculous, especially since this is the 3rd time I've had to do most of this paperwork. Signed, Stresed
Dear DD's Dentist You Rock! You removed her retainer today with no charge as her permanent molar that the retainer was place holding has broken thru. You also said her final crowned tooth is starting to wiggle! Please hold off on the ortho referral until after the crown tooth has been lost. DD would love to be able to eat all the things she hasn't been able to eat since she was 3.5. Mom who will let her kid gorge on marshmallows, caramel, and all things sticky for a few days at least.
Dear School & District BOA the online school is looking better and better right now. I'm also super happy that I can make my the choice to switch her to online at any point. Worrying parent
Dear WPs Have any of you gotten tutoring for your kiddos to help with learning disabilities (phonics/writing)? We have an IEP but it hasn't been finalized so I don't know what the school plans to offer. DD is starting 5th grade. She has no phonic skills and writing is similar to an incoming 2nd grader but is reading at a 12th grade level. Me
My best friend is studying to be a Certified Academic Language Therapist. They help kids with dyslexia and related issues. Maybe look for one of those or ask your district if they have one. And we have DS working with an OT for dysgraphia.
It was wonderful to finally get a letter!!! I see are you are still you because you lost the book of stamps I sent with you and want me to send more. You are hot and tired which is to be expected. I will see if I can ship you the watch you are asking for.
Signed, still momming from miles away.
Dear schools and business,
We are in month 105 of COVID. You should have at least a clue. And to the witchy school nurse who says she needs more guidance and communication because I tell you that guidance has not changed no matter how much you insist it has: You have everything I have at this point. My email skill this morning has been to tell people to kiss my backend in the most professional manner possible.
I honestly do not know how you do it. Thinking of you. I hope they fall in line.
Signed, Sick of covid nonsense and it isn’t even my job
Dear family,
I’m not sure about this family-of-4 beach weekend. It’s what mom wants for her bday and we live right here, but we can do almost nothing and frankly all y’all snore.
Fingers crossed there no yelling.
Love, Why couldn’t we bring the kids as buffers again?
Dear Tax Convention in a month I'm really nervous about going to a 300+ person in-person event. But our unit is hosting and it is all hands on deck. Also I really hope we have access to the event room that doesn't require us to walk through the casino. I'm helping run the sign in table and was just informed I will have to help do temp checks. I thought we were done with temp checks everywhere? nervous me
Post by mustardseed2007 on Aug 18, 2021 15:18:07 GMT -5
186momx, yes. Definitely look for I recommend a Neuhaus tutor. Being a Neuhaus tutor qualifies you as a CALT. They are the best for dyslexic readers but even non dyslexic readers can benefit from a CALT/Neuahaus trained tutor.
Ds worked with his Neuhaus tutor for 3 years, 3-4 times per week. It definitely can be expensive but it's totally worth it.
Why do you have to spring wanting to plan a family get together vacation on me now? Even thinking about going on a trip with your family, let alone coordinating it, is exhausting.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Aug 18, 2021 16:52:04 GMT -5
Dear Kids in the Community,
I'm glad you're once again finding our school. I am a little worried that our school has grown by 50%. I hope the administration can handle it. I hope my kids have a good year. I hope everyone in the class is nice, including the kids who enrolled yesterday.
Signed,
Mom who loves her school and hopes you do too
Dear Teachers,
I'm finally starting to get nervous about normal stuff - like having two kids with real homework since DD will now have spelling tests. I hope you're great. I hope my kids are great. I hope it all is amazing.
Oh my god. Why are you so stinking negative? Please stop letting a single bad or sort of bad thing ruin your entire life. Because honestly you’re making me nuts.
Your Frustrated Mom
Dear Daughter,
I’m sorry the boys who are your friends wouldn’t eat lunch with you because they wanted to sit with the rowdier boys. It’s your age. Fourth grade boys are boys. It is what it is. Learn to like girls. You have some good girl friends. Go be with them.
After hours today, my boss sent my mid-year performance review and it contains exactly two sentences about how maybe we should consider reorganizing job duties so that he & I split some things and I become a VP. This is a level above what I currently am and does not exist at all in any depts in our organization. Ummm what?
The thing is, I don’t think I can do that job as it is generally understood at other companies like mine. I am tactical and operational. This job (again, as generally understood in our industry) is strategy. Additionally, we have a culture issue where people at my current level (too many!) can’t compromise and don’t accept decisions made by other departments. I have several times in the past year had one of my peers say “that doesn’t work for my team” and just… not do what I asked them. There were no consequences. I don’t think a new title is suddenly going to make people respect my decisions when they don’t now.
So what do you think, WPs? Would you be excited about this prospect? It kind of sounds like a recipe for failure to me, but maybe I’m letting imposter syndrome speak for me…?
I would be excited. But I think you’re right to have lots of questions. For example, would this put you on a higher level team where you would have the ability to kind of force issues with your current peers? At my old company, AVPs were part of the “management team” but VPs were “Leadership Team” which made a really big difference.
And just because you’re not strategic doesn’t mean you can’t be strategic. And frankly, being strategic without understanding tactics and operations makes you ineffective. I think too little emphasis is put on the ability to put a plan in action.
shakinros, First, congrats! I'd be excited. Do you think they're recommending splitting between the two of you so that you balance each other out with tactical knowledge and big picture/strategy skills? Because there's nothing worse than a strategist who has no clue what something actually takes to get it done and how processes work. It could be a really great way for you to contribute and develop more strategic thinking too! Remember - just because your current role doesn't call for it doesn't mean you don't have the skills or can't grow those skills. If they see this potential in you, don't doubt yourself!
As far as the toxic mess between divisions, that's insane and I think you should bring up those specific examples when you meet with your boss to discuss the promotion. Either way, that has to be solved or you're going to lose employees and business.
mommyatty , The negativity is brutal with beau's son sometimes! I just don't tolerate it. I'm sure I annoy him sometimes with my "I'm sure it wasn't that bad" or "Sounds like you're being a little dramatic" or "It's not that you can't do it, you just can't do it YET" all the time. My personal favorite is "I think you'll pull through." I refuse to feed the beast. Good luck!
After hours today, my boss sent my mid-year performance review and it contains exactly two sentences about how maybe we should consider reorganizing job duties so that he & I split some things and I become a VP. This is a level above what I currently am and does not exist at all in any depts in our organization. Ummm what?
The thing is, I don’t think I can do that job as it is generally understood at other companies like mine. I am tactical and operational. This job (again, as generally understood in our industry) is strategy. Additionally, we have a culture issue where people at my current level (too many!) can’t compromise and don’t accept decisions made by other departments. I have several times in the past year had one of my peers say “that doesn’t work for my team” and just… not do what I asked them. There were no consequences. I don’t think a new title is suddenly going to make people respect my decisions when they don’t now.
So what do you think, WPs? Would you be excited about this prospect? It kind of sounds like a recipe for failure to me, but maybe I’m letting imposter syndrome speak for me…?
Love, Shakinros
Congratulations! I'd be excited, but nervous. I'd like to see an organizational chart and chain of command. What exactly is he trying to accomplish? A more cohesive model with you having some authority over divisions, or taking some of his responsibilities to ease his load?
shakinros, I tend more to cynical, so I would say trust your gut. Which doesn't mean it's terrible or anything. It means you have questions. I am the analytical sort also, so I need answers to my questions and once I get them then I would feel more comfortable.
I would bring up the problem in the past and ask about how other departments would implement your strategy if they just say nah and there are no consequences. And I am not saying there has to be "consequences" but there does need to be buy in and change management and all those other fancy management words.
shakinros, congrats! I would have 20 billion questions from those 2 sentences
mommyatty, DD was like that especially in K-2nd grade. I finally had to start asking what was your favorite part of the day because all the negative was overwhelming. We also dealt with some bullying during that time but the school said it wasn't bullying it was just that the other kid didn't know the right social skills. Pushing DD down in a puddle and laughing at her, picking DD up and moving her to someplace else, knocking her down. It got to the point that DD refused to go out front of the house because the kid lived a block over. I will say it has gotten better because the kid is getting the help they need.
Dear mommyatty, DD That is the life of having boys for friends. It isn't always cool to hang with the girls but wait it out because they will come back and want to hang with you again. 186momx DD
I ask favorite part of your day every day and he immediately goes, “It wasn’t when my teacher yelled at me and made me cry.” Note: we know his teacher. She’s the furthest thing from a yeller you can get. But she does run a tight ship. So I’m sure she told him not to do something and he interpreted that as her yelling at him.
mommyatty, maybe phrase it in terms of roses/thorns or sweet/sour? We try to do this with our kids.. they can tell us something bad that happened, but also something good. So for every thorn, we need to hear about a rose. Sometimes things don't go our way / we don't like it / whatever, and it's okay to acknowledge that, but we don't want to lose track of the good things happening by focusing on the hard parts.
DD1 was very much like that at that age. She’s almost 12 now and it has improved significantly over the past year (just in time for negative teen years 👍). So there is hope!!
Mae
Dear DH -
The lawn hasn’t been mowed in 3 weeks, because you were away for almost 2 and couldn’t do it before you left. I offered to call the landscaper that did a project for us, but I didn’t have his name, company name, or contact info. I asked you for this information at least 4 times, and you just kept saying, “Is it that bad?” Yes. It’s been raining. Most of the time you were gone was cool. The lawn grew.
Now, I also told you AND put in our mutual calendar that my friends were coming over tomorrow with kids for swimming and hanging out. So no, you could not mow the lawn in the middle of our little pool party.
So exclaiming how bad the lawn looked today, then getting huffy that you forgot that my friends were coming, THEN getting mad at me when I reminded you that I offered to call the landscaper… it’s all ridiculous. I didn’t care that the lawn wasn’t going to be mowed for my friends. They don’t care if the lawn is mowed. The only one that cares is you. I offered to get the guy here to take something off your plate.
mae0111, DH was adamant that he'd take care of our lawn. ADAMANT. And he never did, without tons of prompting from me. It was annoying. I eventually tracked down the gardener who mowed half our neighborhood, and signed up. It took him THREE MONTHS before he made an offhand comment that the lawn seemed to be growing more slowly than normal.. THREE MONTHS.
Our life is much happier with routine yard service.
My only side note.. don't let your gardener trim your trees. Nothing good will come from it. Mow, blow, and weeds. That's it.
You are obviously exhausted. I plan things to make you happy and 1 day later you are sad again. Today you snapped at me for daring to ask a question and then passed out 5 minutes later. You harp on me for watching the kids telling me I’m a hawk. Maybe if we lived in the country I would let them go. DS doesn’t want to play outside unless he has his friends so I text them. I have to provide light supervision at least and even with that DS ran his bike into a tree (how?) and someone turned the bike stem. I haven’t told DH that yet because I’m sure he will be thrilled to fix another thing that the kids broke.
His current mood, lots of deep sighs and banging while cooking. Lots of Jesuses. Get some sleep!
Signed,
Wife that needs you in better moods
Dear body,
Hopefully I didn’t pick up Covid from the water park. It was outside but parts were crowded.
Thanks for cracking the bottle of wine but now I’m drunk (because it only takes 2 glasses), and I’m supposed to go to sleep now and go into work early.
I love you so much. Thank you for having an actual plan for how we can help DS be successful this year. And thank you for starting the plan with “let me get a read on him and then we will meet and figure this out. But we will not let him start this year stressed out and sad.”