DS starts school today. He had a minor existential crisis last night because his BFF won’t be there this year. This morning he appears to be in a good mood. So fingers crossed the girls are nice to him and he finds some boys to play with from another grade.
Good luck to you and your DS mommyatty ! I hope his school year goes well!
It's looking more and more like DH will be heading to court with his Ex to battle out some parenting plan changes. She's just flat out refusing to adjust or sign off on anything. But then in the next breath, she's asking for all kinds of schedule changes and accommodations for her travel lifestyle. It's laughable. DH wants to go back to the days of the week that are outlined in the signed legal document because of his work schedule. During covid things ended up swapped around with a handshake agreement because of the restaurant being shut down, etc.. She's refusing to honor what's in the actual parenting plan because then she won't be able to travel to see her husband on his days off work. If they lived in the same state, it wouldn't be an issue... I have a feeling a judge will laugh at her argument for why she can't go back to the signed version of the plan.
Last night DS and I had a big talk about why parents have to leave and go to work, even when the kids are around. He was having a meltdown over DH going to work for a couple hours to prep for an event. The level of guilt that he lays on when DH has to go to work is unreal. I explained that he's been extremely lucky that his dad has a job that allows him to be home with him 99% of the time and that there are weekends where I don't see DH at all because he's working so many extra hours so that when the kids are here he doesn't have to work. I pointed out that my girls go to camp because I'm working all day and I am not able to just hang out with them all the time and showed him examples of other friends that have parents who all work outside the home, and how his situation is very, very rare. And we talked about how even if his dad was home, DS would be off playing with the girls or on his tablet or something, they wouldn't even be playing together directly most of the time. He admitted that he just likes knowing his mom or dad is nearby and he gets really nervous when they're not. This led to some bed time conversations too - he requires DH to lay with him for 1-2 hours at night to go to sleep. Will not sleep alone. And at mom's house, he just sleeps in her bed with her all night every night. So we talked about why it's important for him to get comfortable sleeping alone and that he's totally fine, he just needs to get used to it. I love that he feels open to talking to me about this stuff and that I can push back on him with it a little to make him see how good he actually has it vs. most other kids. Tonight when the kids are gone I'll go over it all with DH to bring him up to speed. He doesn't help the cause when he's all "Oh I miss you too, I wish I didn't have to go, etc..." when he's leaving. He makes it more painful too instead of ripping off the bandaid.
Another exhausted Monday. Dds barbecue went well and she was dancing with her friends until midnight, which meant I didn't get to bed until 1. Sunday, I wanted to chill, but my friends, her bonus moms, and their daughters wanted to have her over to swim. They all got her presents for her dorm. One of them balled because Dd was leaving.
In the middle of that, Ds put in for leave for November. I told him if he wanted to come in, I'd pay for half the ticket. I'd paid the entire thing if needed. So we found out it was all approved and he gets to come, so he got the tickets secured.
This week is move in week. Let's just pray she holds it together and embraces all the things this week. They have planned a very active schedule Wednesday thru Sunday for incoming freshman. She will be home in 2 weeks for Labor Day, plus she will come to our camping trip in September, I may go up for a work conference and we've already scheduled a weekend for a football game.
Post by supertrooper1 on Aug 14, 2023 11:24:31 GMT -5
Beau and I had a very low key weekend. We slept in, went to brunch, and did some grocery shopping on Saturday. Saturday night, we rode our bikes up a logging road to the top of a local mountain to watch the meteor shower for a few hours. Sunday we went to the gym and tried a new to us brewery. We don't have much planned this week other than work and the gym.
Post by sandandsea on Aug 14, 2023 12:15:06 GMT -5
Ds1 had a perfect race weekend with a full sweep of all races! He did great and was happy as the past 2 months had been really rough for him in racing.
FIL has cancer (leukemia) and has been doing chemo/meds and has had to have a couple of blood transfusions over the past month. He’s 82 and had been in good health before this but isn’t doing well. It’s been really hard on all of us but especially DH. He flew to be with them about a month ago and will probably go again soon. It’s also hard to get clear information from his mom who communicates with her heart and feelings so getting facts and real data is difficult for DH who wants facts and numbers. Aging parents is so hard. Dh and I are both worried and sad that this is just how it is.
Today is my 19th anniversary! Unfortunately, we're at the beach with friends and DH had to go back to work, but we had a nice weekend. Preseason starts next week, school in 3!
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
I had a long weekend and was painting a portion of the house. The sprayer we inherited didn't work but it took me 3 hours of trying to figure that out Thursday morning. Waited for DH to get home who insisted he could fix it. Nope. Called my painter client who came and rescued me. He showed us what was broken on the 20yr old sprayer and left us his small job sprayer and gave me a lesson to make spraying my T-111 siding work better. The lesson was great but this meant that I needed to speed up my slow mow project. We sprayed and back rolled two sides of the house Thursday night. DD and I spent all day Friday cleaning off and trimming bushes on the West & North sides of the house so DH could power wash when he got home. Saturday DH and I bought a new window and replaced the garage window that was leaking and redid the siding. Sunday we finished painting the rest of the house. I'm sore, tired, cranky, and I can't get the paint off me. I just have the trim left which will be another weekend project. Good news is we got it done before the triple digit heat wave and before the smoke and air quality went to crap.
I'm very excited to sit at my desk today. Only downside is the management copy had to shut off the water to the whole building for the entire day. We filled a buck with water so we can go pee but decided against coffee today.
The whole family went this morning to drop DS3 off for his first day of preschool - it was pretty adorable how excited the big kids were for him (they all went through the same preschool). DS2 opened the wrong door and a very loud alarm went off until the director went to get a special key to stop it, which took a few minutes. My son should have known better because he went there and knew you can't go out that door. So that was exciting Then the rest of us went out to breakfast as sort of an early birthday breakfast for DD - she turns 11 tomorrow on the first day of school. Now I'm in meetings for two hours and then we host DD's birthday party at our community pool in 1.5 hours. We have about 40 guests - no one has anything to do today since school starts tomorrow, and parents are happy to send their kids to the party while they work or get ready for back to school. Right after the party, I'll take DS2 to the elementary school to meet his kindergarten teacher.
Tomorrow everyone else starts school, it's DD's birthday, and I have a busy workday. Another busy workday Wednesday. I just want to make it to Thursday when my work calendar is open and I can regroup.
We just got the email that DD made the travel softball team that her coach started. I'm a little bit conflicted about her switching to travel and whether she'll really get playing time (there were some other amazing catchers that tried out and 2 of them made the team), but maybe it will be the push she needs to practice harder on her own. It's a lot better than her not making it. Now she gets to stay with some of her friends.
twinmomma seems like you ask the right questions to get your S talking, and listen well when he does. Hopefully your recap conversation with H goes well too. sandandsea I'm sorry 😔 A good friend of mine who's mom is battling dementia calls us the "sandwich generation." We are sandwiched between caring for kids and parents. And there's no good instruction manual for either undertaking 💚
We had a pretty low key weekend. DH is very stressed at work, so I told him to just work all weekend and get stuff done so that he's not feeling so behind. The kids and I hung out with friends, went to the outdoor pool, and just generally chilled.
The kids have somewhat short camps this week, so it'll be a lot of driving back and forth - not looking forward to that.
dglvrk2, I just spent a ton of time researching for a 'sandwich generation' article today. It's really a stressful situation for so many people - whether caring for parents healthwise, financially, emotionally, all of the above.
Weekend was pretty good! Everyone came home from camping Friday afternoon. I spent a lot of time helping to unpack, doing tons of laundry, etc. Saturday DD1 and I ran errands and I dropped her at a friend's for a party and sleepover. Then she had another party on Sunday. DD2 was bored as no friends were around, so we just hung out and swam, and DH and I grabbed dinner saturday night.
This week the kids are in camp, so I'm jamming in some extra work hours (hopefully). My mom's birthday was yesterday and she ignored all of my offers for celebration, then called at 3pm yesterday to kind of lay on the guilt trip that she bought her own cake and no one is around to celebrate. So we are taking her out to dinner tomorrow evening. Hopefully a slow week other than that!
Post by librarychica on Aug 14, 2023 14:19:43 GMT -5
I woke up at 4AM for no reason and have been on the struggle bus today. And I cannot even cut out early because I scheduled important calls at 4 and 5. I am so tired.
The weekend was good. Saturday I had lunch with my mom and did some appliance shopping. I’ve been dragging my feet replacing my oven. Sunday we went out for lunch and then went to an arcade with for a close family friend’s daughter’s birthday. Everyone had a blast!
Honestly I could have used one more day, though. It’s going to be a long week.
Post by sandandsea on Aug 14, 2023 16:01:51 GMT -5
On the positive I had a meal plan for last week and did one for this week too. We ate healthier yummy foods and I was able to quickly get dinner on the table and clean up every evening.
Grilled marinated chicken breasts, squash, bread Honey garlic chicken thighs with asparagus and sweet potatoes Chicken fajitas with leftover grilled chicken Chili lemon shrimp with pasta
This week I have
Grilled chicken and squash and bread Cashew chicken (with leftover chicken) with bell peppers, carrots, onion Pork tenderloin with sweet potatoes/asparagus Chicken thighs- not sure yet how I’ll cook them but lots of options
I also got frozen Salmon and shrimp so can fit them in whenever.
Another positive is that the kids are actually packing and responsible for their own lunches this year and so far are doing it (day 3). Ds2 saw a video about how 7 year olds are capable of doing a lot of things for themselves like packing lunches and was all onboard.
Post by librarychica on Aug 14, 2023 16:40:12 GMT -5
sandandsea, honey garlic chicken with asparagus sounds amazing.
We are back on the meal planning train and it’s going well these last few weeks. This week we have air fryer chicken wings + roasted tiny potatoes and brocolli, summer salad with grilled chicken breasts, smoke sausage lentil soup probably with some kind of muffin, tacos with beans & rice (DD1’s night to cook).
sandandsea, honey garlic chicken with asparagus sounds amazing.
We are back on the meal planning train and it’s going well these last few weeks. This week we have air fryer chicken wings + roasted tiny potatoes and brocolli, summer salad with grilled chicken breasts, smoke sausage lentil soup probably with some kind of muffin, tacos with beans & rice (DD1’s night to cook).
It was a video I saw on facebook. Super easy. Heat Olive oil in a pan, lay the chicken thighs around the edge, plop garlic in the middle and on top of the thighs, salt and pepper and swirl honey on top of them all, cook, flip, season/add honey, final flip and done. I cooked the asparagus in a mother pan at the same time. Good easy 20 minute dinner.
My company is having a corporate picnic. Since I started working here 8 years ago, this will be only the third all company event (one "holiday" party in April 2016 (Why April? Your guess is as good as mine), a 25th anniversary party, and this.) Attendance is "highly encouraged."
It's middle of the day on a Saturday (10:30am-3:00pm). DS's soccer (need to arrive at 11:30am-1pm) and DD's private lesson (need to arrive at 1pm-2:15pm) would be conflicts with no real way to catch the front or tail end. Would you skip those? I really have no idea.
Do you want to go k3am? If so, I would go and delegate the kid stuff to DH. If you think it’s going to be a fun time.
If you don’t want to go and it is not mandatory then I would skip and cite “sorry we have other plans…”
If it were during the week working hours I would go but on weekends I’d probably pass. I did go to staff appreciation dinners usually but they were more of a Sat night thing. Day stuff is hard with kid sports.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
Honestly, I hate stuff like this. At my old company, I would avoid at all costs, but there was a LOT of “forced family fun” as my boss calls it.
This is a family picnic, so we’d need to pull kids from their activities. It wouldn’t be the worst thing (DS’s soccer team will have 5 alternates, so he’s not letting the team down and DD missing her private would actually save us money) and we almost never skip their events.
DH would not be able to get DS to his game and DD to skating, since they are far enough apart distance wise.
k3am, if you hate that kind of stuff, don't go. Life is too short yada yada. If you think you ALL will enjoy it then go.
For the kids, they would never let me pull them from a soccer game. So my kids would nope themselves out of that picnic, but they are in that getting more competitive stage.
k3am is the picnic event at a compelling destination you wouldn’t otherwise visit on your own?
Meh? It's at an outdoor place that does corporate events and retreats. Old company did a few there. This is probably the last year the kids would generally enjoy something like it - face painting, bouncy houses, etc.
My first inclination is to bow out. But I clearly have hangover from my toxic prior company where they made it clear that "optional" events and charitable donations were not optional at all and they definitely kept track of who was doing what. If it were at a time that we could either come late or leave early, I'd plan on making an appearance and having a good excuse to leave, but the timing plays out to make either of those options stupid.
I just got yelled at by maintenance because I threw away a whiteboard. I was told that it was damaged, and I guess it wasn't so oops. Actually, someone else confirmed it was OK to throw it away and that it was cheap/ see through and the wrong size. The business office was supposed to exchange it.
But it was the wrong size and too small, and they were only keeping it in case one of the other ones got broken. But if the other ones were broken, then wouldn't they want to get the correct size? FWIW, I didn't ask the maintenance man because he always yells at us. So either way I get yelled at. Also, he should have put it in the basement, garage or closet not keep it in shipping and receiving for 3 years. He admitted that was the plan 3 years ago to have a back up whiteboard.
Any time I go back there to help out my department with space issues, then he gets involved and so does a random person not in my department. Which is super annoying.