Monday Holiday??

[mae0111]

Are you working today? How was your weekend? What's happening this week?

[mae0111]

It was a pretty good weekend. DD2 wrapped up her loooong soccer season on Friday. Her school team didn't win a game this year, but they had the best time. At halftime, while the other team was in a serious strategy session, DD2 and teammates were rolling around with someone's puppy. Pretty indicative of the whole season - and very cute.

Saturday was just errands and driving DD1 all over the place. DD2 was under the weather so she just helped me with stuff around the house.

Sunday DD2 had a friend over, and DD1 had her typical Sunday night meltdown. About an hour after I went to bed, DD1 came to get me because DD2 got her period for the first time and was absolutely freaking out. She's a little younger than I was, but I'm not totally surprised. She was extremely overwhelmed so I spent a long time trying to comfort her.

I'm working but my kids are off today. DD2 is supposed to go to a birthday party today but I'm going to see how she's doing. A bit of racing around this week, but now that soccer is done, it's a bit less.

And just a little annoyance... I spoke to DD2's assistant coach about an indoor soccer team for the winter, and offered to put a team together for the late fall session. He texted me that he spoke to the head coach, and that they were fine with me doing that, but that they wouldn't be involved. I emailed the head coach last Tuesday to confirm, followed up yesterday. After a couple of hours of no response to my follow up, I emailed the parents about the team because the registration is going to close soon. He responded immediately saying that he's getting a futsal team together to star Jan 2, which conflicts with the indoor league. I was like WHY TF did you tell me to do this then? He still hasn't emailed the whole team - just me - so now I have to go back to each parents as they show interest to explain...

[waverly]

I've been stressed so I tried my hardest to relax this weekend.

Friday night we had a work thing at the cutest little kids book store. It was decorated so nicely and whimsical- just adorable.

We had no plans Saturday and Sunday. I thought about adding church or yoga class, but talked myself out of it. DD is sick. She has a rash and congestion. The rash came before the virus, so I don't necessarily think they are related, but could be. It looks like contact dermatitis. Anyway, I spent a large portion of time catering to her, getting her meds, putting cortizone cream on etc. She did go to school today with the help of Sudafed.

Saturday, DH and I went out for drinks. DD and I went to TJ Max which was a madhouse. I guess holiday shopping is in full force.

[librarychica]

We are working and the kids are in school. Typical Monday for us.

We had a nice, calm weekend. DD2, H and I did a bunch of yardwork while DD1 (who hates the heat and it’s still very warm here) cleaned the common areas and put away the Halloween decorations. Then she and her sister put up Thanksgiving decorations.

Sunday DD2 and I went out to breakfast then to get the various doodads for her backyard birthday party Friday night. It’s going to be fun — yard games mostly and running around with things that glow after dark. DD1 was supposed to go to her friend’s house for the afternoon but last-minute cancelled saying she wanted to hang out with H. Which is a little odd but he had been traveling. They spent most the afternoon playing puzzle games and her friend is now coming over Wednesday.

Overall a very good weekend.

H and I are working on breaking a pattern between the girls. I’ve noticed they often resort to comments on each other’s appearance and weight when bickering. It started out “joking” but they also comment on how much one another eat in a joking way. I have shut this down and in doing so I’ve been harder on DD1 than DD2. For these reasons: DD1 is older, this pattern started with a couple of her friends and the older cousins, the entire friend group and my nieces (and possibly the surrounding block) are crystal clear on my thoughts about this behavior, and to be blunt — DD1 shows no lack of confidence in her figure, which is very lovely and womanly already, whereas DD2 is a round 9yo for whom puberty is far away and is self-conscious about it. DD1’s words hit harder here, and I think she should be aware of the damage she could do. Her sister worships her.

DD1 thinks I am being unfair here and claims DD2 “doesn’t even like me anymore.”

They turn 10 and 13 in the next two months. I am bucking up for an unfamiliar, sisterly ride.

[sandandsea]

The kids don’t have school today but we are working. Ds1 won his soccer game this weekend but poor DS2 lost state cup in penalty kicks. His team was so much better than the other team and had so many unlucky almost goals, but the other team had one big talented kid who scared our defenders and he scored all of their goals. So it was a bummer but we ate a good dinner on the way home and they don’t have school today so that helped.
Ds2 and I are battling a cold and DH and DS1 leave for the big huge race of the year tomorrow. We will meet them in Vegas on Wed and cheer for them. So it’s a busy but fun week for us.

[dglvrk2]

librarychica my daughters are 10 and 13. It can be messy. I've also seen growth in good ways with both of them this year. I equate age 13 to the childhood book. We're going on a bear hunt. Everybody has to go through it. You can't go around it over it or under it...

If you and your husband come up with new strategies to address the comments, etc, please share them!

My girls don't comment on each other's weight or what they're eating. However, DD1 has expressed desires to lose weight. I'd be comfortable with her getting in better shape, but not necessarily losing weight. I've tried to reframe her talk about weight so it's more about taking care of herself, eating to stay healthy and to have the energy to do what she wants/needs to do

My MIL has made comments to me and H about dd1's weight. She's also made a few comments to dd1 this year about things she's eating is just having empty calories or excessive sugar. I was really caught off guard when she did this and know next time to tell her to stay in her lane.

This summer, MIL's best friend shared with me her concerns about MIL's obsessions with calories and weight. It was helpful to see that her comments actually reflected a bigger issue beyond DD1.

[mae0111]

My kids also comment on weight. As much as I try to stay out of their bickering, I shut down those comments very quickly. Food has always been an issue for both of my kids - sensory stuff is real. Their diets are pretty restricted, and I've just stopped fighting about it. DD1 really doesn't eat anything nutritious - just cheese and pasta and pizza and snacks. She has lost a lot of weight over the past year, and I am getting a bit concerned about it.

DD2 commented last night that it's her "fault" that she got her period early, because she's "fat". OMG. One, she is not fat at all - she has a solid athletic build. And two, where did she even get that?? It broke my heart. Her body is changing so much and I think she hates every second of it.

I came through HS and college during the "heroin chic" time of fashion, and did everything I could to look like the models. My mom was brutal. My relationship with food is just healing at age 49, and I'm much better than both of my sisters, who still struggle with EDs. I have a lot of conversations about nutrition, protein, fats, carbs, how important it all is that they work together. Trying to find nut-free high protein snacks that my kids will eat is a huge challenge.

[186momx]

All we seem to do in our house right now is talk about food and it is 100% draining.

Weekend was long and annoying. We had no plans. DH has started up doing his intarsia woodworking stuff again so all we listened to was saws and sanders all weekend. I'm so happy to be at work and in the quiet today.

[rere]

As someone who was called big boned by her mother, I've had issues with food since 9. So I tried very hard to not pass that on to Dd. She's tall and thin, but does make comments about weight, but not often anymore. I always tell her we are not trying to be thin, but be strong. I'm proud of her for keeping up her workouts in college, but right now she can get away with a college kid diet, although she does try to incorporate fruit and vegetables more. I had to talk her through cooking canned green beans last week.

[rere]

Wonderful having both kids home for the weekend. We spent Friday hanging out and unexpectedly shopping because ds was down to 1 pair of jeans that he proceeded to split from crotch to knee working on his truck. Then out to dinner.

Saturday they hunted and requested a big pot of chill. Sunday I made breakfast and put out all the Christmas decorations while everyone was home.

I'm off today. Dd started the day with a meltdown because she somehow missed an assignment. It wasn't that big of a deal, but she's been studying non stop and has 2 big test this week, so she had a good cry over it. It's going to be a long 2.5 years till graduation.

I took Ds to the airport. It was nice to have him home, and drop-off wasn't as bad because he has 2 weeks of leave at Christmas.

I had my car crammed with stuff to take to Goodwill and am going to clean up the rest of the day then admire my Christmas tree.

[sdlaura]

I don't know many (any?) women who don't have food and weight issues/preoccupations. It's impossible to be a woman and not feel like your body is imperfect in various ways. I feel like kids/siblings will latch onto just about anything when they want to feel mightier than whoever they're arguing with. But yeah, weight is so hard, especially for girls. I only have one girl and three boys, but the boys are short so they make fun of each other for that. Like DS2 is shorter vs his friends than DS1 is, so DS1 pokes fun at him for that, but it's not like DS1 is tall, so you know...people in glass houses. Luckily, the boys haven't made fun of DD for weight...yet. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets some of that at school, though, since we live in an area of very thin people for the most part, and my DD is 12 and a big kid - both tall and round. She's just surpassed me in height and is not far off in weight, and I'm a size 10. I do feel like some of my friends are afraid to talk at all about the relationship between food and weight/size because they're worried about causing issues around it for their kids. I try to be practical about it...I tell them there's definitely a direct relationship between calories and weight, but they can do with that what they will, and we encourage and model physical activity. I just try to tell DD that I think she's beautiful and strong at whatever weight.

Anyway...we had a good weekend. But exhausting enough from kids' activities that I took a nap on the couch Saturday from 5-6 pm Today the kids are all off. DS1 and DS2 are in one-day YMCA skate park camp while my parents have DD and DS3 at their condo for a bit. I'm trying to catch up on work but don't have many meetings, which is nice.

[sdlaura]

Well, turns out that Saturday evening nap was because I have covid - oops. I started getting some cold symptoms Friday and have felt a little more tired and brain foggy than most of my colds, so decided to test tonight before I go present at an in person board meeting tomorrow. I got the Covid booster really recently, which is probably why I’ve been pretty functional and still doing hard workouts everyday.

[186momx]

I got a voicemail from the doctor's office late yesterday afternoon with some test results. Good news is DD isn't anemic but her iron levels are very low so we should add a mulit-vitamin and don't panic when you view the results on my chart the results in red are just on the low side but still considered normal. No results were posted in my chart as of today so I couldn't Dr Google anything. I also will be getting another phone call with the rest of her results and hopefully my hands won't be full, and I can actually answer the damn phone. I listened to that message 4 times and still was confused. Why is health care so complicated?

[supertrooper1]

Work has been insanely busy today with my clients and two coworkers' clients emailing me.

The weekend was pretty good. Beau's 6 year old grandson spent two nights and his 2 year old spent 1 night. They require a lot of energy. We ended up at Chuck E Cheese one day with them and DS. We went out to breakfast Sunday morning with Beau's family and dropped the kids off. Beau had to help his son with a tree that had fallen on their shop. Monday DS and I went bowling while Beau played his game all day. DS needed a bigger winter jacket so we did a little shopping. He's now in adult small sizes and the price for a winter coat was insane. Luckily there were some good sales.

[erbear]

I am so tired of dealing with DD1 (15, 10th grade). She is so smart but damn is she lazy. She does the bare minimum and gets by with B-s in her honors classes (English, History, Math) and Bs in her non-honors classes (Chem and Spanish). With the tiniest bit of effort, she could have As in most of those classes but she just doesn't work. It drives me insane. It's a fight every night and I should just let her deal with the consequences but I also know that she wants to go to college and her grades won't get here where she wants and I'm not sure that lesson is a great one right now.

[k3am]

Third round interview today. Even DH called it that the job is not a good fit. I took the in person interview as practice knowing that even if they offered me a role, it would likely be over in a few months (I don't have the expertise, which I could pick up quickly, but I also don't have the sales aptitude or desire to even do sales). But annoyance factor? ON my way out, they said they already filled the role we'd been talking about. So interview practice achieved and I got a free lunch out of it - not sure what was in it for them.

At this point, I'm leaning towards.. just not returning for a while. DH has been telling me to do whatever I want, his salary more than covers us. This weekend after a couple glasses of wine, he said that the last few months have been amazing - I'm less stressed, he's less stressed, our house/family is functioning better than it ever has. His work demands have been through the roof lately, but because I'm able to get stuff done during the week, there's more downtime in the weekend for him to unwind and relax vs. trying to get everything done. So apparently neither of us hate me not working, even a little.

[waverly]

erbear, DS does an hour with a tutor weekly. He has zero issues with this.

But an hour with me and he would push back, fight and be super resistant which is why we went with the tutor. Would something like that help?

[erbear]

Nov 12, 2024 19:22:57 GMT -5 waverly said:

erbear , DS does an hour with a tutor weekly. He has zero issues with this.

But an hour with me and he would push back, fight and be super resistant which is why we went with the tutor. Would something like that help?

She has a million people to help her. There is a learning specialist at school that she could check in with every day at study hall. She does not. There is a writing tutor (free!) who would work with her whenever she wants. She doesn't go. Every one of her teachers has drop in "office hours" every single day. She never goes. There's no world in which I'm paying someone who she will just not go to. 

DD2 is such a different student. Does her homework with no reminders. Finishes it on Friday after school so it's not hanging over her all weekend. Practices until she gets it right. Sees her teachers when she doesn't understand. I do not get how I have two such different kids.

[librarychica]

erbear that is so frustrating. Is this consistent with her or a new behavior?

If this is just who she is as a student, I do get the fear that letting her flop so close to college applications, but when you say her grades won’t get her where she wants to go, does she know this? What’s she have to say about that? Does she truly want that experience or does she think she should want that? Maybe it would be better to let her sort it out herself and if she ends up in community college or similar, well, possibly it would be better than failing out of her target college without you there to keep her on task.

Obviously I don’t know either of you and could be 100% wrong and maybe she’s just having a rough year, but I do not think I could fight for 3 years over high school homework. I don’t think it would be good for my relationships with the kids and, well, I already got myself into college, my girls will need to work for their own admission. We can provide the opportunities but they have to accept them.

[erbear]

Nov 12, 2024 21:40:41 GMT -5 librarychica said:

erbear that is so frustrating. Is this consistent with her or a new behavior?

If this is just who she is as a student, I do get the fear that letting her flop so close to college applications, but when you say her grades won’t get her where she wants to go, does she know this? What’s she have to say about that? Does she truly want that experience or does she think she should want that? Maybe it would be better to let her sort it out herself and if she ends up in community college or similar, well, possibly it would be better than failing out of her target college without you there to keep her on task.

Obviously I don’t know either of you and could be 100% wrong and maybe she’s just having a rough year, but I do not think I could fight for 3 years over high school homework. I don’t think it would be good for my relationships with the kids and, well, I already got myself into college, my girls will need to work for their own admission. We can provide the opportunities but they have to accept them.

This make a lot of sense. No, this isn’t new — she’s got adhd and school is just not easy for her. She’s been able to skate by because she’s smart and now she can’t, so high school has been harder than previous years for sure. She very much does want to go to college but she doesn’t really understand the connection, even though I’ve shown her the gpa requirements for the place she wants to go.

[waverly]

Nov 12, 2024 19:41:01 GMT -5 erbear said:

Nov 12, 2024 19:22:57 GMT -5 waverly said:

erbear , DS does an hour with a tutor weekly. He has zero issues with this.

But an hour with me and he would push back, fight and be super resistant which is why we went with the tutor. Would something like that help?

She has a million people to help her. There is a learning specialist at school that she could check in with every day at study hall. She does not. There is a writing tutor (free!) who would work with her whenever she wants. She doesn't go. Every one of her teachers has drop in "office hours" every single day. She never goes. There's no world in which I'm paying someone who she will just not go to. 

DD2 is such a different student. Does her homework with no reminders. Finishes it on Friday after school so it's not hanging over her all weekend. Practices until she gets it right. Sees her teachers when she doesn't understand. I do not get how I have two such different kids.

I have to bribe DS to see his teachers. We then have to ask the teachers if he went. I haven’t figured out the bribe yet but thinking money rather than a specific gift.

The tutor comes to our home. He can’t avoid her and he can’t not participate unless he just wants to sit in silence. If it were up to DS to take initiative at school he just won’t. He’s shy and doesn’t want to ask questions in class. This is the first year he has ever seen teachers during teacher access days. And only because of our discussion, bribes and follow up. He is supposed to go weekly and I think he’s been maybe 6 times. If we aren’t on top of him then he stops going. I told him we cannot keep teaching things at home because he refuses to ask questions in class.

[rere]

Nov 12, 2024 21:40:41 GMT -5 librarychica said:

erbear that is so frustrating. Is this consistent with her or a new behavior?

If this is just who she is as a student, I do get the fear that letting her flop so close to college applications, but when you say her grades won’t get her where she wants to go, does she know this? What’s she have to say about that? Does she truly want that experience or does she think she should want that? Maybe it would be better to let her sort it out herself and if she ends up in community college or similar, well, possibly it would be better than failing out of her target college without you there to keep her on task.

Obviously I don’t know either of you and could be 100% wrong and maybe she’s just having a rough year, but I do not think I could fight for 3 years over high school homework. I don’t think it would be good for my relationships with the kids and, well, I already got myself into college, my girls will need to work for their own admission. We can provide the opportunities but they have to accept them.

This. Dd has never had things come easy for her at school. She has to work for her good grades. I worry about her less at school because she knows how to put the work in and study, which is what you need for college. My fear would be, would she be able to make it at a university on her own if she's not. willing to work? Ds always had things come easy at school, but this time in the military really helped him figure things out and time to see what he wanted. So maybe time at a community college or something to give her perspective? I also do not pay for school when I care more than they do.