Today I decided to join the Church I've been attending. Another girl from our Club was joining, and I decided it would be a great time, so I joined quickly--like I met with the minister last week quickly. Because of the speed of the transaction, I forgot to tell my parents I was joining the new Church. It truly wasn't a huge deal. I've been attending that Church forever; I've even taught Bible School. It's just a huge, beautiful, well-dressed Church, and to be honest, I didn't want to stand up there by myself. When someone else was joining--Bingo. (It really is beautiful. All I need is a wedding.)
As fate would have it, a girl from my hometown was having her baby baptized today. Look, a baby's baptism is a way bigger deal than a 40-year-old becoming an associate member of a new Church. So the whole family was there for the baby. Of course.
Anyway, I related all this to my mother. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have come!" I just forgot. I'm sorry. "Well, weren't you scared up there all by yourself?" I wasn't by myself. My friend was there and then the baby's family was even there. And now...the real question. "Well, did the (baby's family) say anything about why we weren't there?" It looks pretty bad that they were there, and we weren't"
Ah ha!! You're just worried about looking Christian to the baby's family. You aren't even the same denomination as this Church (thus the associate member.) Mom, Mom, Mom...
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Julep: (cont.)
Act Three. Mr. J and I discussed Bear's birthday amongst ourselves on Thursday (or thereabouts). We didn't specify which of us would have to break the news to Mr. Mama - apparently we were both hoping that the other would get the follow-up phone call about weekend planning and have to wrestle that gator.
Well, as it turned out, the next word spoken came at 3 pm on Sunday, when Mr-Mama left me a voicemail in which she said, "Just checking to make sure we are on track for this afternoon, for you all to come over around 4, open Bear's presents, and grill some burgers." Wha-wha-what?
My first (unfair) assumption was that she had made these plans with Mr. J after talking with me on Tuesday, and he had shirked on telling her NO to the early birthday celebration. Nope. Mr-Mama made these plans all on her own and even invited Nanny to come, but she didn't bother to call either Mr. J or me. Why? I'm putting my money on "passive aggressive manipulation" and not wanting to talk to me after I told her to stop buying my kid ugly clothes. Regardless, she hadn't checked with us.
In response to her voicemail, Mr. J called her to tell her that we didn't want to celebrate Bear's birthday early. She screamed at him that I had already told her we could do it and hung up on him. After the inevitable marital bickering, I called her back, planning to offer to come for dinner but holding firm on the birthday. Instead, as soon as I said hello she insisted to me that I had told her we would come for dinner. When I told her that was untrue, she said Mr. J had told her. And, she said, if we didn't want to celebrate Bear's birthday early we should have told her before 3:30 that we weren't coming at 4. I said, "Mr. Mama, we didn't either of us realize you were expecting us at 4 until I heard your voicemail." And ... she hung up on me. How's that for mature?
Now, I can see we aren't blameless. Mr. J or I should have called Mr. Mama once we discussed the birthday and told her right away that we didn't want to do it this weekend. But we were expecting her to call one of us to make a specific weekend plan. Neither of us wanted to initiate a call because we both knew that telling her we wouldn't do what she wanted would inevitably result in her pitching a fit. She puts everyone in fear of making her mad, and as a result, she gets her way.
(On a broader scale, this has caused us problems: Mr. J is conditioned to expect discord and often won't speak up when he disagrees with me, because he thinks it will provoke a fight. Meanwhile, I get upset that he won't talk through things and come to a resolution.)
I told Mr. J, I tell the Bear that I don't respond to tantrums. When he screams in my face, he has taken his request off the list of things I will do for him. Mr-Mama is a lot older but the same rule applies. If she thinks she can throw a tantrum and get her own way, she can think twice.
Saddle up, kids. Looks like a bumpy ride ahead.
Well, as it turned out, the next word spoken came at 3 pm on Sunday, when Mr-Mama left me a voicemail in which she said, "Just checking to make sure we are on track for this afternoon, for you all to come over around 4, open Bear's presents, and grill some burgers." Wha-wha-what?
My first (unfair) assumption was that she had made these plans with Mr. J after talking with me on Tuesday, and he had shirked on telling her NO to the early birthday celebration. Nope. Mr-Mama made these plans all on her own and even invited Nanny to come, but she didn't bother to call either Mr. J or me. Why? I'm putting my money on "passive aggressive manipulation" and not wanting to talk to me after I told her to stop buying my kid ugly clothes. Regardless, she hadn't checked with us.
In response to her voicemail, Mr. J called her to tell her that we didn't want to celebrate Bear's birthday early. She screamed at him that I had already told her we could do it and hung up on him. After the inevitable marital bickering, I called her back, planning to offer to come for dinner but holding firm on the birthday. Instead, as soon as I said hello she insisted to me that I had told her we would come for dinner. When I told her that was untrue, she said Mr. J had told her. And, she said, if we didn't want to celebrate Bear's birthday early we should have told her before 3:30 that we weren't coming at 4. I said, "Mr. Mama, we didn't either of us realize you were expecting us at 4 until I heard your voicemail." And ... she hung up on me. How's that for mature?
Now, I can see we aren't blameless. Mr. J or I should have called Mr. Mama once we discussed the birthday and told her right away that we didn't want to do it this weekend. But we were expecting her to call one of us to make a specific weekend plan. Neither of us wanted to initiate a call because we both knew that telling her we wouldn't do what she wanted would inevitably result in her pitching a fit. She puts everyone in fear of making her mad, and as a result, she gets her way.
(On a broader scale, this has caused us problems: Mr. J is conditioned to expect discord and often won't speak up when he disagrees with me, because he thinks it will provoke a fight. Meanwhile, I get upset that he won't talk through things and come to a resolution.)
I told Mr. J, I tell the Bear that I don't respond to tantrums. When he screams in my face, he has taken his request off the list of things I will do for him. Mr-Mama is a lot older but the same rule applies. If she thinks she can throw a tantrum and get her own way, she can think twice.
Saddle up, kids. Looks like a bumpy ride ahead.
Julep: A drama in three parts (In which Mr-Mama acts like a toddler)
Act One. On Tuesday, armed with a pile of photographs of the kids I had printed off Snapfish, I dropped by Mr-Mama's house after dinnertime. After plying her with her choice of photos, I told her that I wanted to talk with her about something. Her first response? "What did I do wrong?"
I assured her that she did nothing wrong, it was just something that had been on my mind and I wanted to share it ... and I launched into all the soft soap that J-Mama had directed me to lather her up with, including a reference to how lucky I am to have her for a MIL compared to some of the relationships I know other people have - including her! She would not be distracted and just kept asking, "What did I do?"
I told her, with as much diplomacy as possible, that we have very different taste in clothes for baby girls and I don't want the Seagull to wear sparkles or tulle or animal print. She said, "But there is so much cute stuff like that out there!" I said, "I know there is a lot of it out there, but it isn't my taste. And I know there is other stuff out there too because I have girlfriends who share my taste and have managed to dress little girls for several years now." [Thank you, Twinkle family.] She got huffy and said, "Fine, I just won't buy her anything that doesn't look like it's 85 years old and comes from the grandma shop." I responded, "That would be fine." I repeated that if she would rather not buy the Gull clothes that meet my taste, I certainly understand but I am not trying to stop her from shopping. I just don't want her to waste her time and money buying things that the Seagull is not going to wear.
The conversation went on in the same vein for a while. Thirteen minutes, to be exact. I recorded it on my phone, so that when she inevitably blew it out of proportion and told Mr. J how mean to her I was, I could prove that in fact, I bent over backwards to deliver the message as kindly as I possibly could. (No, I didn't tell her I was taping it.) Little did I know that would not be where the next blow fell ...
She was sulky and grumpy but I could tell she knew she was thwarted. At the end of the conversation, she brought up Bear's birthday, which is next Saturday. She and Mr-Papa will be out of town, and she asked if they could "come over to [our] house, or [we] could come over here" to her house on the weekend so they could give him his presents. I said we were busy on Saturday but Sunday would probably work at some point and I would talk to Mr. J. She said she was riding in the morning so it would need to be later in the day. I said that was probably fine and we could talk about it later.
Act Two. Mr. J and I discussed the Bear's birthday. After thinking it over, I really did not want her to bring over her huge pile of presents to be opened in advance of his actual birthday. She bought so many things for him last year, and she insisted on coming over to "watch him open them" the day after his birthday. Of course, at age 1, he was not interested in 9/10 of it, and it was just completely out of hand.
We are having a very low-key celebration for the Bear on his birthday, with his aunts and cousins and my parents. There will be a few presents and cake but nothing elaborate or massive. I felt like if Mr-Mama did her thing first, the Bear would be totally confused - he is only turning 2! - and would not realize that his actual birthday was in fact his birthday.
OK, I didn't want her Giant Pile of Presents to overshadow our more modest offerings. If she wants to go out of town on his birthday, fine, she can give him his gifts when she gets back ... or she can leave his presents for him to open on his actual birthday like any normal person who is thinking about the gift recipient instead of herself. Ahem.
I didn't tell her she had a limit on how much she could buy him - though I would have liked to; I just told Mr. J that I wanted to wait until after his birthday to give her stuff. Ready for Act Three?
I assured her that she did nothing wrong, it was just something that had been on my mind and I wanted to share it ... and I launched into all the soft soap that J-Mama had directed me to lather her up with, including a reference to how lucky I am to have her for a MIL compared to some of the relationships I know other people have - including her! She would not be distracted and just kept asking, "What did I do?"
I told her, with as much diplomacy as possible, that we have very different taste in clothes for baby girls and I don't want the Seagull to wear sparkles or tulle or animal print. She said, "But there is so much cute stuff like that out there!" I said, "I know there is a lot of it out there, but it isn't my taste. And I know there is other stuff out there too because I have girlfriends who share my taste and have managed to dress little girls for several years now." [Thank you, Twinkle family.] She got huffy and said, "Fine, I just won't buy her anything that doesn't look like it's 85 years old and comes from the grandma shop." I responded, "That would be fine." I repeated that if she would rather not buy the Gull clothes that meet my taste, I certainly understand but I am not trying to stop her from shopping. I just don't want her to waste her time and money buying things that the Seagull is not going to wear.
The conversation went on in the same vein for a while. Thirteen minutes, to be exact. I recorded it on my phone, so that when she inevitably blew it out of proportion and told Mr. J how mean to her I was, I could prove that in fact, I bent over backwards to deliver the message as kindly as I possibly could. (No, I didn't tell her I was taping it.) Little did I know that would not be where the next blow fell ...
She was sulky and grumpy but I could tell she knew she was thwarted. At the end of the conversation, she brought up Bear's birthday, which is next Saturday. She and Mr-Papa will be out of town, and she asked if they could "come over to [our] house, or [we] could come over here" to her house on the weekend so they could give him his presents. I said we were busy on Saturday but Sunday would probably work at some point and I would talk to Mr. J. She said she was riding in the morning so it would need to be later in the day. I said that was probably fine and we could talk about it later.
Act Two. Mr. J and I discussed the Bear's birthday. After thinking it over, I really did not want her to bring over her huge pile of presents to be opened in advance of his actual birthday. She bought so many things for him last year, and she insisted on coming over to "watch him open them" the day after his birthday. Of course, at age 1, he was not interested in 9/10 of it, and it was just completely out of hand.
We are having a very low-key celebration for the Bear on his birthday, with his aunts and cousins and my parents. There will be a few presents and cake but nothing elaborate or massive. I felt like if Mr-Mama did her thing first, the Bear would be totally confused - he is only turning 2! - and would not realize that his actual birthday was in fact his birthday.
OK, I didn't want her Giant Pile of Presents to overshadow our more modest offerings. If she wants to go out of town on his birthday, fine, she can give him his gifts when she gets back ... or she can leave his presents for him to open on his actual birthday like any normal person who is thinking about the gift recipient instead of herself. Ahem.
I didn't tell her she had a limit on how much she could buy him - though I would have liked to; I just told Mr. J that I wanted to wait until after his birthday to give her stuff. Ready for Act Three?
Monday, October 14, 2013
Julep: The scariest Halloween outfit ever.
If nudity were my daughter's only alternative to wearing this ensemble, I would traipse her around the neighborhood in her birthday suit without a second thought. The worst part is the price tag. Forty-eight dollars for this bedazzled piece of shite!
My own mama sat me down even before this item appeared in all its glory, and told me that I need to have a heart-to-heart chat with Mr-Mama. She said, "Honey, you can't go through your child's entire life pretending to have wardrobe malfunctions that ruin the horrible clothes she buys. At some point, you turn into a sitcom character. You just have to bite the bullet, tell her how much you love and appreciate her and didn't want to hurt her feelings, but feel that you must tell her the truth because you so very much want to have a good strong relationship with her where the two of you tell each other your honest feelings, and where her son never has to feel like he is caught in the middle. And then tell her you have very different taste in children's clothes, and you so appreciate her generosity but she has to defer to your taste."
I know J-Mama is right, she always is, though I fear she is under-estimating Mr-Mama's love for The Dramz. It sounds great when J-Mama says it, but we shall see. I am planning to ask Mr-Mama to join me for a cocktail one night this week, and I'll lay it out. I'll let y'all know how it goes.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Twinkle: Fun Sink Withholds Much-Deserved Praise
You all can probably imagine that the Fun Sink family is not exactly effusive with their praise, which is a source of major problems for me because I like to be praised, adored, and sucked up to all the time. Fun Sink is not part of the positive reinforcement school of child-rearing; where would her children be without all her ball-busting, nagging, and sad head-shaking when they (constantly) fall short?
I've learned to expect that sort of behavior toward Mr. Twinks, but I will never get used to it when when she directs it at my children.
So tonight we were Face-Timing for Baby B's birthday, and I took the phone over to E (who at that moment happened to be confined to B's high chair, devouring a packet of Fun Dip that she got while trick-or-treating at the zoo). Her mouth and fingers were green and she was very focused on extracting every last green sugar granule from the packet with her "Lick-A-Stix."
They said their hellos, but phone conversations with two-year-olds sometimes require some prodding, so I said, "E--tell them what you learned how to do!" And when E says, "I go to the potty," I expect people--especially grandparents--to go freaking ballistic with praise. Do you know what Fun Sink said, y'all? She said, "Okay..." And no one else said anything. They were so nonplussed by Es's announcement that I actually thought they didn't hear her and I felt the need to say it again.
I don't get these people. Going to the potty is a big, huge deal. It's so huge that I consider teaching it to be beyond my scope of parenting; I've potty-trained twice now and both times I have done nothing but wait for them to decide it's what they want. (And I've praised them, ironically enough. That's the one thing I have done.). So the fact that E was motivated to learn and then did learn and has come home from school three days in a row in the same outfit she left in, with no accidents, is a marvel to me. It requires a response of, "That is awesome, E! I am so proud of you! Let's celebrate when we get back from Connecticut!"
I've actually been kind of cool with Fun Sink recently. She's not bothering me, probably because I don't expect much from her. But I was very disappointed in her reaction to E's news. It's just a good thing E's success with the potty is not dependent on Fun Sink's attitude on the matter. E's motivation is candy corn--and y'all know Fun Sink won't like that one bit.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Julep: you have to laugh
Yesterday, Mr. J brought the baby with him for our Monday lunch date. (This is a new thing we are trying: we have a weekly household business meeting - complete with minutes. The hope is that with a set time to go through all of our outstanding issues - lining up sitters for this/that/the other, getting quotes on the garage siding, planning the Bear's birthday party - we can actually enjoy our evenings together without the persistent need to nag. I digress.)
The Seagull was not only wearing the same onesie I put her to sleep in the night before, she was still wearing her swaddle sack. In the car seat. When I asked "WTF, honey?" the answer was, he didn't want her legs to be cold if he put a dress on her.
Points for considering the weather before taking the child out of the house. But evidently my recent guided tour of the baby's new dresser - complete with pants! and tights! -- was for naught.
Also, I learned that Mr. J is intimidated by tights.
The Seagull was not only wearing the same onesie I put her to sleep in the night before, she was still wearing her swaddle sack. In the car seat. When I asked "WTF, honey?" the answer was, he didn't want her legs to be cold if he put a dress on her.
Points for considering the weather before taking the child out of the house. But evidently my recent guided tour of the baby's new dresser - complete with pants! and tights! -- was for naught.
Also, I learned that Mr. J is intimidated by tights.
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