I think you're expecting too much. We don't live close enough to any relatives to receive any sort of free child care. I'd be thrilled to receive what she was offering.
Random Thoughts XII - This Thread Delivers
- Thread starter stormchaser2014
- Start date
- Status
I think you're expecting too much. We don't live close enough to any relatives to receive any sort of free child care. I'd be thrilled to receive what she was offering.
wxman, I think you may be expecting too much or expecting your parents to be the same as your in-laws when it comes to availability for watching your children. It may help to view anything they are able to offer as an "bonus" rather than an expectation.
I would agree with that. It's just hard to see how much more LittleWx enjoys being with them than my family mostly because they are around more. My family has also been known to complain about not seeing them...but then their effort to see them despite living two miles away is face time usually during dinner or when we are trying to get them in bed. Just frustrating.
oh I can totally understand that. I'd probably be a little passive aggressive in those situations then when they complain about not seeing the kids and say well we asked X, Y, Z times but you guys had other stuff going on.
Which, they are totally allowed to have, of course. But for them to put the onus on you when they are the ones not able to make what's offered work, isn't fair.
Sometimes when we go on RAGBRAI my in-laws watch our kids for a whole week. It is a great gift when they can do it but we understand when they have other things they would like to do or it just doesn't work out. Whenever they do we bring the kids to them in central Iowa. Whenever she hears about it my wife's SIL demands that they have to watch their kids for a week because they watched our kids. The big differences are that we bring our kids (2) to them; we ask, not demand; and we spend a lot of time going down to visit them other times. They expect my in-laws to travel out of state to their house to watch their 3 kids, they demand rather than ask and they essentially only travel to visit my in-laws on holidays.
So can anyone give me an update on conditions in southern MN and northern and central Iowa? I can't leave until after 1:30 so I should have about an extra hour to still make the game tonight but I have no idea how bad the roads are. The Twin Cities are terrible but I don't know how bad they are south of here.
Any insight would be helpful since I need to decide if I risk buying a couple of tickets for the game before we leave.
Any insight would be helpful since I need to decide if I risk buying a couple of tickets for the game before we leave.
We're headed to the Twin Cities after work today. How bad is it up there and could it get worse? Central Iowa is fine, btw.
Went to bed stuffy, woke up in full-blown cold mode. I'm just sitting here feeling blerg, and Milo is desperately trying to get some "Mommy time". He has been messing up my keyboard efforts by walking on it, swishing his tail on it, sitting on it...
I have picked him up and set him on the floor a dozen times or more, with a rapidly decreasing amount of gentleness.
Lew is over there laughing at me - says, "you should be more careful what you wish for" because I told him I missed my cuddly Garf and needed another "cuddly cat"...so we got Milo & Molly.
I am currently typing around Milo, as I finally got him to settle down & just lay on the desk with his head on my right forearm. He's asleep.
I have picked him up and set him on the floor a dozen times or more, with a rapidly decreasing amount of gentleness.
Lew is over there laughing at me - says, "you should be more careful what you wish for" because I told him I missed my cuddly Garf and needed another "cuddly cat"...so we got Milo & Molly.
I am currently typing around Milo, as I finally got him to settle down & just lay on the desk with his head on my right forearm. He's asleep.
and sort of along wxman's line.......I had a big long post typed out that I shall try to shorten. Basically, after not hearing from DH's parents for like 6/7 weeks (all while I was on leave, btw and we had a more flexible schedule), I found out from my mom who ran into MIL at a store a couple weeks ago that the in-laws "don't feel welcome" here and I guess that's why they went silent.......waiting for DH to invite them up? Newsflash, *I* had to be the one to point out to DH after like 4 weeks that hey, it's odd your parents haven't called, do you think they're upset or something? DH: meh. Also, they've never had an issue inviting themselves up previously so of course DH figured well they must be busy or something otherwise they'd ask.
Anyway, my mom in response to this was like I'm sure if you called and gave enough notice, they'd have you up. Probably not this weekend as CG goes back to work Monday and I'm sure this weekend is precious to them. As will all weekends now. MIL complained that she works weekends so it's hard to schedule (???) That makes no sense because it's a schedule set far in advance. It's actually very easy to know that ok, these two weekends this month you don't work so do either of those work to come visit. In any case, it was awkward and my mom was trying to be very diplomatic and point out that DH and I are fairly private + are adults who have their own lives and as grandparents, we all have to respect that now.
I'll be honest, DH and I are pretty introverted and don't love visits from his parents because they can be a bit intrusive on stuff. But we deal. The bigger thing is they often wait until the last minute to want to come up and then we have something going on or just want more than 12 hours to prepare.
So after all that, guess who called at 8:30 Friday night a couple weeks ago to try and come up that weekend? After my mom was even like hey not this weekend cause CG gon be holding that baby.
yeah. So we said no and DH said you need to give us more notice which I think pissed them off. But for real, we did have stuff going on that weekend and it just.......it made me mad that they knew that was my last weekend of leave and tried to come anyway. So now that's happening this weekend. And of course this whole thing has only further soured me (and DH) on visits because I can't help but feel that move was made on purpose knowing we'd likely say no and you can continue to cast us (mostly me) as the big meanies. Anyway. That's my complaint for the day.
Anyway, my mom in response to this was like I'm sure if you called and gave enough notice, they'd have you up. Probably not this weekend as CG goes back to work Monday and I'm sure this weekend is precious to them. As will all weekends now. MIL complained that she works weekends so it's hard to schedule (???) That makes no sense because it's a schedule set far in advance. It's actually very easy to know that ok, these two weekends this month you don't work so do either of those work to come visit. In any case, it was awkward and my mom was trying to be very diplomatic and point out that DH and I are fairly private + are adults who have their own lives and as grandparents, we all have to respect that now.
I'll be honest, DH and I are pretty introverted and don't love visits from his parents because they can be a bit intrusive on stuff. But we deal. The bigger thing is they often wait until the last minute to want to come up and then we have something going on or just want more than 12 hours to prepare.
So after all that, guess who called at 8:30 Friday night a couple weeks ago to try and come up that weekend? After my mom was even like hey not this weekend cause CG gon be holding that baby.
yeah. So we said no and DH said you need to give us more notice which I think pissed them off. But for real, we did have stuff going on that weekend and it just.......it made me mad that they knew that was my last weekend of leave and tried to come anyway. So now that's happening this weekend. And of course this whole thing has only further soured me (and DH) on visits because I can't help but feel that move was made on purpose knowing we'd likely say no and you can continue to cast us (mostly me) as the big meanies. Anyway. That's my complaint for the day.
I thought about that after I typed it. But hey...there are worse people I could emulate.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
probably. I just don't get how it's always so last minute. That's rude, imo. Unless it's truly a hey we are suddenly free or suddenly going to be in the area type thing.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Grandparenting reveals some character traits and flaws that we don't always notice beforehand. It gets really bizarre and stressful.
Dealing with grandparents, and somewhat because of the lethal allergy situation they created for me, retaught me Samuel L. Jackson's favorite word.
Main roads are fine now. County roads are a bit iffy.
I have 2 tickets if yoy want them.
oh, most of this existed before, now it's just exacerbated. Though the extended no contact was new. I don't understand how that was supposed to work. DH works in the same building as a good friend and rarely goes over to say hi. You thought he would notice you hadn't called in a while and would proactively call you and invite you up??? Do you know your child????
I assume the word is "snakes", of course????
- Status
