January 9, 2008
I’m too open about my shortcomings
Not even sure how this is a real problem, but I recently got chastised for being too open about problems I deal with – specifically meaning A.D.D. I was told that there is a stigma associated with A.D.D. and that I shouldn’t be so open about taking medication for the problem myself. Now personally, I don’t really give even a rat’s ass worth of concern over what someone thinks about me for my problems, but apparently I’m not entitled to be unconcerned about things regarding how others view me if they concern her.
December 20, 2007
It’s unreasonable for me to expect our children to perform age-appropriate tasks
I have an 8-year-old son and an almost-5-year-old son. I was very, very frustrated with them last night because they wouldn’t listen to me for anything I told them to do. I tell my wife it’s because we’ve never held them accountable for completing age appropriate tasks on their own, she says it’s my fault for not standing over them as they perform tasks and makinig sure they do everything (sounds to me a lot like different ways of saying the same thing I said, but she doesn’t think so). She ended up getting them out of the bath and getting them in bed last night, because I was fed up with them not listening.
After the kids were asleep, she lectured me for almost 25 minutes about how far behind schedule she is on school work and how she doesn’t have ANY time to waste getting the kids bathed and in bed (but clearly she has lots of time to let me know how wrong I am to expect her to help with parenting). Of course, since I am the only one who bathes them since I finally got a day-shift job and am home at night, I’m not sure why this one instance of taking 45 minutes to finish bath and bedtime was so bad, but it clearly was. I think in the end, what she was saying is that if they aren’t getting something done, I am to do it for them so as to teach them that they have to do things on their own, but that message doesn’t seem logical to me.
This morning, our 8-year-old was up early. After I took my shower, I took his clothes down to him, told him to get dressed. I then put a bowl of cereal on the table and told him to get a spoon and milk if he wanted his cereal for breakfast. After I then ironed clothes, got dressed for work, shaved, and brushed my teeth, I came down to find that he had gotten dressed, eaten breakfast, put away the milk, and taken his dishes from the table to the kitchen. It was almost like he was performing an age appropriate task on his own without my having to do everything for him. But since I am wrong to expect that sort of behavior from him, it must be something else.
December 17, 2007
I make bad breakfast choices
Recently, I bought a few pre-packaged breakfast sandwiches to try getting occasional variety into the morning meal routine. Often the kids and I don’t have time to sit and eat a real breakfast, but when we do I like having different choices to minimize boredom from repetition. On Saturdays and Sundays, I’ll fix real stuff, but week-days I have less morning time so I picked up some quicker-to-go items. Since I’ve been trying to lose weight this year (successfully lost 25 pounds, but still have 30 to go and been stuck for 3 months), I’m always checking calorie and fat content. I made sure to buy things that weren’t too terrible for my body. Typically, we’re looking at 280-350 calories per sandwich.
Last week, one morning, I gave one of my sons one of the breakfast sandwiches. Specifically, it was a 280 calorie low-fat ham/egg/cheese english muffin sandwich (Healthy Choice brand, I believe). Two weeks before that, both had two small sausage biscuits two times in the same week. That’s it. That has been their consumption levels in the past month. More in the month or two before that, but I’m just setting the context of how often I ruin my children’s lives with poor food choices.
Yesterday, my wife, out of the blue, told me that if I kept giving them pre-packaged breakfast items like that, I was going to have a lot of trouble getting them to eat a proper breakfast when they get older. Now understand that we were not discussing breakfast when this topic came up, and it had been about 45 minutes since I’d actually made their breakfast – home-made biscuits with jelly and honey. In fact, we weren’t discussing anything, as I was actually in the process of finally cleaning up the kitchen so we could have company last night. She just came in and told me this after everyone had eaten breakfast and gone about other things.
January 4, 2006
I don’t listen
NOTE: This was originally started on Thursday evening. I have honestly been so busy, I haven’t been able to complete it until now.
We have had the misfortune of having a recent plumbing leak in the basement which has lead to quite a bit of muck/sludge/nastiness building up in a corner of the basement. Today, we tried to clean it up using some heavy-duty dustpans to scrape the floor (since we didn’t have a good flat-edge shovel). At one point, she was working in a tight space cleaning stuff out. The fumes were getting to be too much, so I had her come out so I could work some. As she came out, she said “I was working in that corner. The dustpan isn’t sturdy enough to clean that up.”
I interpreted that as “Don’t try to clear out that corner more with what I was using, as it’s not sturdy enough to scrape more out.” So, I start trying to clean the stuff she’d cleared out and put it in a bucket. As soon as I start, she yells at me. I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like “I just said the dustpan wasn’t sturdy enough for that. You never listen to me.”
Now I want to be clear – the first quote above is indeed a quote, and there were just 2-3 seconds of pause between the two sentences. I tell her how I understood her first quote. She tells me she never said anything about the corner. I tell her what she said, and she tells me I am wrong.
In the end, we got the cleaning done, but I felt it necessary to point out the incident here and see if others think I am totally idiotic for having the interpretation I did. Or is it possible that I had a valid interpretation and she just got mad because it wasn’t her interpretation? Or, for that matter, could it have even been something else? I’m trying here. Really. And I don’t know why I was attacked for trying to do what I thought I was told to do…
December 28, 2005
Pack your bags…
we’re going on a guilt trip. First, let me mention that I found out more that was wrong with me after our little spat Saturday night. But, as will some times happen, I figure these issues are no one’s business. That means, of course, I’m not sharing them. But let me just say I found out two more things that are wrong with me, one of which I promise will be contradicted in a coming post (OK, the gist of that one is I always decide things on my own, without considering its impact on her – remember this one).
For today, I was readying to leave for work. When I’m about to walk out the door, she asks me if I wouldn’t like to clean up the living room with the kids before I go. It did need cleaning, and I was leaving just a few minutes early for work (literally a few – about 4-6 minutes). I said I wanted to have time to stop to get snacks for work on the way. She didn’t tell me directly something was wrong with me, but she told me it would only take 10 minutes, and I really should do it, since she was now facing two whole days alone with the kids.
That last in reference to the fact that the kids’ schools are closed this week-and I still have to work tomorrow night as well. However, that is ignoring the half day I’ve spent alone with the kids today, the half day we’ll spend together with them tomorrow, and the time our holiday house-guest will be with all of them tonight before leaving to get back home. Additionally, I cleaned up the kitchen already and ran the dishwasher already, two tasks she usually has to do (not a huge thing, but I’m looking more at what I can do to help with housework lately than I used to), and I’d already done a lot of cleaning in the living room before she’d come home. Really, she has no idea how bad it had been.
Should I have done more cleaning earlier? Certainly. Was there a lot left to do? Yes, but I’d truly done more than half what was needed. But I’m trying, and I had done quite a bit already. I really am trying to make things better, and when situations like this occur, I feel like any good I do is sure to be ignored if doing so allows her to point out something wrong with me. And ultimately, that’s what’s made me feel the need to put up this silly blog/site.
December 23, 2005
Oh, and I don’t work around the house
While I was putting the kids to bed, she was cleaning the kitchen. When I come down, I ask her who is down in the basement. She gets mad at me, and tells me she’s been working and taking stuff down. Apparently, what I was doing doesn’t count. I ask if I can help, and she gives me a piddly task of carrying a few drinks down. She hasn’t talked to me since, so she’s mad. Thing is, I don’t know why. I’ve tried hard all day to be nice, do housework, and give her rest time, since she continues this 2+ week fight with an abcess that is wearing her down.
So long, nothing wrong?
No, I just haven’t had time to get on and post the last couple of things wrong with me. I’ll summarize them: I don’t do things the way she would (unspoken, but implied in a recent conversation) and I’m too loud.
For today, I get in trouble for trying to do something nice and give her quiet time without the kids. When I talk about getting out of the house with the kids tonight, she gets mad at me and literally yells “I’m planning on going too!” So I apologize for trying to be nice, since she’d never indicated she had any interest in going out with us.
December 17, 2005
Saturday bonus
To make up for missing a couple of days this week (I hate that launch week couldn’t be a daily thing), I have a bonus post.
What’s wrong with me today? I don’t clean up after myself. This was brought on by her cleaning up some mail and magazines of mine that I didn’t know I had from a place that I didn’t know they’d been put.
See, sometimes, I’m defective without even know it.
I never finish what I Start
I don’t even know what brought this one on. After spending 11 hours alone with the kids so she could grade papers, I finally had put one to bed. Prior to this, I had actually fallen asleep while taking a little break from the kids. I woke up when she was bringing the little one upstairs. He was in trouble for something, but I don’t know what. I helped calm him down, get home through his bath, and left him in his bed to go to sleep. When I returned to our room, she was folding laundry she had done earlier today. She was mad at me, and when I asked why, she said “Because you never finish anything.”
That was all the explanation I got. I left it at that, played a while with the older boy, and then did the bath and bed routine with him. Since then, I’ve been doing work while she’s been grading more papers.
From Friday
Ummmm, I don’t clean up after myself. Yes, we have a repeat already. It happens a lot. That’s because I’m so defective. Friday, I got told I don’t clean up after myself again. The culprit? I left 2 books, 2 magazines, and a gameboy game box on a table. This resulted in the table being the new “dumping area” from what I gather. So, I cleaned up my stuff. Yes, it shouldn’t have been there. I put everything in appropriate places, trying to clean. That left behind 3 days of her mail, and a lunchbox one of our children brought home from school. Problem solved, but the mess is still my fault.
What\'s wrong with me? 