This is what happens when Mommy is sick.

 

1. She decides (reluctantly) that she’s actually not well enough for work.
2. She goes to the Dr first thing, who diagnoses a chest infection and prescribes steroids, AB’s and a host of other meds.
3. She takes 5 phone calls from NBL WHILE she’s in the surgery and gets VERY annoyed because NBL is asking about stuff that she’s been copied in on a number of emails. Apparently she doesn’t read her mails. Who knew!
4. She is THRILLED that it’s the first chest infection in nearly 9 months! And that for the first time ever she doesn’t need to be nebulised. That can only be good right?
5. She picks up all the meds and comes home.
6. She makes a decent meal for herself. Toasted ham, cheese and tomato and a huge mug of iced tea.
7. She takes her meds.
8. She switches on her PC and catches up on blogs.
9. She decides (after about an hour) that she should probably get some sleep and rest.
10. Then she decides that she cannot possibly go and sleep in this pigsty.
11. So she cleans up.
12. After about 2 hours, she FINALLY gets into bed. She is knackered and feels like sh*t.
13. She sleeps for a good 4 hours. Then DH wakes her up with his LOUD knocking. Apparently he’s been trying to get hold of her (ostensibly to check if she’s still alive) but she forgot to charge her phone which has been dead for a while.  He makes her something to eat and she takes more meds.
14. She then goes with DH to collect the kids. I guess he didn’t want the kids to walk into the house with their Mommy being dead or whatever?
15. They stop at the Spar for some stuff because there is hardly anything in the house. She continues to cough a lung out.
16. She comes home and cooks WHILE DH sees to the kids.
17. She gets annoyed that she needs to cook. When DH is sick, she does EVERYTHING! Why can’t he cook AND see to the kids?????
18. She then goes to her appointment that has been pre-arranged for some weeks because she feels too bad to try to get out of it now. DH is VERY upset that she’s going out while she’s sick.
19. She comes home. Kids are sleeping. She takes her meds.
20. Now she’s going to bed. Tomorrow she will rest in a clean house. And NOT play on the internet so long. Maybe she will do a load or 2 of laundry. She’s a Mom after all and is technically not allowed to get sick. Unfortunately life must still go on. So annoying!

Arguing in front of your kids

This guest post on Simple Mom reminded me of a conversation that I recently had with a friend. We were talking about fighting in front of/around your kids.

My friend and her husband NEVER argue around their kids. At all times they argue behind closed doors.  She grew up in a home where the adults fought ALL THE TIME and she still remembers how anxious it made her feel. Things got so hairy that she used to hide under her bed sometimes.

And then the next day her Mom and Dad would be smooching at the breakfast table and it was like nothing happened. Poor girl. Can you imagine the fear and anxiety that she must have felt? She swore that she would NEVER put her kids through that. EVER. And she stuck to that 100%. Her husband comes from similar circumstances and  I can’t say that I completely agree with what they are doing  but I do understand their context and where they are coming from.

I grew up seeing my parents argue.  At no stage did I ever feel fearful about it. I think it’s because throughout their arguments they never seemed to lose respect for one another. There was no swearing. No name calling. No humiliating one another. No dredging up old issues that had already been dealt with.  They never put us in the middle of it and they never did it in public places or when our friends were visiting.  I understood that Moms and Dads didn’t always agree on things.  I constantly saw LOVE AND FORGIVENESS in action and I kind of assumed that this was what happened in all households. Sometimes I can’t believe how sheltered I grew up and how naïve this made me.

I asked my DH about his experience of his parents arguing and he reported much of the same when growing up.

Personally, my DH and I do argue/disagree/bicker about things in front of our kids.

But. I am very aware that I need to fight fair. I will admit that I can be very immature when we fight (I walk away and slam doors and stuff. Depending on how mad he makes me, I may even break a plate) and this is something that I am aware of and constantly work on. I do have to work harder than my DH at fighting fair -he is so stylish and sophisticated when he bickers with me. I can be downright common!

I don’t have an issue with my kids seeing us argue. After all, this is a normal part of any relationship. They do need to learn that Mom and Dad don’t always agree on things BUT that they still love one another. They do need to learn that disagreeing on matters is normal and healthy in any relationship. And they need to learn (and see) that we speak about it afterwards and forgive one another.  They are essentially learning all about conflict resolution just by watching us.

There are unspoken rules between us when we disagree. There is no name-calling. There is no swearing. There is minimal raising of voices. There are NO past issues being brought up if they have no bearing on the current disagreement and especially if they have already been resolved. We don’t EVER put our kids in the middle of it – they understand that the adults are having a disagreement and that it is a) not their fault and b) has no bearing on how much we love them.

Having said all this, there are certain things that we would NEVER argue about in front of them. We don’t EVER argue about things like money or differing parenting views.  We don’t even argue about in-laws around our kids because we  need for them to never lose respect for their grandparents/aunties/cousins etc. We also never argue in front of them about things that we don’t like about their teachers or schools.

So this would be my question to you:

How do you feel about arguing around your kids? Is it something that you are completely opposed to? Do you argue behind closed doors or is this something that you do openly in front of your kids.

How do you handle conflict with your spouse/partner when your kids are around?

 

We need friends

My DH and I don’t really have many couples as friends. I think that a number of factors have contributed to this – I’ve even created a list:

• We have had a difficult few years and some people (people who you think are your friends) can’t cope with it when you are feeling too low to party with them so they stay away. And once things get better and they start coming back then my DH and I prefer to not worry with them because they ran a mile when we really needed SOME kind of emotional support.
• Many of our party soldier friends don’t have kids so they can’t understand that we are not available at a moment’s notice to go out. I don’t have a shortage of babysitters but that doesn’t mean that I want to take advantage of their kindness and saddle them with my kids at the last minute. Besides, weekends are the only times when we have block periods of quality time with our kids so we actually prefer to plan our lives around this.
• Some of our friends can’t cope with my Tween boys ADHD issues. I get that, so I tend to invite them to our place instead of going around to their houses because I do relax more and find it easier to manage him in his own space. The problem with this is that things tend to start becoming one-sided and I eventually stop doing this because surely if they are our friends then they will at least try to learn something about ADHD and try to understand why we do what we do?
• Our lifestyles have changed. We no longer enjoy going out at night and prefer to do stuff together with other families – usually during the day. We want to do braais and long lunches and things like that. We are done with clubbing and all nighters.
• Family life and working full-time does tend to keep us and everyone else VERY BUSY.
• I find that we have unconsciously “broken up” with a number of our friends because our value systems have changed over the years. We have grown and it just seems like some of our friends haven’t (or maybe we have all grown in different areas of our lives) so we end up having very little in common and having very little to talk about.
• Some of our friends live far from us so it is not logistically possible to socialise more than once a year or whatever.

There is another big reason but I prefer to discuss that in a post tomorrow.

My DH and I don’t really need people to have a good time. We have a lot of fun together and enjoy one another’s company, but it would be nice to go out on a double date or whatever at least once a month or so. We were talking about it and we kind of miss having other couples as friends. To be honest, I have no idea how to even begin to make other “couple” or “family” friends.  I must actually ask him what he would suggest in terms of us making new friends. Where does one even start?

Do you and your partner socialise a lot? Do you have many couple or family-type friends? How on earth does one make friends at this age without going through the motions of “do they like us and will they call again”?