ThalginsLuv

Leather baby Leather! Joanie is a brat and kinda of whiny that was the one character I couldn't stand on the show. I wonder how many people get that reference. Starting to feel old here. Traveling 2 hours to your in-laws/ family to spend a (forced) holiday with them -or- Making them travel 2 hours to you to spend a (forced) holiday?

Of course everyone will say try counseling but I have a strange feeling your 1 son will not go. I can understand his aggression but he may not understand it himself. What is his interest? I hope he is athletic and maybe you can get him on some sort of team or special activity. Having something that exerts him physically as well as mentally might be what he needs to break his shell. It seems like he is just carrying around the ball of emotions and needs another outlet besides talking with you. Is there another male role model he can spend time? Does he like cars or motors? Can he go to a junkyard to get parts and build a go cart or something? Is he into computers? Can he built a computer or some engineered gadget? Archery? Hiking? Sports? My middle brother went through a phase like this. I watched him go through puberty without having his dad being alive and it was tough for him. Money was his big motivator. So he got a lawn mower from a thrift store and I think he as 11 at the time. He figured out how to take apart the engine and get it working. Then he made money in the neighborhood mowing lawns and would use his lawn mower. He later helped neighbors with home and car repairs and even some gardening and landscaping. This lead him to learning how to build computers too. Around Christmas he would hang the Christmas lights for the neighbors and do their yard displays. At 16 he got a job at a hardware store and still kept all his little side jobs. By the time he was 17 he was buying his own used truck from a dealership and he completely paid for it. He was always tinkering or earning money in some fashion. This was his outlet and his way of dealing with a deceased father. His aggression, anger, and guilt eased dramatically.

My daughter was 8 when my husband died and she asked me the same thing. I told her that it will only happen if God wants it to happen for us. Then she says, "Well that will take God a long time because it's hard to find someone as fun as daddy was."

Years ago my girlfriend's father passed away. She was trying to explain what happened to her 7 year old boy and 4 year old girl. The little girl keep thinking that grandpa just moved away and we could go visit him. So the 7 year old boy steps in to explain it to his sister: boy: "No, grandpa is dead. You know like (he makes the "dead face" by taking his finger across this throat like he is slicing his throat, he tilted he head sideways, bugged out his eyes and stuck his tongue out to the side and makes the eeek sound)." girl: "OH, I get it! Like the squashed bug you stepped on!"

My in-laws can be just as overbearing as my mother. I really felt suffocated for the first 3 months of this year. My MIL calls all the time but luckily she doesn't just show up anymore. I have had a few "rounds" with her over the years and in many ways I think she thinks I am her best friend. I don't sugar coat anything with her anymore but I am nice, have tact (which she lacks) and let her know I appreciate her. However I invited MIL to my daughters initiation to Job's Daughters. She was loud, rude, yelled at the other little girls, and overall disrespectful. I was so mad. Then she got it into her head she was going to come to ALL of my daughters meetings and events since she was a past Job Daughter herself. I had to take action and made it very clear to my BIL he needed to talk to his mom or I was going to and not be nice about it. (BIL is a Mason whose lodge supports my daughter's youth group.) Now we don't mention any of daughters youth group events to MIL so she can't just show up. Luckily she can't get the activity calendar. But if she does happen to show up I have already warned the other adults and the little girls that MIL is VERY OLD and maybe a little senile. So if they ever see her again and if she causes a problem to find me or one of the youth group parents or to just politely find a way to get away from her. Now I do whatever I can to keep MIL distracted. I will preempt to call her first that way I control how long the phone call is. I will say, "We haven't gone to dinner in awhile. I can't this week but how about next week we go to...". Or I try to find little helpful jobs for her, "Hey can you be on the look out for X? I need to replace mine" or "I have an appointment, would you be willing to watch the baby for me?" I feel like it's a part time job just to manage my MIL so she doesn't drive me crazy. My mother suffers from depression along with other things. In January my mom got bit by some sort of insect we believe. The bite was on her backside and she didn't even know it. It wasn't until she ended up in the emergency with a 104 temp and dangerously high white blood cell counts that the doctors found the bite. She spent 11 days in the hospital, IV antibiotics every day, they had to give her a pic line and she had 2 surgeries to remove the necrotic tissue. When she was released she had a wound vac and daily infusion appointments for 3 weeks followed by appointments 3x a week for the next 3 weeks after that. Of course my brother and his wife offered NOTHING and they didn't even visit mom in the hospital. Even though they have the bigger house with extra bedrooms and they only live 1 mile from me, my mother had to move in with me. Also my SIL doesn't work and their kids are older. So I was the one who was at the hospital EVERY day with my infant to advocate for my mom. She was too sick to remember anything what the doctors told her and she nearly died from the infection. When she was released from the hospital, I moved my baby and me into our living room and moved my mother into my bedroom. I slept on the couch for almost 3 months with the baby in the playpen next to me. I did what had to be done since my mother couldn't be alone. Plus there was a huge screw up so my mom didn't receive any disability money this whole time. So I with my savings and my widow's social security I was paying all of her bills with mine: prescriptions, food, 2 rents, 2 car insurances, 2 household utilities, 2 phones, extra gas, doctor co-pay visits, her bandage supplies, etc. Now my MIL of course wanted to be OVERLY HELPFUL in helping with my mother. My mother tolerates my MIL. So I had BOTH of them regularly. I am so grateful that now my mom is healed, living at her house, and back to work. And grateful my MIL is now distracted with something else. But now I get the looming undertones from both of them..." I really miss your girls... I enjoyed being at your house... it was fun talking with your mom so much... maybe we should do this more often... why don't we do more family dinners at your house with all of us..." and on and on. Now I feel I have to manage both my mom and in-laws. I am about to go crazy. I have seriously been thinking of moving out of state completely away from ALL family because I feel so smothered.

I can totally relate to your daughter. Just before my 16th birthday I had a sense that my stepfather was going to die. It was a whole ugly affair and I was living with some family friends. My stepfather came over for a visit to the family friends not to visit me and I just knew. When he left I told John that I thought he was going to die this week. John tried to consul me and say that my stepfather was just going through a bad spell. 6 days later we found my stepfathers body at my home. At the time he and my mom were separated so I thank God she was living out of town at her brothers and didn't see him. This isn't the only time I have had these feelings about death. Now I don't believe I am psychic or anything like that (I am not sure I believe in psychics) but I do think some of us are sensitive to it. I knew the night my grandfather died when I was a child and we lived 2 hours away. I was in my early 20's and the phone rang around 11 pm (which was all that unusual) and it was my aunt calling to say my uncle died and I knew before the phone was picked up. They lived an hour away from us. One of my dear friends had a son in his 20's who was dealing with alcoholism. The month before he died I talked to my friend about being prepared and to trust her faith and realize this was her son's choosing and he may die because of it. He wasn't quite that bad yet but I could tell he was heading that way. He died 3 weeks later. 2 months after that I kept having weird feelings. I tried to just dismiss the whole idea and the feeling of extreme loneliness I was having even though I was VERY HAPPILY married. Then one morning when my husband left for work I just had that sinking feeling that was the last time I was going to see him and it was. The crazy feeling I had been having were about his death but didn't realize it until that day. I have had a few other times where I knew or had that feeling. The one thing I have learned is that I know is I can't do ANYTHING about it. I used to feel guilty at first or go through the would-a/ should-a scenarios but the reality is death is its own master. Trust me if I could have done something to prevent my husbands death I would have, or even my uncle's or grandfather's or my friend's son. I understand your daughter's guilt. It sucks and if she were here with me I would give her a big hug! Just let her know she isn't alone.

I know I am late on this but I wanted to share that I found my step-fathers body just before my 16th birthday and has his funeral the day before my 16th. There was no party or cake (I did get a pie) but we did go out for a family dinner. However, the next weekend I got to go out of town and the weekend after that we went to an amusement park. I got to do this without my mom (although she gave me spending/travel money) and with a small circle of friends (my choice) and I appreciated that more than a sweet 16 bash.

I think one of the hardest parts of having an uncluttered house is my family and in-laws. The are ALL clutter addicts too! It never fails that I get things relatively cleaned up where I actually have empty spots and family comes over with boxes/bags of "Oh I thought you could use/like/need this so I brought it over for you..." AAAGGGHHH!!! It's like my lack of clutter makes THEM uncomfortable so they grab some of their junk and bring it to me. And where do this put their "gifts"? IN THE CLEANED SPOTS I JUST MADE. I just got the top of my microwave cleaned to where my daughter says, "Hey mom what is that thing? Oh its a cleaned microwave! I never knew it was black..." GRRRR! Two days later MIL brings a bunch of paper crap that I have NO INTEREST IN and she puts it on top of the microwave! Silly me I didn't remove the crap right away and it multiplied or breed with other mystery crap and now I can't see my mircowave again.

This is hysterical! I have a wonderful mental picture of you, your daughter, your "ode to homeless/trailer trash/hangover" clothes, and all your shining glory, trying to beat the garbage truck. I've made that mad dash, a time or two, myself, thanks to my own "Widda brain". The last time I did, I went out with unbrushed hair, no shoes, skimpy pajamas, and NO BRA! I made it with seconds to spare, but I am pretty sure the garbage man got a clear view of my "bodacious ta-tas" (as my sister would say). I was mortified, but he at least grinned and waved. Of course, I don't know if he was grinning, because I looked so ridiculous, or because he liked my boobs. ;D Well in true trailer trash glory I didn't have a bra either. I miss the bodacious ta-tas days but after nursing 2 babies and being over 40 I am afraid the garbage man left singing, "Swing low sweet chariot....."

I think my all time favorite was when I found out I was pregnant with a girl and I started telling people. So this person says, "Oh, thank God you are having a girl. It's too hard to raise a boy without a father." My reply, "Oh yea because daughters never care if they have a daddy or not."

I did our neighborhood Halloween party and our Thanksgiving party last year but I wasn't available for Christmas party and guess what... we didn't have a Christmas party. No one stepped up to do it. This year has been hell for me. My mother almost died and was in the hospital in January. When she was released she had to move in with me for would care. She was finally able to move back to her home about 2 weeks ago and go back to work this week. Now we ALWAYS decorate our clubhouse and neighborhood for the holiday. The management takes care of the outside decorations (we hang things on the light posts) but nobody did the clubhouse or hall decorations for either Valentines day or St. Patrick's day or Easter. I have our decorations so organized in each of their boxes so it only takes about 30 minutes to set up. Also I usually run the Easter party but since I didn't do it we aren't having one. I have been the lead for these parties for over 7 years and it really saddens me that NO ONE bothered to step up to take over. Everyone knows I am now a widow with an infant and it wasn't a secret about my mom, but yet no one cared. I am just so sad and angry about the whole thing.

You might have widow brain if.... You wake up groggy because you hear something that sounds like the garbage truck is on the next street over. But yet you think, nawwww tomorrow's garbage day and I must put it out because the can is full. So you roll over and look at your phone and it says that today is Wednesday... you know... YOUR GARBAGE DAY! So you scream "Holy F" and start racing around the house for some assemblance of clothes. Your wonderful daughter wakes up and rushes with you because she wants to help. We end up outside in the freezing cold morning wearing our stylish outfits that screams "ode to homeless/trailer trash/hangover", struggling together to move the trash can around the car. We get it on the curb just in time for the garbage man to see us in our complete glory in our stylish clothes, un-brushed bedhead hair, and miss matched shoes. Yep we must of looked really hot. You might have widow brain if later the same day as mentioned above you drive near where your daughter has her guitar lessons and think, "I have to take daughter there tomorrow for her Wednesday lesson." Then of course TODAY is Wednesday and her lesson was 90 minutes ago.

I keep having dreams where my husband is there with me but in the back of my mind I know he should be gone. No matter how I struggle in my dream to not think/or admit him dead it happens anyway. Then as dream reality sets in that he's gone then he just vanishes from my dream and I spend the rest of the dream looking for him. Or I wake up pissed off or really depressed. For some reason my brain can't allow him to stay in my even in my dreams. UGH its so maddening!

Soft jellies! Red licorice -or- Black licorice?

That's a drinking game I could get into. But Mokie I think you would be totally sloshed if you did all the frames today: clean on picture frame, have a drink.... next picture frame, have a drink.... Maybe I will do this while cleaning the office... hmmm... better get a babysitter first.