ieh21

So. I hired a tutor and I called the teacher. It turns out I am an idiot parent. It's a paradox in our home: I am a very free range. I have been pushing almost since birth a sense of independence in my children. I let them run way ahead of me on our busy street, confident that they will stop. I routinely give them money to pay for things at the corner store so that they will interact with strangers in a safe and responsible way. I stand in the background when we have our annual lemonade stand and let them handle both the marketing (running after people to sell their wares) and the finances (taking the money and making change.) They are 4.5 and 7.5. It turns out many of the problems my Eldest DD has at school, including the fact that despite being super good at math, she recently flunked a test meant to demonstrate her ability to count from 1-100 (which I know she can do), are my doing. The problem? She has ZERO responsibilities at home. I am so hyper efficient and demanding of efficiency that I do everything for them. They play? I clean up because I want the toy room to be *just right*. I dress them in the morning (literally) so that I don't have to yell at them five times to get their act together. The nanny or I put her books in her school bag to make sure she doesn't forget anything. The result? Or at least, the partial result? She is the last to complete all tasks at school and requires hand-holding and prompting to do the most basic things (for e.g., when they are getting in line to go eat, she'll be dawdling until the teacher calls her out, and then she'll let a friend pick up her lunchbox instead of hurrying to get it herself and get in line.) This also means that her results aren't good because she takes too long to do her tests and doesn't have time to correct herself. Because, partially at least, I've never given her the mandate to do anything on her own in a limited timeframe. There are obviously other issues, but this is part of it. I'm going to work very hard to solve this, but I am really irritated at myself and somewhat amused at the paradox. My daughter is one of the most independent children I know, yet she wont' get her own lunchbox... Mothers of younger children beware: teach your children a sense of responsibility at a young age. Even to the detriment of your own sanity. Don't let your own need for efficiency take over...

AND SHE WILL SURVIVE THE ORDEAL!!! You are mom, you are not infallible, you are not irreplaceable. Your daughter might not know this about you yet, but she needs to and will find out. Other people can cuddle her when she's sick and offer her the help she needs. Mom isn't the be-all-end-all of love and support and help. You are making the right decision. Kids get sick all the time, so if you put your life on hold because of this, your life will be on hold for a good number of years yet. You deserve better. It is very hard to come off the cross and to start to allow ourselves to live again. But we have to. we have to because our spouses lost their own lives and would kick us in the butt if they could tell that we aren't taking full advantage of what they've been stripped of. Don't know if that is clear? Bottom line: go out, be merry, have fun. Your child will not hold it against you, nor should you. And no going out feeling guilty the entire time, checking the phone to make sure there isn't a snotty nose emergency. There isn't. I promise. Give your friend free reign to deal with whatever comes up. She'll find the Vaporub, I'm sure she will.

Thank you so much for responding. I went to bed really at my wits end and woke up to all your encouragement. I feel so much better now. So very true. So very very true. It is sort of comforting: I am not the be all end all. It's not all on me.

I have experienced this as well, I'm surprised that my Eldest DD can't rationalise her fears away. Now she's scared of spiders. Like cartoon-jumping-on-the-chair scared. And scared of riding a bike. I haven't tried to dad forcefield although I have several times told them that he is watching over us, that his only job is to take care of us. Doesn't always work, you're right. Good luck.

Whining is what the ladies at the posh private school near my work do when they moan about getting tickets for idling their car in the no-parking zone during school pick-up. This isn't whining. You're going to have to try harder :-) (and my heart goes out to you and the challenges you face in your daily life. It isn't easy to do it alone, it really isn't.)

interesting and exhausting and wow, I'm impressed! It is all in your control though, so feel free to slow down if you're overwhelmed. I feel exactly the reverse way: I am too busy freaking out about how to run my every day life to consider big changes. We've had the same basic vacation plans for five years now and just thinking of changing our destination for, gasp!, spring break, has been driving me to the hell of procrastination... Good luck with your plans. And don't forget that approaching the anniversary is always emotional, even when we feel ok the rest of the year.

Beginning of second grade. Much more homework. Lessons to learn. Still no time. Today was the worst. Big meeting this morning and hosting a party for our team at home. By the time I got around to homework I wanted to die. And she was tired too. End of a cold. High Holidays so a couple of late nights. She's tired and we have loads of stuff to get through. And I'm frustrated. And I'm getting impatient. I'm showing it. She's trying her best but after an hour she cant. We finish and I give her her dessert. She asks sheepishly: "can I really eat this?" Me: "why not?" She: "I'm not sure I'm good enough to deserve dessert." And I want to punch myself for being so unable to deal with this situation. I hired someone to help her with homework once a week. It starts next week. I'm hoping it works out. She needs someone helpful. Not me.

Joe and I lived in different cities and had only been dating for a few months. It's the horror of 9/11 that made me realise how much he meant to me. How much living apart sucked and we both freaked out at the idea that if something like this happened in either of our cities, we'd not be able to reach the other. It cemented us together. So yes. For all sorts of reasons including the ones listed here, it is a trigger.

It's not easy to break into an existing group. I felt the same at school drop off. I'm a little shy so I tend to feel isolated really easily. So I tried at least every day to say hi to them even if they were having a conversation. And then I started to ask them questions about their own children's experience in the school. Eventually I became friendly with a few of them and that led to a snowball effect. I still feel very different from them, but at least I dont feel totally miserable every morning!

I put all of those things in a chest that I store in the basement. I look at it rarely but I feel I moght regret throwing it out.

I am like that. Phone in bed with me. Email answering at all hours. The only thing is I block all notifications and the phone is on vibrate only. Much less intrusive because I can actually ignore it and check when I feel like it (which might be every five minutes but I choose to do so, I'm not enslaved by the constant buzzing and ringing.) it might seem like a small difference but in my mind it helps me focus on the person in front of me and not constantly interrupting the conversation. Also, I know that talking to someone whose phone is always buzzing is really annoying.

I'm feeling very down. I'm on holiday with the same family as usual. We have a great house by the seaside. But something has changed over the year. We spend time together after the kids are in bed and they're on their phones following the facebook feed. Or watching something on netflix with an earbud in while half watching tv. Tonight I was trying to talk about the fact that I'm worried about leaving the girls with them tomorrow because the Eldest cant really be trusted not to just run off on the beach or stay within a reasonable distance when searching for the perfect wave (she's taken to body surfing rather too enthusiastically.) and my friend was texting someone, half-heartedly nodding and then just never responding. I was planning on going to have lunch with a friend, a 90-min drive and now I don't know. I promised my daughters that they didnt have to come, but now? I'm concerned about my friends having to watch our four children and they don't seem interested in offering any reassurance. So I'm feeling let down by the lack of conversation and general chatting in the evening; I'm concerned about leaving the kids: either I'm going to have to suck it up and be worried all day or I'm going to have to disappoint the crap out of them and force them to come. I look forward to this all year, this vacation...

I agree, it is slower. it'll take a while to rebuild. I hope newer young widows will find it still a useful resource. Certainly helped me tremendously.

His internet alias was always Joe. He'd had his identity stolen twice and was hyper private on public website. So to honour his preference, on the internet, he remains Joe. My Big Baby, my-baby-my-love, the future Nutso to my future Fatso.

Yep. Relentless and unstoppable workload. So hard to keep ahead of it all. Temporary desire and need to drop it all (even, gasp! not cooking dinner for a week!) is not permanent and not an indicator of things to come. Remember Year One mantra: one breath, one day at a time. (by the way, I wish I could go back to RI. Little Compton gave us the most amazing summer vacations.)

Good for you! You did what had to be done. To this: I may have been tempted to answer "oh, my husband of course. I'll be consulting the Ouija board later tonight."

Yesterday was our engagement anniversary, but a friend of mine also reminded me that it was the anniversary of the airing of a tv show we participated in. Joe and I (and this other couple) participated in an American home decorating show tens years ago. It was one of our claims to fame. You can imagine it was really exciting to be on the show, and we were fascinated by the activity around us, the process of filming reality tv wasn't really well-known yet (for example, who knew they edited so much). We had just bought a new house, we had been married about a year, we didn't have children, we were beautiful and I was skinny. Watching the show again, I thought I'd be crying my eyes out, but no. Since his death, I hadn't seen Joe in a video taken prior to his illness. The only ones I have are some taken in his last month. He held the camera throughout our relationship, so you never see him. Here, he was himself. Funny, sometimes in a corny way. Expressing himself in his usual deadpan delivery. Unflappable. There's even a scene where we had been having an argument over some decorating element and the crew walked in on us, asked us to start having that argument again with the cameras rolling. Of course, in typical married people fashion, we had lost track of the reason for the original argument and it took us a few takes to look natural again. And it's so funny because it's exactly us arguing for the rest of our lives: he says something, I present to him a counter-argument, he ignores it and repeats his concern, I repeat my counter-argument. We could both be really stubborn (also known as pigheaded) and while it drove me insane in the later years of our marriage, seeing it in action made me smile broadly. That's it right there, that's us. I hope I remembered, when the stress of life started to make itself felt, when the children came and our patience with each other was dampened, I hope I remembered then how much we loved each other and how happy we really were. It's easy now to be convinced that we were in that state of mind, but in the daily grind, when you're living it, I think you do lose track of the true essence of your love. I really hope for my past self that I always remembered that scene in the living room we were decorating and always felt the love the way I do now, even in the intense fights we sometimes had. Joe: I'm really not comfortable with the nipples on the wall. Me: sure, but they can remove them if they don't like them. Joe: but they're nipples. If this was my house... Me: sure, but if it was your house, you'd just remove them. Joe: I have no problem telling the decorator we hate the nipples. Me: It'll be ok. Trust me. Joe: but they're nipples... [they weren't pornographic. They were white ceramic mushrooms hung sideways on the wall, 8 of them, and hung that way they looked like breasts with nipples. They really did. And our friends removed them as soon as the cameras packed up and left.] There's no real point in posting this. I'm just so happy to see us happy. And it's helping me to remember all the context around the tv show, the shopping for the house, the buying it, moving in etc. All great memories revived.

I am a fan of the ripping the bandaid method. Enjoy the fact that it's a holiday as long as possible and then just switch schedules at once, when it's necessary. It takes a few days to adjust, but since the whole day changes (as opposed to changing the schedule slowly over the summer days when you're still living the days on holidays) the adjustment is easier. Good luck!

Today is the anniversary of our engagement. Doesn't sadden me, makes me smile. Crazy story: Joe rented a horse-driven carriage to come downtown to pick me up after work (these carriages don't usually come downtown, they stay in the old city, a few kilometers away). Joe was such a "let's implement crazy ideas just because we can" type of guy that I didn't even bat an eyelash and it certainly didn't raise any suspicion. And then, in the middle of the busiest intersection, he got on one knee and proposed. I was thrilled. But more convincing than the whole over-the-top carriage ride was the fact that he told me that during that afternoon, he was at my apartment when the fire alarm went off. And he took the time to struggle with my cat to get him out of the apartment, even as the scared cat scratched the bejeezus out of his chest. The fact that Joe did that for my cat convinced me that he was the man I should marry. Awkward conclusion to that happy moment was my mom, dropping anvils about her future attitude to the wedding, reacting to the news with a very warm "getting married? Why on earth would you do that? Such a pointless thing to do". Hm, ok, glad I called you!

I am a scientist who believes in God. As such, I also strongly believe in statistics. A more mathematical way of saying "shit happens". Averages exists, but outliers exist as well. The whole world isn't "average" in all respects. This has nothing to do with God working one way or the other. Religions are human conceits anyway, so how could anyone Christian explain anything good happening to a Hindu given the very different frames of religious reference? Why would the Christian God, i.e. the only God be taking care of any Hindus who not only do not believe in the Christian God but actively reject some of the more important commandments (I am your God, there is only one god etc). (note that I am not picking on Christians, I'm using this as an example). So that logic to me has never worked. Statistics happen is all. We need good outcomes, ok outcomes and crappy outcomes and some of us fall in one category or the other, depending on what aspect of our lives you look at. No one "deserves" anything, not really. A lifetime smoker may die by being hit by a bus at age 75, my DH never smoked and died from lung cancer at 39. No one is rewarded for one form of behaviour or the other. This isn't to say we don't sometimes encourage an outcome over another. If I have a ton of unprotected sex with random strangers, my getting a ton of STDs isn't going to qualify as an anomaly. But it also won't be some kind of divine punishment. Leading an overall good life is a goal in of itself, the reward is in the life that is lived right this moment. It doesn't save you from the freak car accident, but it makes your every living moment fuller, more satisfying. Probably this belongs in a larger discussion that is way beyond the scope here. The long and short of it is that DH's death didn't shake my faith. I still believe in God, I still observe my faith. I'm angry that he had to be the statistical outlier. And I hope that this somehow has a greater meaning, that we will, as a family, have learned something from it that will help us be better people one way or the other.

ooof. How terrible. Whatever hope you may have built in your head, whatever plans you had hatched based on his words and actions, whether you were fully warranted or dreaming in technicolor, treating someone poorly is a crappy thing to do. Don't blame yourself for dreaming, blame him for being a jerk. You took a chance that was offered to you, that's what we have to do. Not wait for the perfect timing, just grab life and live it. You did the right thing giving this a chance. It's sad that you wasted your time on someone who clearly didn't deserve it. Better to find out sooner rather than later.

Yeah, my biggest problem with online dating is that no one seems that interested in dating at all. It felt to me like a ton of people were actively scouring the website, sending out feelers, but no one really wanted to take the plunge and you know, meet. It's like online shopping at a luxury goods store. I'm just looking. I'd loooove this item, that item, oooh this is cute, but when comes time to checkout, I see the prices and delete the whole thing. I think people are really chicken. Or entitled. Or close-minded. How bad can an hour spent with anyone really be? A widow with children isn't looking to get married to you tomorrow morning after one hour spent at Starbucks. So relax on "managing expectations". Flirting takes practice, don't worry, you're just my practice round. People forget that there's an actual person on the other side of the screen. Or they don't care.

Hopefully July 22 will bring back serenity.

There are all sorts of ways to be adventurous, trips are only one part of the equation. My daughters love seeing new things, experiencing different situations, but they are the most boringest eaters of all time. And they love their routine, so that even if we're on a trip, we keep the same framework as if we were at home. We've developed over the past 5 years exactly the same trip/vacation pattern: Spring Break in Toronto, one week at the beach in the summer (same family comes with us every year, same beach town), one weekend camping (same place, same people) and one weekend in the mountains (same place). The rest of the time, there's some daycamp but also a lot of time spent with the nanny, exploring our city. That doesn't sound awfully adventurous, but new experiences are had every day, new details discovered and although we haven't done a Big Trip yet, the world is being explored. The driving parts of all of these trips vary from 2 hours-6 hours, so we're on the road a lot, and I have to say that as they are aging, the appeal of the drive has decreased. I fill up boxes with toys and activities, they get to eat junk food all day (that would never happen at home), and after 4 years, the appeal of the Jellybean lunch and new box of Legos seems to have been lost. It sounds like your son knows himself well enough to choose what's comfortable and will be fun. That's what holidays are for!

I typed out comments, but it seems I'm too late!