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Friday, April 02, 2010

Snippity Snippet

Home. No supper cooking, which is no surprise. More surprising is that The Boy was the only one here, but no surprise at all that he was on my laptop. Oh well, he finished his Facebook’ing and left, giving me a clear shot at the blog.

I work at home Wednesdays and Thursdays, but it’s not the orgy of productivity it used to be. I could blame Mason, and indeed he’s the proximate cause since he ends up on my lap quite a bit, but the real problem is that Snippet seems to want to have the bare minimum (if that) of involvement with her baby (and Daughter Dearest tells me she had him all day today). In the afternoon, she’ll sit and watch TV (the Judge Whoever shows, Springer if she can get away with it), and let him squall in her lap — which makes it hard for me to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing. Her primary goal seems to get him to go to sleep so she can do what she pleases… and Mason picks up on that (which, in Snippet’s mind, means “he’s spoiled”). He’s happy when The Boy has him, because his dad will at least put PBS on the idiot box and interact with him, but I think he’s growing distant from his mom.

I did get a fair amount done yesterday in the late morning, since I had pretty much the entire house to myself, but after lunch Snippet came in and told me about how awful Mrs. Fetched was to her — Cousin Splat is getting married in June, she’s been tagged to be a bridesmaid, and Mrs. Fetched wouldn’t let her go with the bride-to-be (the less said about her the better) to look for dresses. She concluded that Mrs. Fetched is a control freak, and she can be controlling at times, but I figured there was more to it than I’d been told. Snippet, like most people, will omit or gloss over certain details to polish up her side of the story.

Sure enough, Mrs. Fetched furnished the missing piece. Earlier on in the morning, she had asked Snippet to watch Kobold’s daughter (and there’s a story I haven’t told yet) through the afternoon, and Snippet agreed to do it. But when she heard about this dress shopping expedition, the commitment she’d made was suddenly forgotten (SN07 without too much of a stretch) until Mrs. Fetched attempted to hold her to her commitment. This turned into a big argument, and it’s fortunate for all involved that the fatal SN01 didn’t come into play. In Snippet ’s mind, the commitment she made didn’t matter (SN05) when she was given another choice.

OK, I can understand that part. She’s immature, and that kind of crap is to be expected. What I can’t understand is her profound lack of commitment to Mason. When The Boy and Daughter Dearest were babies, our lives revolved around them. Mrs. Fetched’s parents were nearby, and they got their share of grandkid time to be sure, but we didn’t just dump our kids on the grandparents and try to take off every weekend. If we went out, we usually took the kids with us — exceptions being a yearly office party or something similar, and that was two or maybe three times a year.

I doubt talking to her (or both of them) will make any difference, but I’m duty-bound to try.

9 comments:

  1. I think a good old fashioned family "sit-down" (or siddahn as we call it here) is definitely in order Farf. Your perceptions seem very keen to me and now's the time to air your concerns and hopefully get things resolved before it causes Mason any more problems.

    I was out shopping for mason jars last week and couldn't help but think of the little guy.

    Bri2k

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  2. Agreed with Bri2k's comment.

    Farf, you are braver than me. For all my talk of wanting to live in a larger household, the one I grew up in exploded with typical thermonuclear ferocity, and people scattered to the four winds as soon as they could get out of there. However, I did have many excellent roommate type shared-apartment situations later in life, and those were especially enjoyable for the most part. Hope to get back to that someday ~ err, if folks don't freak out over the constant sewing activity anyway.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Oops, sorry, that was a duplicate post that got deleted, not something foul that smelled of tea bags.

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  5. Hey guys!

    Bri, The "siddahn" is going to happen, probably this week. I've already expressed my concerns to The Boy, thinking maybe he's the only person (if that) that Snippet will listen to.

    Nudge, is this one of those "be careful what you ask for" things? ;-) I think the sewing activity would be largely tolerated or even welcome if you were to make repairs or alterations on occasion…

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  6. I don't understand parents who don't want to be with their children. My kids are like additional appendages - always with me ;), but I wouldn't want it any other way.

    I hope the talk goes (went) well.

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  7. Farf, not to worry .. I care enough for my friends not to want to inconvenience them with the noise of sewing machines. On weekends I don't use the machines until the guy downstairs is obviously awake. Being a good neighbor here seems the right thing to do, since the walls are thin and we all have to get along.

    I can think of at least three different friends out here who are within vaguely reasonable driving distance of where I work, who've got space, and whose finances are shaky enough that they could sublet out a room at a bargain price ($400 per month maybe, a bargain for here at least) and put the money toward their bills & rent/mortgage. But so far people out here just aren't thinking along those lines. I wonder a lot about what I should do when I see friends getting pushed into a corner financially. To anyone very much stuck in the traditional “have your own place – be independent and be a career success – yada yada yada” meme the offer to sublet space would probably come across as an unwelcome intrusion into one's privacy, or a blatant handout. I don't think I have much choice but to put out basically what I've said here and wait for someone to nibble. Am not in a hurry anyhow. The sublet rental income for someone else would be worth more to them than the minor savings I'd feel vs the already very cheap rent of this place.

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  8. Hey all!

    Wendy, Mason's getting like that for us. I got a sling today, which lets me carry him around (or sit at the computer) and have both hands free, so that's at least an improvement. He fell asleep in it this evening.

    Nudge, I can understand that attitude (of "have your own place") in younger folks: after being cooped up with acquaintances of variable pleasantry for 4+ years, being by yourself can sound awfully attractive. I hope you find an arrangement that works well for all concerned!

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  9. I have to laugh! We used a sling with our three youngest, and we co-slept (still do too many nights - the youngest is seven ;). I loved our slings! It was the best thing we bought. My husband carried our girls in the slings until they got too leggy to fit - around five years old for the youngest ;).

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