Background context may be necessary ... so here it is ... the short version ... post-divorce I live in my mom's basement ... I work nights ... I usually do okay until about Thursday picking the kids up from school and still maintaining my sanity from exhaustion, but then it starts to get me ... but at least Thursday nights are my Friday ...This is an example (capped off by my daughter's amazing version of "the things kids say") of the little annoyances that build up living with my mom ...
Since Monday she has been talking about making "tuna cheese dreams" for dinner ... this is basically a tuna melt with a fancy name that she decided to give it when I was a kid ... well, Monday we ate out because it was an insane day ... Tuesday we ate with and stayed at the Lemon Man's house ... Wednesday their dad took them out to dinner (per
normal custody arrangements) ... so it's Thursday ... she tells me she has all the stuff ... it was her plan ... her idea ... she knows I'm exhausted ... Thursdays are the only days I actually ask her to pick them up from school to give me an extra hour of sleep ... so she calls me ... from upstairs ... calls my cell phone and wakes me up ... and it went something like this ...
Mom: "I have all the stuff for dinner"
Me: "Okay"
Mom: "I got everything out for you, the cookie sheet, the knives, everything"
Me: ????
Mom: "Well, they don't like the way I make tuna so you need to make it"
Me: "It's probably because you use Miracle Whip and they like mayonnaise" (sorry to the Miracle Whip people ... just sayin')
Mom: "The last two times I made it with mayonnaise and they still didn't like it, so you need to do it"
Me: "Umm okay" ... and hang up ....
Then I turn to my younger daughter ... my middle child ...
Me: "I hear you don't like the way grandma makes tuna"
H: "huh?"
Me: "Grandma says I have to make the tuna because you guys don't like the way she makes it."
H: "That's not true, she's just lazy" .... oh the things kids say ...
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On a side note ... I don't care about making my kids and I dinner ... I did it five to seven nights a week for the eleven years I lived outside my mothers' house ... the issue to me is that she plans things ... and acts like she is going to take care of it and then puts it on me ...
Several months ago ... I was really, really sick ... if I had been living on my own I would have probably ordered pizza or made the kids PBJ for dinner ... but my mom had bought a pot roast ... she called me at 8am after she had gotten to work and did the same thing ... told me she had all the stuff and I had to make it ... so sneezing and coughing and with a 102 degree fever I went and chopped up carrots, onions & potatoes (that I peeled first of course per her instructions) ...
The point is that if I am doing it on my own terms I don't care ... and I'm more than capable ... but having someone else either just tell me to do it ... or worse say it's taken care of and then tell me I need to do it myself ... well it just fucks with my expectations ... and it goes outside of the plans I had already made ...
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When I finally stumbled out of bed ... got dressed ... went to the bathroom (everyone knows you have to go to the bathroom when you first wake up) ... I went to the kitchen ...
My oldest daughter comes in and informs me that she doesn't want the "tuna cheese dream" she wants just a tuna sandwich ... informing me that she doesn't like "hot tuna" (I'm pretty sure she meant that literally, she probably doesn't even know there's a band) ... normally I don't do the short order thing for my kids ... but that one was easy ... so I make her sandwich and tell her to run up and ask her grandma if I need to make her a "tuna cheese dream" too ... she comes back down and says "yeah, she'll come and get it" ...
Okay ... so I make four ... one for each of my other two kids, one for me, one for my mom ... and she comes down and says she wanted hers on different bread ... so I just blow it off and say, "I guess we'll have an extra on this bread then" ... I make room on the pan for hers as she is scooping tuna on to her bread ... and then as I'm waiting to put it in the oven ... waiting for her to finish it and put it on the pan I turn and realize that she made herself a sandwich and was already eating it ...
So, I put the pan in the oven and say to her, "you know you're not very good at communication" ... she says, "not today" and walks out of the kitchen ....
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To cap it all off ... I take my daughter to softball practice ... the Lemon Man meets us and takes the kids out for Dairy Queen ... we get home ... the kids are getting stuff together for school the next day and then they come down to the basement with bowls of ICE CREAM and raspberries in their little hands ... again it comes down to the middle daughter ...Me: "you just had Dairy Queen, why do you have ice cream?"
H: "Grandma gave it to us"
Me: "Did you tell her you just had Dairy Queen?"
H: "Why would we do that? This way we get ice cream twice."
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By the way ... I already have an issue because we live with my mom, but she still spoils them with treats like we're just "visiting" grandma ... but beyond that ... the entire night was just a full on example of why I need out of her house yesterday ... it's not that it's awful ... but it's just not normal ... it's not the way I lived for eleven years on my own ... making my own decisions ... raising my kids the way I want to ... I mean this story may sound petty ... even funny ... but when you live it day after day ... well ... you would just rather not ...
