going to disney&uni again! Sep 2011

[Brady's Mom]

You could always blame the party after his birthday on the "white" part of E, not the Korean side of him. I get that kind of response a lot from my MIL. Always about how "American" families/parents/kids do things a certain way and it's not the "right" way. It can get frustrating.

Is E excited about the party? Do you have all your plans set? We ended up doing DS 9's party almost 3 weeks later than his actual birthday. We were in WA until the day before his birthday, we had his family party with his favorite food when we got home, planned a friend party (at the park), but discovered the weather was going to be really bad, and DH was going to be gone, so we adjusted the time frame and had a really great time.

Thank goodness MIL lives in CA and I live in another state. It makes life for me a LOT easier. Selfish, I know....But it makes life easier for DH, too.

 

[bumbershoot]

OK so a couple posters from way back when are going to recognize part of a rant when it starts...if you don't want to be sucked back in time to my darker days just skip it once you get to the blather in between the purple asterices!

Seems I'm STILL not "over" much of anything that happened to me in '04!

Anyone who wants to skip it anyway is totally free to do so. Just my PTSD from around 7 years ago coming on back up.

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I get that kind of response a lot from my MIL. Always about how "American" families/parents/kids do things a certain way and it's not the "right" way. It can get frustrating.

Again, glad to know I have a partner in this frustration.

MIL, and her birth-culture, have been right about a lot of things. But this birthday thing is ONLY about luck, and wowie it's not like she's had huge amounts of luck in her life despite doing things FOR luck over and over.

She told me to tell him it's just a party. I said "he's old enough that he KNOWS it's his birthday party"...and if it weren't a b'day, what would be the point of it? If it's not a b'day party, I'm not providing all the food I'm planning on providing, because it would just be an extended play date!

AND it's not like I *want* to have his party late, but there's really no choice. For many reasons.


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One of which is....If MIL had been on my side, had supported me, had given me her wisdom and caring, maybe I would have been able to stand up to my hired help while pregnant, and wouldn't have been bullied into the nonsense I was bullied into, which all made his birthday earlier than it should have been. Maybe E would have been as "long-cooking" a baby as her own second baby was (DH was born at 44 weeks...she was offered an "out" ONE time by her doctor back in '72, said no, and the doctor shut up about it...oh to be so lucky) and the Memorial Day weekend thing wouldn't be an issue at all. MIL had had an unassisted birth in rural Korea with a 10 pound baby, then had an 8+ pound baby at 44 weeks...if anyone could have stood up to the women I hired it would have been her, but she KEPT those stories from me until it was all over but the crying (and sobbing, and tortured nightmares, and grieving, and taking solace in my kid who was always going to be healthy but had signs of prematurity b/c of being taken out early despite being over 42 weeks, and hating the universe, and losing old friends because they wouldn't even talk to me just ONCE about everything that happened because they were just so GLAD I knew that "labor hurts" because THAT is what they thought I was thinking when I wanted to be at home for it).

[For the record, and for you people who haven't seen this before and are worried about me, I blame myself first and foremost, then DH (he is the FIRST to own this and recognize this, but wowie was he useless), then the hired help, and it goes on down the line from there, but MIL is definitely on the list b/c she *purposely* kept her knowledge from me ( her daughter is also on the list because she got MIL convinced that MIL had done it wrong and modern medicine knows more than MIL did). To her there was birthing with the "women of your village" and then doctors...she didn't understand, and didn't care enough to listen to me, that hiring midwives was basically hiring "women of your village", I was trying to do what she did but I didn't KNOW she'd done that!]

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Ah, my annual late-May freakout....I'll have to go to the farmer's market next week and get myself some peonies, those always cheer me up. Hope they are out already!


I am definitely glad Eamon went past his "due date", because that would have been my dad's birthday, which would have made him a Taurus, and I can't even imagine butting heads with a Taurus....he's bad enough as an early Gemini!


And for those of us who care, he's also a Monkey.

Oh and by the way, despite MIL hating that I'm a rooster and Robert's a rat, and her doomsday comments about our relationship, turns out one of her sister's kids is a rooster who married a rat, and they are just fine! None of the aunts care about it at all; none of them lectured the new couple that they'd never make it, not like she did....

The things Robert finds out on work trips to Korea....

 

[kaoden39]

Oh Molly and Shannon, I feel so bad for you. An in law that is like that is hard to deal with for sure.


Molly, I hope you can find your peonies.

 

[ClarabelleCowFan]

Just found your new PTR! Glad you guys are going again this year. I loved your last Trip Report and am looking forward to this one, too.

(Thanks again for your help with the migraine recommendations in regards to chiropractic care.)

I'm only through the first 5 or 6 pages but I did want to ask you about the Nickelodeon Family Suites - did you happen to check the reviews of this place? We were going to stay there for a night or 2 last year for the water park area and the reviews of the rooms were horrible (mold and mildew everywhere). I hope they have gotten better but you may want to do a search on TripAdvisor or just google the name of the hotel and see if the reviews more recently are better. Don't want to be a downer at all but just wanted to forewarn you. We decided against staying there because of my allergies to mold.

We'll actually be at WDW the same time in September. We have B2B on the Dream and arrive 9/15 at Kidani for a quick 3 nights before heading home. It's a great time of year to be there!

 

[Brady's Mom]

Oh Molly and Shannon, I feel so bad for you. An in law that is like that is hard to deal with for sure.


Molly, I hope you can find your peonies.

Thanks Michele! I'm actually luckier than Molly. I didn't have to have anything to do with my MIL for 14 years. DH was just done - with her attitude, her criticism, her feeling like the world owes her something and blaming things on everyone else. Our DS 22 actually made some overtures to her last August and convinced DH that she was different and really wanted to have a family relationship. DH is an only child, so he thought maybe it would work. We've been in contact with her since last October and it has been okay, not great, not good, just okay. She does sometimes wear on DH and DS 22 avoids her like the plague. Guess he finally realizes that Dad knew what he was talking about in regards to her behavior!

The only real benefit to having her back in our lives is that our youngest 2 kids think she's awesome. I'd like for them to keep that attitude as long as possible. But, of course, Grandma is awesome if she gives you money every time you see her! She does live in another state, so that makes a BIG difference. Not like Molly, who has to live nearby.

Molly, flowers ALWAYS make me feel better. Especially when I can plant them and watch them grow. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

Maybe you'll just always have this little mourning period in May and instead of fighting it, embrace it with a time limit. Give yourself a certain amount of time to feel bad, be angry, rant, rave, cry, whatever. Just warn DH about it beforehand! I've found if I give myself permission to be upset it helps me not wallow. And DH is funny, if I'm beating myself up about something that can't be changed he'll tell me I have to stop by a specific time. I find I'm usually done by then.

 

[bumbershoot]

Totally embarrassed by previous emotions vented...let's move on.

E had his b'day, had his recital, and we took the MIL, SIL (Robert's sister), and her daughters out to pizza. I volunteered on Saturday and it was fabulous, and I sat in the audience today and it was a different kind of fabulous! I got SO nervous, but he tells me he wasn't nervous at all. And he did even better today than he did yesterday, which was better than the previous rehearsal that I saw, etc etc. Too bad there isn't another show tomorrow! (his muscles disagree with me)

After the second rehearsal (that I wasn't there for) they got their Yuen Lui pictures...awwww. The only bummer is that the schedule for the pictures was written strangely, and one of the moms mis-read it and didn't have her daughter there for the day. So E's fave friend from the class isn't in the picture. But it's a fabulous picture, with him front and center, surrounded by girls in floaty tutus. LOL, he was looking at it and wondered why he was in the center. He wondered if each kid's picture showed them in the middle. I just told him the answer (no, that's how you posed), but sometimes you get these flashes into the heads of kids, where he actually wonders if that could be, when he knows perfectly well he didn't pose in 10 different spots.

The recital was AMAZING. The older kids were fabulous, the bitty kids were adorable, and the middle kids were great, and everyone is SO BRAVE for getting up on a REAL stage and performing to hundreds of people!

The staff knows what they are doing, too. Yesterday there was a little girl in a 3-5 year old class...she was sobbing from drop-off, basically. The staff did get in touch with her mom, who gave them a stuffed animal for her, but the staff never once considered letting her not perform. They just kept comforting her and moving her towards being ready...I'd seen her crying so hard, and I was starting to wonder why they were torturing her...and then the next I saw her she was in costume, in hair and makeup, waiting by the elevator to go to the stage! She was perky and adorable and ready to go. Wow!

Before today I had figured we wouldn't do this sort of thing for some years...maybe he'd take classes, but we wouldn't sign him up for the recitals...but I dunno...it was pretty neat.

 

[kaoden39]

Oh I am thrilled that E's recital was such a success!! Yay!!


I hope everything is back on an even keel. I was worried about you when I didn't see you on here for a while.

 

[bumbershoot]

I get embarrassed by myself easily. Then I go into hiding, so to speak.

Just as we got back to normal, E was smacked down with a fever yesterday. Nothing else seems to be wrong, just the fever and not wanting to eat, but it's exhausting for him!

Saturday is his party and I *just* got back all the "yes we'll be there!" emails...and this is so frustrating to think that we might have to cancel it. But I don't want to have him spread a virus around, ya know?

If it's not one thing, it's another!


On the better side of things, I was told by two people yesterday (OK, one was Eamon) that I look like I've lost a bit of weight. WHEW!

 

[kaoden39]

It's always nice when people notice the weight loss.


I hope that you are having better weather we are. It is like winter here. There is supposed to be thunder and hail over the weekend. And Scotty has a bicycle race in it with a picnic we are supposed to attend. I am thinking of that as not too thrilling.



To top it all off Loren has pneumonia. If it is not one thing it is another.

 

[bumbershoot]

Oh, poor Loren!


Had E's party today, and it was a big hit, yay! 9 kids and various parents, at a new waterplay/playground area at the big park here in town. I goofed with the time, starting it "too early", but that worked out perfectly...it was SO busy by the time the time I wish I'd had it start, so it all was fine.



So now we're able to really look forward to the trip! Woo!

 

[kaoden39]

Oh I am so thrilled to hear that E's party was such a success. It sounds great!



Woo hoo for looking forward to the trip!!

 

[bumbershoot]

Big day, big day...finally took the 5 point harness off of E's carseat. And while getting him all seat-belted up, realized that it's possible he's too tall to have it as a high-back booster. Gotta read the manual, yet again!


Ever since the day after E's party I've been so sick! Yes, again! And again and again. I now feel AWFUL because I worry we passed this along to the party guests. Hopefully it's not easily passed, hopefully it has to be close proximity, not an open park. But yeah, 2 days of 102 fever, then just "shoot me now" coughing and nose-blowing and sharp and random ear pains... It's finally clearing, thank goodness. It's just been so rotten. We went to see our chiro yesterday and I had to go out in the hallway to cough, and I just burst into tears at coughing YET AGAIN. And, unfortunately, everyone heard me. Dangit.


Robert's off on another trip, starting from BC, and we get to go up for one night of it. He realized that leaving from seattle would cost nearly 1k more than leaving from Vancouver, so even paying for a night's hotel and the mileage to get him up there and back, is way cheaper than leaving from Seattle. His boss saw the wisdom and approved it. Of course, we have to pick him up too, so unless E and I are going to spend the week camping or something in BC (totally would do it if it weren't for my increasing arachnophobia), we have to do an extra down then up, but it's still worth it for a chance to visit Vancouver again, we LOVE Vancouver!

Eamon doesn't remember the times we've been there with him. Of course he was present, in rapidly-dividing-cell form, for our honeymoon which started and ended there, then we went up for R's b'day before E was 1, then again around a year later. Since then I've been US-bound. But tomorrow, the chains are lifted and I once more venture forth into the great world...of Vancouver Canada. I know, BIG steps.

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E was very nervous about the seatbelt with the booster. We've been talking about it for a few weeks, but it was a nervewracking feeling to go from that nice firm 5 point harness into the looseness of a seatbelt!

I don't know who is causing it, but R and I are at wit's end with each other this week. He says I'm in a mood, but I say he is. How do you figure something like that out, anyway?

And I think I'm coughing myself into a hernia. Oh what a joy THAT would be.

 

[kaoden39]

I hope E has adjusted to the changes in his car seat. I had forgotten that aspect of changing it.


I hope you don't get a hernia, they are not fun.

 

[bumbershoot]

Trip: I keep trying to rewrite the budget, but nothing has changed, so there's nothing to do. I haven't figured out what day we want to do the Halloween Party (in mid-September of course, LOL) so I haven't bought those tickets. It's all just sitting there, with nothing to do...

I *want* to do things, for the sake of all you guys, but it's all too little to talk about.
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I'm not coughing as hard as I was, so those pains have stopped, but I'm not looking forward to the next time I get all sick and coughy and stuff!

E is now asking me to slam on the brakes, so he can experience the seatbelt tightening up. Crazy kid.

It was weird switching! The carseat guidelines are so much stronger than they ever were before, and E arrived right as that was really getting stronger. So his whole life it's "rear-facing as long as possible, then in a 5 point harness for as absolutely long as possible"... He outgrew rear-facing by height before he turned 3 and doesn't remember it, but the harness thing...that's a big statement! He knows it's to keep him safe. So then, one day, out of the blue...omg you're too tall for this harness, they haven't tested it with kids your height, we have to switch to this flimsy-feeling, isn't tight all the time, seatbelt that doesn't even go over both sides of you!

Thankfully we had a long drive to and from BC for him to really get used to it.



Today he finished his 1st grade work! I canNOT believe that we managed to get it done... Tomorrow we'll have a "clean out the school area" day, get it ready for the things we'll do over the summer and ultimately for next year. And we'll be silly. Just like real last day, right?

 

[kaoden39]

I still have a bit of a nagging cough from my yucks, so I sympathize for sure.


My kids are old enough that it wasn't a hard transition for them. I was thrilled all three of them were in car seats at the same time talk about a mess.


You managed to finish school a day earlier than the schools in our district. I figure tomorrow is your last day before your summer break. My kids last day is Thursday. It is my oldest daughters last day of high school and college starts this fall.


Gosh do I feel old.

 

[bumbershoot]

It is my oldest daughters last day of high school and college starts this fall.

Wow, that's amazing! How exciting for everyone.

 

[kaoden39]

Wow, that's amazing! How exciting for everyone.

Yes, and no. She refuses to walk with her class so we aren't seeing her physically graduate but I told her that she has to walk in college.

 

[bumbershoot]

Well...I'm suddenly of two minds on that. Obviously it's a bummer for you, but on the other hand, the fact of the graduation is the important part!

I walked at HS but not for college...I was rowing in Regionals down in Sacramento that weekend...my mom didn't even come out at all (in retrospect I wish I'd asked her to come see me row just once). But then they saw me walk again at the end of chiro school.

OK, blathering now. Stop, Molly.

 

[kaoden39]

I support her in her decision. She has not enjoyed her time at this school, I made her go to the better school and not the one all of her friends from middle school went to.

I think the reason I am sad is because I was in the hospital for her 8th grade graduation and I had to miss it. I am being silly I know, it is just the not wanting your kids to grow up stuff that I am going through.


I have never missed anything except for when I was in the hospital ir if it was a band review in southern California. Too far.

 

[bumbershoot]

Aw, Michele, that makes sense...

So is she going *away* for college, or staying local? Or doing a mixture? One of my college friends grew up here in the town, but the college required all freshmen to live on campus, so she was home, but not.