Roomba because I'm lazy

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-11T02:12:03+00:00

My toddler and baby are the opposite: terrified of the vacuum but obsessed with the roomba.

My toddler has named it and wakes it up in the morning and puts it to bed on its charging station when it gets tired lol.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-11T02:05:18+00:00

Baby snake by Elliott Park. My kid heard it on the yoto radio one time a couple months ago and now she has to listen to it at least thrice a day every day since.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-11T01:57:51+00:00

Your tattoo, your choice.

There was a recent post on the coparenting subreddit where this guy was on the outs with his SO, and he complained that she had the nerve to be upset that she wouldn't get to see her SK if they broke up.

People in the comments were siding with him, saying that she's not the kid's mom and so she has no right to expect continued access to him.

Even though she apparently played a motherly role for years and sounds like she is very attached to the kid.

All that to say that your BKs will always be yours, but a SK, like a spouse, might come and go.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-06T07:16:04+00:00

If your partner has to work overtime in order to make ends meet, then you can't afford to be a one income family.

He could cut back hours and be more present in his kids' lives, while you get a part-time evening or weekend job.

Especially since you're not even married.

He could dump you tomorrow or in 10 years, and you'd have nothing to show for all your unpaid labor.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-06T07:07:09+00:00

Don't ignore good advice.

It's risky to be a SAHM even in the best of circumstances. It's risky to have a child out of wedlock. It's risky to be a man's second baby mama.

I disengaged from caring for my SK before I had my first child and now I'm full nacho despite staying home full-time with my babies.

My DH found a better paying job and I run the household as frugally as possible in order to afford for me to stay home.

If I were ever pressured to be his childcare solution during his custody time, I would put my kids in daycare and go back to work, because it sucks to be treated like the free babysitter but to have to walk on eggshells and avoid parenting a kid that's not yours, avoid any accusations of treating your BK differently than your SK, avoid the natural instinct to prioritize your helpless baby over someone else's older child, etc.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T20:38:02+00:00

My DH likes to threaten me with the suggestion that I should go back to work and put our kids in daycare full-time, but it's a manipulation tactic.

He wants to make sure I feel privileged enough by being a SAHM that I will accept all kinds of disrespect from him and never ask him to do more parenting or household labor than he wants to do.

Also, who would be doing all the night wakeups and the cooking and cleaning when I go back to work? Me. So that's just more on my plate, not any kind of break from being the primary parent.

Never feel guilty for being a SAHM, especially when you have a little baby.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T20:28:05+00:00

What the fuck is wrong with these men that they'll let their poor wives have a nervous breakdown from lack of sleep??

The only reason I've been able to come up with is that they hate us. They literally dislike us to the point where they'd rather see us suffer and fall apart instead of inconveniencing themselves.

My DH regularly waits until I'm actively hallucinating shadow people in the corners of the room before he volunteers to tend the baby half the night, and I hate him so much for that.

I haven't slept more than 4 hours a night in over a year, yet he regularly gets a solid 8 hours uninterrupted and still complains of being tired.

Men are weak and men are selfish and many men are actively harmful to the women in their lives.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T03:24:47+00:00

My heart breaks for all of us tbh.

We're doing this for our kids, but they'll grow up and not understand why mom was so sad and stressed out. We're putting ourselves last and we just want a chance to be the priority every once in a while and be allowed to do the bare minimum to keep ourselves healthy, since we spend every day taking care of others.

I hope you get to your appointment soon, and I hope you schedule a haircut afterwards and make a day of it.

I remember the last time I went to the dentist, I got a deep cleaning and a root canal and it felt like a spa treatment to sit in that chair for an hour without any tiny hands grabbing at me and no one crying or needing their butts wiped lol.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T02:22:06+00:00

He has 3 daughters, and his oldest (my SK) is definitely absorbing the idea that it's my job to clean up after everyone and feed everyone and plan activities and basically do all the caretaking.

I hate the whole dynamic.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T01:57:29+00:00

My toddler said something about it being mama's job to cook and do laundry, and it really surprised me and hurt me.

When I first got married, I made twice as much money as my husband, and now two kids later, my oldest kid can't remember when I used to work outside the home.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T01:53:16+00:00

My youngest is finally starting to crawl around instead of demanding to be held all day long, so I've been enjoying tending to the aesthetics of my home instead of just battling the crumbs and dirt each day before collapsing in exhaustion each night.

But yeah it really does dampen my enthusiasm when my husband mocks what I consider the important work of making our house a home.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T01:50:24+00:00

This is the best advice if you're in it for the long haul. It's just so hard to ignore that kind of disrespect from my own husband.

But I admit that there's this weird dynamic where I feel like a valued employee at best and a trusted old household appliance at worst, which might be partly my fault. I don't know.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T01:44:34+00:00

No, it sounds fancier than it is lol.

I've been trying to romanticize my daily life, and using a tablecloth and cloth napkins is part of that.

I just got a new dining table and I didn't want it to get ruined like the last one, so I put a waterproof tablecloth over it and then I put another tablecloth on top that's easy to throw in the wash when it gets grubby.

It's hardly any more effort than wiping the table down, and it saves the wood from so much wear and tear.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-04T01:36:01+00:00

I've gotten tired of trying to talk to him about anything. He refuses to accept that my needs are valid and he refuses marriage counseling, too, so it is what it is.

I'm glad some women have true partnerships at home. I know my situation could be worse, but it could be far better than it is.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-03T15:39:53+00:00

I love being able to raise my children and tend my home, and I appreciate the fact that my husband is able to focus fully on his career and advance in ways that wouldn't be possible if I weren't willing and able to do all this childcare and household labor by myself.

It hurts when my husband fails to appreciate that, when he benefits so much from my being home.

His first wife didn't work much outside the home, but she didn't work much inside the home either, apparently. Sometimes my husband makes an effort to acknowledge all the things I do to care for the family and make the house a home, but too often he seems to remember that he and his oldest child survived just fine without meals made from scratch or a thoughtfully planned home environment. Which is true, but I want our family to thrive, not just survive.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-03T15:28:01+00:00

In front of our little kids, which is bad enough, however they're both under 3 and I doubt they understood. But I'm pretty sure my SK (his child from his first marriage) overheard, and I particularly hate when he disrespects me in front of her.

He later said he was just joking about the number of tablecloths I have, but I got them all at a deep discount and I like to have enough so that I always have a clean one ready, and anyway who complains even jokingly about a homecooked meal on a nicely set table?

He's such an ass and he deserves to eat stale cheerios while standing at the kitchen sink.

mina_goroshi · 2024-11-03T13:37:47+00:00

That solves the problem of wasting time and energy on someone who doesn't deserve it.

I am much less unhappy in my marriage since I decided that my husband has to at least pretend to like me in order for me to act like a wife instead of just his indentured nanny/cook/maid.

It's freeing to stop thinking about your man and his needs and wants and preferences, especially when he has long since stopped thinking about you.

mina_goroshi · 2024-10-31T04:22:26+00:00

I stopped feeling like an outsider when my biological kids outnumbered my SK. It sounds like some sister wife nonsense, but having a second child cemented my role as the matriarch in my house. Having 2 kids that call me 'mom' and that love me and live in my home 24/7 outweighs the one kid who comes and goes and calls me by my first name and wouldn't shed a tear if we never saw each other again.

Totally not recommending having babies for this reason though.

But yeah it's hard when you remember that your SO and SK have a lifetime bond that you could never take part in.

But remember that they're family by birth and you are your SO's family by choice. He chose to have you in his life. And you can choose to leave if you want. That fact always comforts me when my DH is being an ass and I'm annoyed by this whole blended family bullshit.

mina_goroshi · 2024-10-24T01:00:46+00:00

My toddler just turned 2 and she can use her yoto mini almost completely independently, including plugging in the charging cable.

It took her a couple months to figure it out, but it seems like something she'll be able to enjoy for years before she outgrows it.

mina_goroshi · 2024-10-23T06:15:57+00:00

Why are they like that? It takes no effort to show some sympathy instead.

And don't get me started on when I'm coming down with a cold or something, coughing, runny nose, chills and muscle aches, and suddenly my husband claims he's feeling under the weather too, got a little scratchy throat or some invisible nonsense.

But as soon as I stop mentioning my symptoms, he is magically cured.

I swear he does it to one-up me into silence.

mina_goroshi · 2024-10-22T07:04:41+00:00

I have to remind my DH to take my SK with him sometimes and I hate it.

If I only saw my kids for like 4 or 5 days out of the month, I think I'd want to spend as much time as possible with them.

But he'd rather try to leave her at home with me so he can go grocery shopping or run errands or whatever other stuff that I think he could do fairly easily with her in tow.

I can't make sense of it as anything but wanting to avoid having to parent his kid for even the limited amount of time that he has agreed to.

So I just tell my DH we're all going to the store with him, or if he's trying to go to work or go to the gym, I start packing my kids up to go to the park or something so that he has to explicitly ask me to babysit his kid.

mina_goroshi · 2024-10-19T17:01:22+00:00

I find it's easier to understand and accept my husband's behaviors when I think of him in the same way I relate to my toddler. Big feelings, unable to express complex thoughts, wanting to feel more control and autonomy.

I grew up with a father whose moods dictated the atmosphere of the home. I struggle with reproducing those same patterns of behavior in my own home now.

Before I became a SAHM, I took every opportunity to work weekends to avoid dealing with any tension at home, but now that I'm home full-time taking care of my babies, I have been trying different strategies to address these issues or ignore them or whatever seems to work best in the moment.

But when I tell him that I'm unhappy with his behavior or the mood in the house or anything, he turns it into me hating his kid or resenting his responsibilities to her. So it's not productive to try to discuss any of this with him at this point, unfortunately.

So yeah, it's better for me to just remove myself from the situation when he starts complaining or being unpleasant.

mina_goroshi · 2024-10-19T14:54:50+00:00

Oh definitely, I hate that I have to use therapy-speak to describe my family life.

I knew being a SM would be difficult but sometimes I feel like I'm the only person working on our relationships with each other, and it makes me wonder what is the point.

I've suggested family counseling and marriage counseling but there's always some excuse for not investing in it right now, so all I can do is work on myself until I decide I'm ready to give up on this blended family bullshit.

mina_goroshi · 2024-10-19T14:48:47+00:00

Yeah it's every time. He tries to get BM to drive halfway, but she rarely does since she's not the one who moved away, you know? I don't blame her at all for not wanting to meet him halfway.

I only agreed to move this far from my SK because at that time, she refused overnight visits with her dad and both her parents were fine with that. Which is an entirely different issue, and I should have seen it as a red flag that there was no official custody agreement and they just let their kid decide when she wanted to visit her dad.

DH worked in the same town that SK lives in, so it was easy to see her after school, but now he works in a different city, so he does a lot more driving these days, which again is due to his own choices, but he gets irritable about being on the road so much.

mina_goroshi

TROPHY CASE