Category Archives: reader questions

Dear Auntie Swistle: Coping with a Significant Break-up / Divorce

Dear Swistle,

This is not a baby name question but it is a Life Advice that I think you in your Auntie Swistle shoes might have some ideas on (I’m only a little older than Rob), as well as your readers.

SO. Technically I am not getting divorced because I was not married. However, I was in a relationship for a decade, cohabitating for most of that, baby names were chosen, parenting techniques planned, I was proposed to, a wedding was planned and booked and announced…. and now, leaving out some details and personal specifics, safe to say, that wedding is cancelled. So while no marriage certificate was signed, this definitely does not feel like your average 20-something-year-old-break up. “Love of my life”, “future seems bleak now”, etcetera etcetera.

As far as I’m aware you haven’t written about guiding your kids through big breakups, but you got divorced in your twenties, right Swistle? And you’re very much a planner + list-maker like me. I know you were quite happy to get away from your ex-husband, while I am very very broken and wish things were different, but I assume you still had a certain level of “AAH MY PLANS, MY FUTURE, EVERYTHING IS RUINED”, right?

How did you cope with that? The loss of the image you had for your future, and the “falling behind” on the schedule you thought you were on, after suddenly being further away from having kids than you ever expected to be, suddenly being “back at square one”, namely: single?

If you (and Auntie Readers) have the time I would appreciate any level of concrete suggestions on how to cope, practically and emotionally (as well vaguer notions of telling me I’m gonna be okay).

Lots of love,

Heartbroken Reader

 

Oh dear, yes, this seems like a moment for the aunties to gather around. Imagine us starting by fussing you into a nest consisting of comfy recliner, throw blanket, cup of something hot, plate of something sweet. Then all of us settle into comfy chairs around you with our own cups and plates.

Yes, I got a divorce in my early twenties, and you’re absolutely right: even though I was GLAD to get out of the marriage in that case, it was still a gigantic ordeal with enormous life-rethinking/replanning aspects. The word “derailed” comes to mind. Like I’d popped out of reality and was now floating in the void. And then with SO MUCH TO DO and SO MUCH TO FIGURE OUT: paperwork! new place to live! packing! Telling People! dealing with other people’s reactions!

I don’t know if this is good advice OR if it will work for you and your temperament, but I did a lot of “waiting for it to be over.” Like, as much as possible, not thinking about it, not ruminating on it, not asking myself WHAT I was going to do NOW, not trying to make any plans beyond the immediate needs for housing and work and groceries—but instead resting my confidence in the idea that there WOULD be a time when this WOULD be in my past and I WOULD NOT feel so awful all the time, and there WOULD be a time when everyone else would adjust too. And so I would wait to be automatically transported to that time by time itself, rather than putting in huge amounts of effort to magic my way there.

In the meantime, I focused on the practical things that needed to happen: the paperwork, the bank accounts. I tried to make My Plans for the Future on a much, much smaller scale: what did I need to do today? this week? Let the longer-term deal with itself for awhile. I know for other people it might be totally different: they might find it most helpful to get out a notebook and start thinking big-picture about what they wanted in their new life so they could start steering a course. But I found that too overwhelming, too unknown. I needed to coast for awhile, tread water.

When I had a more personally devastating break-up (first love, high school, two years), where I felt as if I could die from the pain and might wish to, I remember it helped me to think about all the people I knew who had gone through something similar or worse (friends’ mothers and mother’s friends who had gone through betrayal and divorce, for example), and who were now, years later, able to talk about it casually, even with a little eye-roll, or even as something LUCKY AND GOOD that led to better things. It didn’t seem possible that that could happen in my case, but it did seem statistically possible that the suffering might someday fade to some degree.

While I waited to see if the suffering would ever end, I read horror/thriller novels: I found those were one of the few things that could distract me enough to give me a little peace from my cycling/painful thoughts. I also did weepy, angry, sweaty dance workouts to very loud music (Flashdance soundtrack, if you must know), to try to physically process all the stress and adrenaline.

Now, here, from a distance of decades, I keep the memory of that experience filed away to help me with future terrible feelings: because the terrible feelings DID pass, and in fact they passed so completely that at this point I feel RELIEF that the relationship ended. I feel like I was SPARED. I don’t know if that will happen in your case, where it’s an adult relationship and not a high school one, and a much longer relationship as well—but looking around at other people who have gone through the endings of lengthy adult relationships, my feeling is that there is SIGNIFICANT HOPE for it. I find it so unhelpful when people confidently assure me/others of things they can’t possibly know (“You’ll get through this!” “Everything will be okay!”), but I think it is statistically likely that you will emerge from this, and that you may have scars but you WILL be okay.

I am hoping others can tell anecdotes about heartbreaks that seemed at the time like they would never stop hurting but DID stop hurting; about lives that seemed like they were derailed but then got onto a different, maybe even better tracks; about break-ups that seemed terrible at the time but turned out for the best, or even just turned out for the new normal. But also, I am hoping others can share their own coping methods for getting through those times: different techniques work for different temperaments, and it would be nice to assemble a grab-bag of ideas. Some of us eat doughnuts, some of us learn to bake doughnuts from scratch, some of us work our way up to running a half-marathon; some of us create a vision board, some of us buy a new notebook, some of us read Stephen King novels; etc.

College Student Care Package Questionnaire Ideas

Hello Swistle!

Hi! How are you? I have a question that you may already have an answer to and if you don’t it may be a fun thing to ask your bloggy community…

I would like to put together a questionnaire for some of the seniors that we are close to who are headed off to college in August. Kind of like a “favorite things” survey each young person can fill out and return to me (in an envelope I’ll stamp and address). We were invited to a bazillion graduation parties and just did a small “gift” for each of those ($20.23 check). For the people we are closer to/might have done a more significant gift for, I thought I’d send care packages sometime after school starts up in August. Instead of guessing what they’d like I want to KNOW what they will find delightful. Things I’m thinking of asking about include: snack preferences, local/national places they’d like gift cards to, favorite online stores, favorite school supplies (maybe that’s just a me thing?). What else would you ask or think to include in that kind of survey? Is this dumb? Do you think any kids will return it? Lol!

This seemed like something you might enjoy thinking about – bonus points if you or a reader have a PDF template that already exists!

I hope your graduation season is going well – does it feel like your job to go to grad parties?!

Love,
Kelsey

 

What a fun idea. When I did Galentine’s Day care packages, I used this questionnaire and found it more useful than I would have expected:

• Does the recipient drink coffee? tea? cocoa?

• Allergies / sensitivities / dietary restrictions?

• Prefer a sort of FOOD-BASED box or more of a NON-food-based box?

• Favorite color, in case something has a color choice?

• Would hair elastics or hair clips be of any use?

• Anything else that might be helpful to know?

 

I added a section about answering as many or as few questions as desired, and said that I could also do it no-answers-all-surprises if preferred.

I think in the past I’ve asked about favorite scents, which can be useful. Someone might say “Vanilla and lavender!” or “Anything floral!” and then you have a whole world to choose from. Or they might say “Nothing floral!” or “Unscented only!” and then you know.

For college students, I would definitely ask about school supplies and snacks; I’d add a sub-question about salty/sweet—like “Favorite snacks? salty/sweet?” in the hopes of getting more info. And I might add a question such as “Room decor/theme, if applicable?” It might not lead to anything, but you could get an answer like “DAISIES!!” or “NEON!!!” or “STAR WARS!!” or “NOTHING YELLOW!!” and then you would have something to really dig your teeth into.

After “Favorite color, in case something has a color choice?,” I might add “Favorite animal, in case something has an animal choice?”

I might also add some sort of question about the ideal time to get a care package, depending on how willing you are to work with that. “Any particular ideal time to get a care package, or random?” Maybe someone would say “Finals week!” or “My birthday November 3rd!,” or someone would mention a day they knew would be a sad one for them, or maybe someone would say they would LOVE a Halloween box.

I think some kids might not fill it out but, looking at my own kids of this age, I think it would be because they put it aside to do it later and then forgot about it, rather than that they thought it was silly. I tried to think of a way to add a lighthearted deadline, but all my ideas sounded kind of…mommish. Not that there’s anything wrong with mommish!

More ideas for useful questionnaire questions?

Stocking Stuffers We Buy for Ourselves

Commenter Angela asked:

Sometime can you do a joint what-to-buy-for-your-own-stocking post where everyone chimes in the comments? I would love to hear what other people do when they buy for their own stocking.

 

And I saw her comment and IMMEDIATELY cut-and-pasted it into a new post so I wouldn’t forget.

I will go first and tell you what I do. FIRST! I set up a non-see-through bag in a place (like a closet) where I can put the things that I buy for my own stocking throughout the year. The idea is that once I put them in that bag, I won’t SEE them again until Christmas, so I WILL be surprised by at least SOME of the things. This works best in years when we do not have a CONTINUING PANDEMIC and so I am shopping in stores regularly, and so some of the things I buy for my stocking might have been purchased 11 or 10 or 9 or 8 or whatever months ago and I have GENUINELY forgotten about them.

SECOND! My general CONCEPT is that whenever I am out shopping, and I see something relatively inexpensive that immediately appeals to me but I think “Oh, I shouldn’t”/”Oh, I don’t really NEED that”/etc., I NEXT think “STOCKING!!” and then I buy it and I put it in the Stocking Bag.

This can include ALL SORTS OF THINGS. Nearer to Christmas, maybe I see some cute shortbread cookies! Or some interesting candies! Or some expensive keto treat! Or any OTHER treat I want to try! Or things you would have bought for yourself ANYWAY, but the fun is having to wait for it! Buy it, and pop it into the stocking bag!

Further from Christmas, anything non-edible/non-perishable might be added to the bag. Pretty gift-tags on clearance in January! Cute notecards in February! I’m already bored with this pattern and am going to stop doing it by month! Conditioning hand masks! Interesting tea flavor! Fun lip balms! Pretty fridge magnets! Sweet notepad! Cute traveling pill case! Pretty earrings! Nail polish/stickers! Hair thingies! Things I wish to buy at craft/charity fairs! Just, throughout the year, anything you see where your heart reaches out for something and your mind says no—let another part of your mind say “But: stockings! It’s perfect for your STOCKING!” and buy it!

I am not saying spend a million dollars, or buy ALL the things I am about to mention—but I AM saying spend as if you were making a stocking for someone you loved. How much do you spend on your child’s/spouse’s/partner’s stocking? Spend at LEAST that much on your own. I add a fairly hefty “having to buy my own” tax on top of that, because it really isn’t right to have to fill our own stockings and we all know it—including the person who ought to be handling our stocking. Think of how much it would cost them to pay someone else to make a stocking for you; that’s how much you should spend on your own stocking.

So that is the GIST. And I find that once I get into it, I think of SO MANY GOOD THINGS. Today at the grocery store I remembered I usually I buy one of those bottled/canned coffee drinks, the ones that are $2-4 each. Sometimes I buy an individual can of an interesting-looking energy drink. This year I have already bought an oversized bottle of beer. (A post for another time: Swistle has discovered that she DOESN’T dislike beer, as she previously assumed; she only dislikes IPAs. She is VERY KEEN ON coffee stouts/porters, and is planning to venture out into NON-coffee stouts/porters to see if it’s the coffee part she likes, or the stout/porter.) Last year I bought the foot cream recommended by Nicole (HI NICOLE!), which I kept meaning to try and then kept not buying. (“Things you keep meaning to try but then keep not buying” is a FABULOUS category for stockings. A facial mist, perhaps? One of my friends highly recommends the Olly sleep gummies; that’s the sort of thing that if you were thinking “I don’t know…should I try them?” would be PERFECT for a stocking. Or perhaps the ones to make us EVEN MORE RADIANT AND EVEN MORE LOVELY??)

I almost always buy myself some socks. I’ll see a pair at TJMaxx/Marshalls, wool-blend and a pretty color, and into my cart they go. Or I’ll be shopping a good pre-Christmas Old Navy / Gap sale, and there will be some really nice cozy-looking socks, and I’ll think “I don’t really NEED any more socks…” and then I’ll think “STOCKING.” I also like the Goodfellow men’s boot/crew socks (I wear a women’s 10-11, so women’s socks are sometimes too snug), and just bought myself these cute stripey ones on sale.

Lip balms, especially fun ones! Face lotions! Hand creams, maybe a special one that comes in a smallish tube for the same price as a large bottle! A nicer conditioner/soap than I’d usually buy! A nice-smelling hand sanitizer, or an interesting one that claims to moisturize! Face masks, the rejuvenating/moisturizing kind but also the pandemic kind! Hand/foot treatments! A bunch of fun samples! Laptop/bumper stickers! Wee teensy pots of jam! New pens/pencils! One year I bought myself a reproduction jade salt shaker for something like $3.99 at HomeGoods, and I keep it on my desk. One year a toothpaste company put out toothpastes in odd flavors, and I bought a mini tube of each. This year Elizabeth has misplaced one earring each from two pairs of earrings I really like (I like the circles and the dark flowers; the others, I don’t really Get), so when I saw this morning that they were on sale, I re-bought them and I will put them in my stocking.

I take a few days off at Christmas, but I love keto treats, and they tend to be expensive, so I generally buy some for my stocking: some years Quest has put out seasonal versions of their bars/cookies (a peppermint-bark bar; a snickerdoodle cookie), and I love that. Or I’ll buy my favorite keto peanut butter cups or my favorite keto alllllmost-kind-of-a-Snickers bars. It’s nice to have them to look forward to in the days when the treats and festivities are over and it’s back to the usual.

I often get ideas while shopping for other people. One year my sister-in-law asked for facial mists, and I bought a couple for myself as well. There are two people dear to me who have birthdays in December, and it’s not uncommon for me to say “Oh! THIS is cute! One for them, and one for me!” Or I’ll see something that would make a great stocking stuffer for several people in my life, and I’ll get one for myself as well. Or an online order will come with a free sample, and I’ll put that in my stocking.

 

 

Okay! Now all the rest of you who shop for your own stockings (this is such a sad/happy club to belong to—but so much better not to be in it alone), please add your ideas!

Time- and Money-Saving Tricks for Families: Meals, School Stuff, Activities, Etc.

Hi Swistle,

I have been reading your blog (especially the name blog) for a while now and really have really enjoyed it. We are expecting our fifth (and most likely last) child this fall and I was wondering if you’d be interested in writing a bit about some of the time and/or money saving tricks you learned along the way. My kids are all very little (5 and under) and I would love to hear about how you managed food/activity/etc expenses as they got older or how you organized your meal planning or how you kept everyone’s school stuff straight.. Anything you feel like sharing! I feel like we got the lots of little kids stage figured out (finally!), but anything further down the line is very abstract still at this point and I would love to hear of any great tricks or routines or anything else you’d like to discuss. Thank you!

Anna

 

This is a great question for a group answer, because we all have different ways of doing things that work for us, and we all have different things we don’t care much about and can therefore pretty easily save money on. And in fact, that’s my biggest tip: find the things you don’t care much about, and start by cutting expenses there. It seems like that would be too obvious a tip to even mention, but I’ve found it’s the kind of thing I have to learn again and again.

When Paul and I got married, we used that concept to decide on what kind of wedding to have: we DID care about x, y, and z, so we spent money on those; but we didn’t care about a, b, c, d, e, f, or g, so we spent nothing (or very little) on those. When we were expecting our first baby, we didn’t care much about nursery decor or an heirloom crib so we didn’t spend much on those, but we (okay, “I”) DID care about the fabric of the car seat and Boppy, so I spent to get the car seat and Boppy I wanted, and I got free handmedown nursery decor from an acquaintance who was getting rid of hers. It’s not about which preferences are more objectively worthy (car seat fabric is no more objectively necessary or important than curtain fabric), it’s that you’ll feel the sacrifice more if you give up something you want, and feel it less if you give up something you don’t really care about. (Again, it feels obvious, but at least for me it has NOT been obvious.)

So when I list things we saved money on, some of you might start feeling a little prickly if I mention things that are very important to you; you might feel as if I’m saying you’re wrong to spend money there and that you ought to cut back. But one person’s Easy Budget Cut is another person’s Absolutely Crucial Not To Cut, and vice versa.

Two very big savings areas for us were (1) meals out and (2) vacations. We didn’t do either one. (I DID occasionally eat fast food, especially if I didn’t have many children with me. When I say “meals out” I am talking about family meals in restaurants.) This was an easy cut for us, because when they were littler I had approximately zero interest in either going out to eat with five children or traveling with five children. We are now very occasionally (like, when there is a promotion or a new house to celebrate) taking the children to restaurants, so that they will know how to do restaurants. But I find it very unpleasant to see what it costs for a family of seven to eat even a relatively inexpensive meal out.

When the kids were little, I made baby food. I found the task satisfying, and it saved a lot of money. But if I hadn’t found it satisfying, I would have purchased baby food at the grocery store and found something else that was satisfying and money-saving for me.

I tried all the store-brand versions of everything. If I couldn’t tell the difference, I continued to buy the store brand. If I could tell the difference, I bought the brand name.

I used to cut everyone’s hair, including Paul’s, sometimes including my own. I’ve done less of this over the years as the kids have gotten older and Paul’s hair has begun to need a more tactful, expert approach.

Handmedowns will save you one million dollars, but doing handmedowns requires a non-zero amount of work in order to save that money: boxing things up, storing them, finding them later. It might not be worth it for someone living in very limited space.

I bought a lot of kid clothes on clearance, mostly at Target or The Children’s Place at 75-90% off. This worked because I like the treasure-hunting feeling, I went to Target very regularly as a get-out-of-the-house activity, I wasn’t too particular about the clothes, and I had good Targets near me that often had good clearance racks so I found lots of stuff I liked at good prices. But this too requires a storage system, even more complicated than handmedowns because you buy various sizes in advance rather than packing away a whole set of clothes at once. It also involves a certain level of risk: maybe you buy a whole bunch of skirts in 4T and 5T for a 2T toddler who loves skirts, but by the time she’s in 4T she won’t wear skirts anymore; maybe you buy a whole bunch of summer clothes in 4T and then your child has a growth spurt and none of those summer clothes fit by summertime. Anyway, this whole thing worked well for me but might not be a good fit for parents who both work full-time, or who hate shopping, or who feel depressed by shopping from clearance racks, or who have limited storage space, or who have fewer kids.

Usually the first year I need a new big-kid thing (like when we suddenly needed binders in middle school, and I hadn’t realized we would), I have to pay full- or sale-price, but after that I know what I’m likely to need and I can buy clearance and set it aside for the next year. Some things never go on clearance: binders were a bad example because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clearance on those. But calculators and handheld pencil sharpeners and glue sticks and pencil cases and book covers and so forth, they go on clearance and I have a big School Supply bin in a storage area. This is also good for replenishing things that wear out or get lost mid-year. I don’t usually have everything I need when we’re looking at the school supply lists in the fall, but I usually have most of it.

And this is for the little-kid stage you mention you’ve got the hang of, but I’m going to put it here for anyone still in that stage: How the Hell Do You Do It? Here’s the Hell How.

For keeping school stuff straight, we have tried various systems. In our old house, we had a series of hooks in the entryway, where children were supposed to hang their backpacks, coats, etc. Yes, they instead put those things onto the floor, but at least the piles were UNDER their own hooks, usually. In the new house, we don’t have an area like that, so I’ve put over-door hooks on their bedroom doors; they can hang their backpacks and coats on those hooks.

Things like snowpants and boots and hats, I store in bins by type of thing, since who knows who’ll be wearing what size next year: all the snowpants in one bin, all the boots in another bin. Each year as I’m digging through the bins, I try to notice and get rid of anything I know won’t fit anyone anymore. Hats and gloves live in drawers, and kids can rummage to find some that fit.

Activity expenses are a slightly touchy subject, I think. Or at least, I feel more nervous saying that we saved money and time by not doing many of them. I feel as if parents are expected to pay any amount to encourage their kids’ interests in anything their kids want to do, but when the kids were younger we didn’t really have the disposable income/time for that philosophy, and there was a stage when that would have required sacrifices of money/time/effort that were not worth it. (I am thinking particularly of the years when, if Rob wanted to do an after-school activity, I would have had to bring FOUR younger children with me.) If a child had shown a FIERCE interest in something, we would have found the money/time/logistics—but for the ever-rotating list of “Can I take karate/gymnastics/archery/soccer?” for kids who didn’t show likely talent in those areas or sustain such interests for long, we tended to say no. Or we would find a way for them to inexpensively/briefly sample the activity, through a recreation-department summer program or YouTube tutorials or books from the library or something. Sometimes this cut was really hard, like when a kid wanted to do something that sounded really reasonable or classic-childhood, like going to a sleepaway summer camp, and then we’d look it up and it would be $1800 for a week, and there was just no way that could work with our budget. Crucial surgery for $1800? We could find a way. A vacation for one single member of the family? No. When our finances loosened up a bit (and when the kids were getting older and easier to bring along), we started saying yes to interests that were sustained (i.e., the kid kept wanting to do it for more than the one afternoon when they learned their friend was doing it), and/or that were more reasonably-priced, and/or ones that seemed to us more important/valuable/useful (I am absolutely not going to make the mistake of giving examples on that).

Another harder cut: preschool for the twins. Preschool feels so RIGHT. Education! So important! And it felt unfair, because we sent Rob to preschool. But Rob had various issues that caused his pediatrician, a pediatric neurologist, and a speech therapist to all strongly urge preschool for him, whereas the twins had no such issues. And Rob was a firstborn with one younger sibling when he went to preschool, while the twins lived in a household with five kids—plenty of socialization with other children, including a same-age child. And Rob was one kid going at a time and that was still hard to afford; $750/month (and this was a decade ago) for two kids at once was not a percentage of our income we could justify spending on something optional.

By the way, some you might be looking at the summer-camp price and preschool price I mentioned and thinking “WHAT???? Here it’s only $200/$150/free!!!” or whatever. This is another thing that can vastly impact decisions. You might live in an area where camp/preschool/lessons are very cheap, and so that would not be such a good place for your family to cut costs. Or if you’re religious, you might have access to very cheap camp or preschool through a church-subsidized program. And so again, those might NOT be a good place for your family to cut costs.

We opted out of ALL school fundraisers of the sort where they want $11 for a roll of wrapping paper. Just, no. I will happily give the school money directly, and have done so, and have also bought things off teacher wish lists; but typically only a small percentage of those fundraising funds go to the school, and the rest is profit for the fundraising company, so no. For me that’s a really good place to save. But it often means disappointed children, because the fundraising company sends motivation speakers to ramp the children up about all the prizes they can win. It helped once I’d explained it a few times so that when the new fundraiser came out the kids already knew we would not be participating.

For a number of years my meal-planning consisted of getting worked up about it every night. Now we have a very simple meal plan, where there is already something planned for every night of the week. In some cases they’re alternating-week plans: like, on Sundays it’s either hamburgers or chicken. And I CAN go off-menu any time I feel like it. But every night has a default plan and I don’t have to think about it if I don’t want to. I’ve just recently delegated Monday a night for trying new things, because I finally feel as if I can cope with that. But I hate to cook, so this is another area where someone else might have a very different feeling about how to handle it. Like, I can easily see someone else saying that they way they coped was by making sure they didn’t get into a rut and always had new fun recipes to try.

I don’t tend to use a lot of coupons, though I know lots of people who say they save lots of money that way. I am more inclined to shop sales/clearances. When peanut butter goes on sale from $3/jar to $2/jar, I buy enough of it that a manager has to be called over to approve the sale. Paul teases me about it, but this is the sort of thing that adds up over time and is almost effortless for me, as well as fun. If I hated doing this, or didn’t feel as if I could keep track of it (as I feel about couponing), or didn’t have the storage space, this would not be a useful idea for saving money.

“Having the kids do their own stuff” helps considerably with time management, and becomes increasingly possible as they get older. I am not a patient teacher and I HATE training kids to do things, but when the kids are older there is nothing quite like the amazing feeling of getting just your own self into the car while everyone else hops in and buckles their own seatbelts. Or saying, “Okay, go take a shower,” and the kid just goes and does it. Or “Okay, Dad and I are going out for dinner, so everyone make your own dinners tonight.” Or “Okay, everyone off to bed now,” and there is nothing for you to do. It is the best, and it is in your future.

 

Okay, I have gone on a long time, and it’s time to let other people talk. Where are the places your family doesn’t mind cutting expenses? What are some of the systems/routines/tricks that make your family’s life easier?

Anticipating Our Own Era as Mothers-in-Law

Hi Swistle,

I know you sometimes post reader questions, and this came to mind while reading your post about Rob coming home from college and the dynamics between an older child and parents. I also know you had a hard time with your mother-in-law.

I commented that, as the mother of all boys, I have a huge fear—my biggest parenting fear, in fact—that my boys will all marry women who dislike me or don’t care about having a relationship with me, and I will end up not having a close or satisfying relationship with my adult sons (or grandkids, for that matter.). Right now, my boys are all still little enough that they worship me and I am the center of their world, and I know that all goes away and that’s natural, but I hate to think that someday these little boys will end up like my husband is with his mother: frequently annoyed and rather distant.

Let me explain: I have a very annoying mother-in-law. I won’t go into the many, many examples I could share (which are endlessly entertaining to my friends), but she is a strong mix of passive-aggressive and undermining. She also possesses some of my most disliked personality flaws, including being braggy and two-faced. She certainly doesn’t think I worship my husband enough, and that he is above and beyond what I could ever deserve. We are very different in pretty much every way.

As a result, I’m sure I have complained and griped about her to my husband more than my fair share, but he agrees with me on all points and now feels much closer to my family. (I am biased, but I do think my parents and siblings are pretty darn great.) He has actually told me that he feels closer to my siblings than his, that he respects my parents opinions more and prefers to get their advice on things instead, and so on. Which is great for me now, but I fear that karma is going to bite me and I’m going to end up living the rhyme, “A son is a son till he marries his wife, but a daughter’s a daughter for the rest of my life.” It certainly feels true to me now.

So, for debate—this is long, please feel free to cut out all the backstory—what makes for a bad or good mother-in-law? What can we moms do to avoid those strained relationships with our future in-laws? I am heartened to know that my mom had a wonderful relationship with my paternal grandma, and I know there are other cases like that. But—what makes for those good and bad relationships? To be fair, my MIL was not a bad mom—very affectionate and fawning and permissive and special snow-flakey, but not a bad mom. She loves her kids a lot. I feel certain that my MIL believes she is actually an *excellent* mother and mother-in-law, and would be absolutely baffled to hear anything to the contrary. Is being self-aware enough?? How do I know whether I am self-aware? Maybe I, too, am actually a super annoying person?!

Thanks!

 

I am RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. The discussion has come up often with various of my friends, as our children approach the era of bringing new people legally into our families. How can we avoid being Bad Mothers-in-Law, when surely the bad mothers-in-law we know did not SET OUT to be terrible, and yet they STILL ARE?

(A digression already, when we have hardly even gotten started: I am going to be talking primarily about mothers-in-law, because in our society the mother-in-law relationship is considered the fraught one, and the father-in-law relationship is not. An individual father-in-law can have serious faults, but we don’t talk about fathers-in-law as a group the way we talk about mothers-in-law. This could be yet another area where women are held to a different/higher standard—like when female politicians must be likeable and have pleasant voices and answer questions about how they’re taking care of their children, while male politicians needn’t do any of those things. Or it could be that women in general really do act differently in this role than men do, and/or that fathers-in-law are just as problematic but in ways our society doesn’t criticize/punish them for. It is worth noting that in my first marriage, my father-in-law was difficult and manipulative, and my mother-in-law was pleasant and friendly—and yet at the time, I blamed her for the issues. In my second marriage, my mother-in-law drove me up a wall but on the other hand my father-in-law had almost nothing to do with us or his grandchildren, except to call every couple of years and try to get us to make him feel better about how bad he felt about being so terrible, so I’d say he was actually much worse. Anyway. Back to the post. I had just finished asking how on earth we were going to avoid being bad mothers-in-law, when presumably no one SET OUT to be a bad mother-in-law and yet many of them WERE.)

I was particularly perplexed by the way my mother-in-law considered herself to be an EXCELLENT mother-in-law. She would tell me about her sister-in-law and what a dreadful time her daughters-in-law had with her, and how lucky I was. How LUCKY I was. Meanwhile I was spending huge portions of her visits DAYDREAMING ABOUT UNTRACEABLE POISONS. When she died unexpectedly (NOT FROM UNTRACEABLE POISON), I was SUFFUSED WITH HAPPINESS!! and I still think of it now from time to time, with happy feelings of relief and luckiness at having been spared. We do not want our sons- and daughters-in-law SUFFUSED WITH HAPPINESS and FEELING RELIEVED AND LUCKY when we die! How how how can we avoid this??

(Well, and it’s not as scary as what I’m working myself up to, here. In-laws are for the most part non-chosen family members, and so it’s normal for them to be, er, not what we’d choose. And yet many of us accept that and adjust to it and cope with it and stay polite and everything is basically fine, and everyone is doing their best to get along, and no one is swooning with delight but also no one is daydreaming about untraceable poisons. I had a particularly bad experience with my mother-in-law, but that’s not the usual. Some in-laws feel friendly toward each other! Some of them even love each other devotedly! Some prefer their in-laws to their own actual family members! But it’s understandable that we would worry about the less-favorable outcomes and hope to do what we can to prevent them.)

One problem is that the whole situation is EXTREMELY DEPENDENT on the personality combinations involved. That is, I am willing to conceive of a person who might have married Paul and found his mother delightful. His mother did not like me very much, and our personalities were not a good match; some of her most aggravating qualities might not have been brought out at all if she’d had a different sort of daughter-in-law, or might have been brought out but not perceived as aggravating, or might have been perceived as aggravating but then swiftly and decisively dealt with. There could be areas where neither of us were at fault: our personalities just didn’t work out well together.

But also, my mother-in-law really was an oblivious and difficult person. That is, I can write some of this off as personality conflicts, no one’s fault, etc., but she was the kind of person who, with a topic as minor as “how to cook taco meat,” thought of there as being one Right Way (her way) and a whole bunch of Stupid Ways—not DIFFERENT ways but STUPID ways. She would tell stories about other people (often they were pointed stories about how those people did something I happened to also do), and she’d roll her eyes and make scoffing sounds about any decisions that were different than hers, and she’d say “It was just so STUPID!,” and make closing remarks like “Well, but they didn’t ask me!” as if that made her a reasonable, accepting person resigned to her fate as Cassandra, always right but never consulted/believed.

My hope is that we are starting from a place where we already know not to do this. And that as we get older, we will remain aware that there are many different right ways to live a life, and that those ways suit different people, and that two people can live very differently indeed (even including the way they cook taco meat) and still both be living the Right Way for them. And that we will able to apply that point of view to our daughters- and sons-in-laws as broadly and lovingly and supportively as we would want our mothers- and fathers-in-law to apply it to us. And that we can try not to be actively difficult people. And that our children will not bring actively difficult people into our lives. This is a lot of hopes.

I share your worry about getting a son-in-law or daughter-in-law who actively badmouths me to my child and turns my child against me. Basically I am worried I will get the same thing in a daughter/son-in-law that I had in a mother-in-law: someone who thinks there is one Right way to do things and all the other ways (definitely including mine) are Stupid, and that this should be regularly and scoffingly pointed out to my child until he/she agrees and scorns me for it. I guess this means I am hoping I have children who grow up understanding that just because they prefer to do things a certain way doesn’t mean preferring to do things a different way is stupid/wrong/gross/bad. And that if my children DO understand that, they will not be as likely to link their lives to people who think otherwise. Though attraction is a marvel, and makes all kinds of combinations happen.

Another concern I have is that the very ways we consider ourselves delightfully Not Difficult could be THE VERY THINGS that drive our children and their partners up a wall. My mother-in-law considered herself SUCH an easy houseguest, because unlike her parents she didn’t expect us to give up our bed for her—but “giving the guest the best bed in the house” was not a concept I was familiar with in my extended family, so I failed to appreciate her graciousness in not demanding to sleep in my bed. (Also, she mentioned it every time she visited, which made it seem like maybe she DID want us to give up our bed.) And there was a whole interesting category of things where she would say proudly that she didn’t need to be entertained, she didn’t need special meals cooked—but then she did need to be entertained and she did need special meals cooked, it’s just that her idea of entertainment and special cooking were not the same as mine, so what she saw as low-maintenance (she thought everyone should be eating salt-free and low-fat, so it was not special that she needed those kinds of meals) I saw as high-maintenance, and I don’t know if there was any way around that. Or wait, actually I do know the way around that: I think the key may be to avoid bragging about how easy we are, and to avoid assuming we’re easy and delightful.

I worry too because sometimes I see “Can’t Win” talk going on with relationships like these: it’s easy to do it when we don’t like someone or find the relationship difficult (see also: Bitch Eating Crackers). Like, if a mother-in-law visits, she’s a burden and an intrusion; but if she doesn’t, she doesn’t care about her grandchildren and she’s wrong for expecting people to travel to her. If she sends gifts, she’s sending things no one wants, and/or spending either too much or too little, and/or buying things WE wanted to buy the children, and/or buying things we didn’t want the children to have, and so on; if she doesn’t, she doesn’t even care enough to send gifts to her own grandchildren / doesn’t even care enough to mark their special occasions. If she asks for updates/photos, she’s demanding and needy; if she doesn’t, she doesn’t care and isn’t involved. Can’t win. I tried to correct that with my attitude toward my own mother-in-law: if she did something I didn’t like, I’d think “Would I be any happier if she did something else instead, or would I find a way to criticize her no matter what?” This led me to give credit where credit was due: she visited often and was involved with her grandchildren, which was GOOD; she sent gifts and cards and letters, which was GOOD; she was interested in updates and photos, which was GOOD. I’m going to try to remember to apply this also to my future sons- and daughters-in-law, and avoid thinking of them in Can’t Win ways if we don’t happen to like each other very much.

 

Okay, do we have a rough plan here?

1. We can emphasize to our children (and model it in the way we speak of others) that there are different Right Ways to live for different people: that two people can live differently and yet both be living exactly the right way for their own lives.

2. We can try to remember this ourselves as we get older, and not fall into the trap of thinking that younger people need us to tell them how to live exactly like we did/do.

3. We can be aware of the odd dynamics inherent to the whole “building family out of people who didn’t used to be family” concept, and expect to need to do our share to make these relationships go smoothly, and not panic if the relationships aren’t all great ones. We can hope that our children will bring dear good nice people into our lives, but we can focus on hoping our children will find the people who are right for THEM, not right for US.

4. We can try to be Not Difficult, and to avoid the common pitfalls (being critical, being intrusive, giving too much unasked-for input, scoffing at new developments and saying “We didn’t do things like that in MY day and we all survived!”), but not assume that we are succeeding, and not brag that we are succeeding.

5. In situations where personalities are not a delightful fit, we can do our part to make sure we are not putting our sons- and daughters-in-law into Can’t Win situations where we manage to think of them poorly no matter what they do. We can hope they will do the same for us.

6. We can hope that our fretfulness and anxiety on this topic already puts us ahead of the people who plow into this assuming they’re the best mothers-in-law ever and that their daughters- and son-in-law can’t WAIT to hear wise instructions on how they should run their lives in every detail.

 

More things to add to the list? Some of you are mothers-in-law already, and I hope you will tell us everything you know, everything you’ve learned, everything you’re doing. Some of you may have active mother-in-law situations going on right now, situations that are giving you lots of ideas of things to do differently when it’s your turn, and I hope you will tell us all of those ideas.

Reader Question: Things To Do with an Alexa

Today we have this from Phancymama:

We got an Alexa and a dot for Christmas, and I would love a post on this where I could read lots of comments from other people! I also find myself wishing for Alexa in the car. And I feel like my feelings run from “incredibly useful” to “I forget it’s there” and I have the feeling I’m missing some of the tricks and tips. (For instance I ask about the weather but not the news!)

 

I have a first-generation Echo, but it looks like those are only being sold refurbished and the second-generation Echo is the current thing. I also have a second-generation Dot. Here is what I use my Alexa Echo/Dot for:

1. Every single morning, I ask it for the news (“Alexa, what’s the news?”). I had to set up what news source I wanted (I do set-up stuff on https://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#cards (I just type in alexa.amazon.com and it adds the other stuff automatically), but there is an Alexa app that lets you do it too and makes more sense if you use the Alexa for lists; I started to install the app long ago, but I seem to remember feeling uncomfortable at the time with the permissions/access it wanted), and I chose NPR. You can also set up more than one source, so that it will go through them one after another, but NPR is about exactly the amount of news I want in the morning, delivered in exactly the right tone of voice.

2. Songs! So many songs! “Alexa, play On Melancholy Hill,” “Alexa, play Magic by The Cars,” “Alexa, play Dancer in a Daydream,” “Alexa, play Fever by Peggy Lee.” Sometimes she needs title and artist, sometimes just title: there’s more than one song called Magic; there’s more than one artist who sings Fever. There is a rotating list of songs she’ll say she can only play a sample of, and that’s annoying, so for Christmas I asked for and received a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited, the $3.99/month version that gives access on just one device. Paul thought this was silly and wanted to get the $7.99/month plan that would cover both devices, but even the $3.99/month adds up, and I wanted to try it out for awhile in a way that would let me compare and see if it gave me enough more songs to be worth it. So far I really like it: when I came home from The Greatest Showman and wanted the soundtrack, the Echo played it for me right away; when I was folding laundry later and asked the Dot for the same thing, it said I would need Amazon Music Unlimited for that.

2a. Asking what song is playing. I LOVE this. I say, “Alexa, what is this?” and she says “This is Let the Games Begin, by AJR,” or whatever.

2b. Asking for a radio station. I have a radio in the kitchen, but it only gets two stations I like. So I’ll ask Alexa to play a different station. I’ve asked her to play Rob’s college radio station, which was fun. It can be a little tricky to get the one I want, because she can play practically anything, so it’s best if you know the call letters.

2c. Asking her to play songs by a certain artist. I’ll say, “Alexa, play songs by AJR,” and she’ll shuffle songs by AJR.

2d. Asking her to make an assorted playlist based on a certain artist. I’ll say, “Alexa, play Peter Cetera radio,” and she’ll play an assortment of songs: some Peter Cetera, some of a similar style, some from that time period, and some weird choices that don’t make any sense. If she plays a song I don’t like, I say “Alexa, thumbs down” and she puts it on a don’t-play list. If she’s playing a song I don’t want to forbid but neither do I want to hear it right now, I say, “Alexa, skip this one” or “Alexa, next.”

2e. Asking for a song I don’t know the title/artist of. “Alexa, play the song that goes ‘Every time I see you falling’.”

2f. Asking for a type of music. “Alexa, play ’80s hits,” “Alexa, play ’90s alternative rock,” “Alexa, play classical music,” “Alexa, play Christmas music.” I’ve had mixed success with this: sometimes I get exactly what I want, but sometimes she’ll play, like, a bunch of music that may be from the ’80s but nothing I recognize, or she’ll get weirdly overly-specific and say “Playing Christmas Country Down Home Favorites” or “Playing music by Bach.” No, no: I wanted an ASSORTMENT of Christmas/classical.

3. Timer/alarm. Mostly I’d rather just set a regular old timer. But it’s handy to have the Alexa when I’m out of timers (the kids walk off with them, or all the timers are in use) or if I’m doing something that makes it inconvenient, like washing dishes. She can do a timer (“Alexa, set a timer for eight minutes”) or an alarm (“Alexa, set an alarm for 1:30”).

4. General information. Sometimes I hear a news story that I don’t quite understand because I didn’t pay attention in American Government class or whatever, or sometimes a kid will ask me a question I don’t know the answer to, or Paul needs to know YET AGAIN how many tablespoons are in a quarter-cup (IT’S FOUR, PAUL. It’s ALWAYS FOUR), so we ask Alexa. Sometimes she doesn’t know, or doesn’t understand the question.

5. Weather: “Alexa, what’s the weather?,” “Alexa, will it snow tomorrow?,” “Alexa, what’s the temperature outside?,” “Alexa, what will the weather be like on Saturday?”

6. “Alexa, teach me something new.” She’ll tell you something neat about dogs! or stars! or the crippling effects of a break-up!

7. “Alexa, tell me a joke.” (Mostly the kids do this one.)

8. Random number generator. If you tell her to roll a die, she’ll give you a number between one and six. Or you can ask her to roll a hundred dice. Or flip a coin. Or give you a random number between one and a hundred.

 

Phancymama and I would like to hear how you use your Alexa.

Reader Question: Plus-Size Underwear

Oh good morning! This is a good day for discussing unders!

Can you please, please write an update on plus size womens underwear? I REALLY need to find a new style and brand, but those images of thin mannequins make it impossible to know how different styles will fit a post-baby, aging body. I remember some suggestions of Jockey and some pricier options from a plus-sized store, but I wonder if you tried them and if they were worth the cost?

Thanks.

 

I just looked up the post where I asked for suggestions, and I see I included a good morning with that one, too. Apparently the underwear topic is in the mental filing cabinet right next to that greeting.

I will start by telling you how I chose the three kinds I tried: by whim. I SHOULD have made a list and tallied votes for each suggestion, and thought about which kinds seemed like the best bets, and maybe gone in person to some stores where I could try pairs on—but instead I did it with thrashing impulsive decisions, followed by getting overwhelmed and stopping the research abruptly; and I couldn’t bring myself to try anything on, or buy anything that wasn’t sold in a three-pack. Here are the three new kinds I tried:

Jockey Elance French Cut
Fruit of the Loom Fit for Me Hi-Cut
another Fruit of the Loom kind but without the sporty waistband

Also, in a triumph of hope over experience, I bought another pack of Hanes XTemp hi-cuts (the ones that started this whole process by changing their fit) at Target—AND THIS TIME THEY DID FIT. So I don’t know if the sizing changed back or what. However, now I can’t find the hi-cuts at Target at all and can only get them on Amazon, and I’m worried that if I order those they’ll be the ones that were like a full size too small; the reviews seem to support this concern. Some of the pairs I have are starting to get pretty tattered, which is sad.

Let’s start with the ones I don’t even have a link for. I got them at Walmarrrt. They don’t have the wider waistband I prefer, just the thin kind, but at least it was covered with comfy fabric. They were fine. Just fine. Surprisingly stretchy and thin (not in a good way for me, but I think they’d feel nice and disappear-y to someone who liked that feeling), comfy enough I guess—but I never reach for them first. Of the four kinds, I reach for them third. They don’t feel particularly cute. I feel as if the fit of them accentuates the postpartum-body issues in a discouraging way.

The only ones they win against are the Jockey ones. The Jockey ones SHOULD be my favorites: they’re 100% cotton and the fabric feels really nice; they were the most expensive and seem well-made. But on me they’re like an exaggeration of hi-cut: very, very high, to the point where I feel as if they are peeking out of the top of my jeans. Maybe I should have ordered one size down? I don’t know. I just know I choose them fourth.

Second place goes to the Hanes XTemp. Comfy, cute, good colors when I could still choose the colors. But too risky to buy anymore, so I am gradually letting them go, emotionally speaking.

First place goes to the ones I thought would be my least favorite, the Fruit of the Loom Fit for Me ones with the sporty waistband. You know me well enough to know that “sporty” is not an adjective on my vision board. And the elastic waist looked pinchy in the pictures, and I’d specifically wanted a fabric-covered waistband. But the waist isn’t pinchy, and they’re comfy, and I think they’re pretty cute, and I really love the colors. So I buy those now, is the upshot.

Reader Question: Gift Ideas for Retirees and Other Adults Who’d Like Something To Do

Hi Swistle :) I am mulling a Christmas gift for my impossible to buy for mother and suddenly realized that you/your readers would have the BEST ideas. I hope you might be willing to share my post and get their ideas. I can’t post on my own blog because my mom reads it.

Here’s the situation. My 70ish year old mom is retiring this December. Everyone is a little worried as she is very prone to boredom and doesn’t have many hobbies. I would love to get her a box of “hobby starters” that she can try out and hopefully find some new hobbies for retirement. But it’s tough!

A bit about my mom:
• She is a preschool teacher with the creativity and (short) attention span that you’d imagine a good preschool teacher would have.
• She lives in Northern California
• She is in good health and goes to the gym pretty regularly and walks with a friend
• She is extroverted but doesn’t like to drive far or travel without my dad (who is introverted)
• Her fourth, and last, grandchild is due in December and will live about an hour away so he and his sister will take up at least one day/week.

Hobbies she does enjoy:
• Garage saleing (her top hobby, she finds amazing bargains, but what does one do with all the purchased stuff? Could she garage sale for a local cause?)
• Scrapbooking (but she’s not into the kits and products that are for sale, she just makes albums for the kids using garage sale-found materials)
• Card making/paper crafts (she’s recently taken this up with a friend who buys the kits)
• Volunteering (she’s on a board at a non profit preschool in town and volunteers at events regularly)
• Reading (novels, newspaper, very limited magazines)

Hobbies that might seem logical but probably won’t work:
• She is not very computer savvy so blogging/eBay/anything web based is pretty much out
• Wine or coffee tasting/appreciation (she doesn’t drink any wine or coffee)
• Gardening, bicycling, hiking, photography: those are my dad’s hobbies and it doesn’t seem like her adopting his hobbies would work very well
• Cooking: She stopped cooking when us kids moved out. My dad has mostly taken it up. But maybe she could get into baking since she likes sweets?
• Sewing: she doesn’t like it. Dad and I sew, not her. I have a feeling this distaste would go to other fiber crafts like knitting, crochet, embroidery and weaving but I might try one of them in a gift box.

Ideas I have so far:
• Birding (buy her a bird identification book). Something she and dad could do sort of together. Him hiking, her walking more leisurely and looking for birds
• Puzzles: Not sure about her attention span/interest in non productive activities
• Postcard Crossing–she regularly sends letters and mail so this is fun but not a very substantial Christmas gift
• A pet (I can’t get her a cat or dog but maybe a fish?)
• Book of the Month club (the online mailorder thing that is all over blogs)

What am I missing? What hobbies do the retirees out there enjoy?

Thanks so much!
Melissa

 

Is she musical at all? My mom has taken up the ukulele in her retirement and really enjoys it. That’s a pretty expensive gift, but a recorder (this is the one my kids’ elementary school asks them to acquire for lessons, and it has a remarkably pleasing sound for being so cheap) and instruction book wouldn’t be.

(image from Amazon.com)

 

(image from Amazon.com)

I wonder if she’d like doing something with clay. A pottery class is probably more than you have in mind, but maybe some air-dry clay (this Crayola bucket has more clay for less money, but looks less…grown-up) and some tools.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

Paul is a revolving-hobbies type of guy, and for awhile he was interested in learning to draw. He liked the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which is also the book recommended by a drawing class I took long ago. (There is a newer edition, but the reviews convinced me it would be better to link to the older edition; this is the same edition Paul liked and that I had for the art class.) I’d add a basic set of pencils with a kneaded eraser.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

I saw the book Learn to Paint People Quickly at our library and thought it looked interesting. If I were giving it as a gift, I’d look inside and see if there were recommendations for paints and brushes, and get some of those too.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

To continue with the book/art theme perhaps too long, I like the look of this “all set to get started” book, Paint This Book: Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered. I had an earlier version of this book a long time ago, and although I didn’t stick with it, it was a good way to do it a little bit without getting too invested.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

When I was going out of my mind with boredom, I found it fun to do a mini Jane Austen study, using annotated books. I started with The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, and since I love the Emma Thompson version of the movie, I’d also recommend including The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries. But if your mom isn’t a Jane Austen fan particularly, there are tons of other annotated books: Paul likes The Annotated Alice, and I’ve been meaning to try (or something nags at the back of my mind that perhaps I already did try?) The Annotated Little Women. Annotations are slow, studious reading—but it means doing a little each day and having it last a nice long time, meanwhile feeling as if you’re accomplishing something / doing something good for your brain.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

I wonder if she’d like guided journaling? It might take some research to find a non-annoying book: I picked The Book of Myself from the search results because I liked the look of it, but I would look into it a bit more before buying to make sure the prompts were appealing. A lot of them are geared toward someone writing down a lot of family history or other facts about themselves that their descendants might later value.

Reader Question: Tips for Being a Good Kisser

We have a charming follow-up question on the First Kisses post:

*cough*Could you maybe do a follow-up post on what makes a good kiss/tips for being a good kisser?*cough* (It’s always good to learn knew things, right? *dies of embarrassment*)

Well! I have been thinking about this and I am not sure I can come up with a decisive answer. Or rather, I CAN come to a decisive answer, and it is this: if this question COULD be answered, it would already HAVE BEEN answered and we all would have studied the answer very carefully and now we would all know for sure that our studying had paid off.

Instead, if you were like me, you read the scene in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret where they practice kissing their pillows, and you gamely tried it yourself because apparently that is a thing we do, but then thought, “…But how does this help? Where are the…lips of this pillow?”

It’s like trying to find information on making hard-boiled eggs easier to peel: there are half a dozen methods people SWEAR by, and absolutely no agreement on which one actually works, and in my own experience each method works sometimes and fails to work other times, and apparently it matters hugely what kind of eggs you start with, so anyway you can rest assured that it is a question for the ages and not something there’s a simple answer for. Same with kissing.

And people LIKE different things. This is where we depart from hard-boiled eggs, because with eggs we all agree on the correct result: the shell should be off of the egg, and the shell-less egg should be whole and smooth, and not very much time should have passed. With kissing, some people get dopey-eyed over soft tender kisses and some people prefer to spend the next day with an ice pack pressed to their swollen, abraded lower face, and there are more kinds of kissing than ways to peel an egg, so it’s hard to know what to advise.

I do think we can say one thing based on the comments on the kissing post, and it is this: the problem, when there is a problem, is usually the tongue. Too much, or too soon, or too much accompanying saliva, or some combination of those things. Go easy on the tongue, is my advice; and if in doubt, wait longer to introduce it.

Also, I think it’s safe to say that kissing can take practice, especially with someone new. There are a bunch of things that vary from person to person, and those things take some time to figure out, and it is perfectly normal to bump teeth or to feel uncertain about how long a kiss should last or whatever. With time and familiarity, the protocol is established and things get less uncertain.

Reader Question: Gift Ideas for a Student with Cancer

Hi- I am in need of your gift giving expertise! I have read you for years, and know you are way better at this kind of thing than I am! Here is the situation. I teach 3rd grade and one of my students was diagnosed with cancer in November. I have a third grade son myself. He knows my student and this hits very home to me! My class knows that H has cancer. ( That was not a fun lesson – what is cancer, how does it spread, what treatments are, etc.). So, H is getting chemo at the hospital on and off until February and will hopefully be able to come back to school in March or April, which is an eternity for a third grader! We have taken photos and emailed, and my class and the other third grade classes send cards once a week. For a big Christmas thing, I went to Build A Bear, got 25 of the hearts they stuff in the Bears, had my class sign them and make a wish for H, took photos, brought them back to Build a bear, took pictures of my son stuffing them in the bear, bought a Star Wars outfit ( that the boy likes). I took pictures of the bear around school, went to Target and had a photo book made. It was cute and he loved it. But, he is out for three more months. I want him to realize we are all thinking of him without just sending photos of us having fun ( too bad you aren’t here! We are having a party without you!) and without being too expensive. I am sure he got plenty of Christmas gifts from family and friends, so I’m looking for smaller, meaningful gifts that tell an 8 year old boy to stay strong. Any ideas? Thanks so much!
Becky

 

This is a hard question to even think about, because it is so sad. Henry is 8 and in the third grade, so you and I both have a very vivid mental picture here. Trying to picture what Henry might like in this situation is…a challenge, on several levels.

My opinion is that you have already had the best idea. The Build-a-Bear-with-25-hearts-signed-by-fellow-students gift was inspired, and better than anything I would have thought of. It’s sentimental and thoughtful and a great group-effort project, and resulted in a comfort item for him to hold onto. And you are already doing my next idea, which is to send regular photos and letters. You are so on this, I feel as if any suggestions I make will be things you have already thought of.

I think at this point I would focus on the letters. If you would like to do more, I think a very nice idea would be to find some way to symbolically include H in your events and celebrations, and send photos of THAT, plus a souvenir when applicable.

Here is the sort of thing I have in mind. I can picture having a photo of his face enlarged to life-sized, and putting it on a life-sized paper doll (class project: trace another student who is about his size, everyone help color it in), and then including that life-sized paper doll in various classroom events. And then I’d take photos of it with the other students, and send those photos to him with, say, a cookie from the party, and a holiday card signed by the class.

At Valentine’s Day, he could receive a class-made mailbox filled with valentines, plus a little plate of treats from the party, plus a photo of his paper doll standing by the mailbox receiving the valentines, surrounded by fellow students. After field trips, he could receive a set of photos of his paper doll on the field trip, and brochures from the location. I am not sure, since I can’t count this experience among my own, but I THINK if I were him that would make me feel included and remembered and “We are always thinking of you,” and not “We are having fun without you.”

Another idea is to talk to the child’s parent and ask what might be appreciated. Perhaps his parent will say, “Oh, he LOVES getting mail!,” and you can set up a mailbox for him in the classroom and incorporate it into a lesson plan about letter-writing, and/or have everyone contribute a dollar toward a subscription to a children’s magazine. Or perhaps his parent will say, “He is SO BORED!,” and your class can brainstorm ideas for things to send him: puzzles, books, workbooks. Or maybe he could use another pair of comfy pajamas, and everyone could chip in and help choose them.

I have a feeling that some or all of the parents of the other children in your classroom will be eager to participate. I do have experience with THIS role, unfortunately, and I remember wishing there was a way I could DO something. If a teacher had said, “If you can, please send $1 a month for little treats and gifts,” or “This year we are all doing all of our Secret Santa gifts for H,” or “Please help your child write a letter,” or “We will be sending valentines to H,” I would have been SO GLAD to have something practical to do.

 

 

Update:

Hello
I wrote to you a few months ago about a student in my third grade class who was out getting treatment for cancer.  I really appreciated all of the suggestions, and thought it was time for an update.  The good news is that H is now considered cancer free and has returned to school!
He was gone for four months.  Using Skype to keep in touch was useful, but it was kind of hard to arrange times when he felt well and it was good timing for us.  We did send lots of pictures and cards.  Each week one of the third grade classrooms send cards.  He sent in his Valentines and we sent his home to him.  He also had a birthday and we sent a video of us singing and holding up signs.  He sent us a video of his how to speech that we did in class.  I liked the idea of the ” flat H” and if he had been gone longer I would have done that too.
He had a pretty low immune system when he came back and no hair but I warned the class about germs and stocked up on hand sanitizer. He wanted to just slide right back into the rhythm of the class, but that took a few weeks.  What really helped was having the Child Life specialist from the hospital come in and give a presentation about cancer, chemo, MRI’s and ports.  I think it really made H feel better – that everyone else finally had an idea of what he had gone through.
Now his hair is mostly grown in, he is caught up both academically and socially.  He still attends a lot of special events for cancer survivors, but otherwise is a normal third grader.  Thank you so much for your help!
Becky