Friday, February 22

I Don't Get People

People, you confuse me.

Some examples.

#1.
I did uniform patches for a guy Sarge works with. Normally these guys come grab their uniform, pay me and get the heck out. This guy though, well we discovered that we are both from Hawaii. Woo! Big woop. He ends up standing in my hallway talking for about 1/2 hour. This is not the confusing part. About 6:30, I tell Piko deGallo to start cleaning up her stuff, she asks me why, I tell her she needs to get to bed soon. The normal stuff we do/say every night. This guy is amazed. "She goes to bed this early? Damn! I wish my kid would go to bed early" How old is your kid? "He's 4. Last night he was up till about 2am!" Whaaaaa??!? "Yeah, I fell asleep, and woke up at 2, and he was sitting on my bed staring at me and eating a piece of bread." Ooookaaay... "He won't go to sleep, he always stays up till at least 11:00"

I'm seriously confused.

This guy works the opposite schedule as Sarge, which means he gets to work at about 4:45am, and gets off about 5:30pm. When Sarge worked that schedule he was in bed by 8:30 every night, needless to say this guy is not, and according to Sarge, he gets paperwork for being late all the time. Since when does your 4 year old dictate what time they "want" to go to bed? The hell man, they're freaking 4!! I think people like this are crazy when they're surprised that Piko deGallo goes to bed when I tell her, like I have some kind of magical power over my child. Well, actually I do I guess, it's called: I'm the adult and she's the child. I make the rules, she follows them. It's not amazing, it's not magic, it's not mean. I'm not saying that Piko deG always follows my direction, but I make sure she does for the important things that keep her safe and healthy. What the hell this guy is going to do next year when his kid starts kindergarten and has to be up by 6:15am, I have no idea.

#2.
Oooh, a big storm is coming!! We might be trapped in our home for, holy crap!, 24 hours!! Everyone and their mother must rush to the market NOW to stock up on bread, toilet paper, milk and eggs!!!

Obviously my marketing experience yesterday was less than enjoyable.

#3.
Why are you having a baby shower for a 4th child?? Especially when child #3 is going to be all of 1 1/2 when #4 hatches. Though this person gets a semi-pass when I found out that she's having her first girl.

No, I wasn't invited to the shower. I heard about it while having coffee with some of my PTA ladies (a whole other post in itself). I kinda, sorta know this lady, I we coached her oldest son in soccer this past year. I was going to make her a small baby quilt anyway, because she's usually pretty friendly to me. I didn't expect her to actually have a shower.

#4.
Piko deGallo!!! You confuse me the most!

Why do I have to drag you out of bed every day this week, moaning and whining about how tired you are (see #1, this is why I have her go to bed at 7:15, even with 11 hours of sleep it's a struggle to get her up sometimes). WHY??!! WHY?!! then do you get up at 5:30 AM on a snow day?!?!? Dude! We totally could have slept in!! It's not even really snowing, it's more like drizzly cold rain, that might turn into ice! So there's not even snow to get excited about.

And thanks for pointing out that Daddy's clock and my clock don't say the same time. For. Freaking. Fifteen. Minutes!!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The trick to the pre-storm shopping, apparently, is to go at 8:30 at night. M. wanted to go witness the panic for himself and went off to Giant about then, but he reported back that the hordes had subsided by the time he got there. Although they'd apparently taken all the food with them - he said the shelves were pretty bare.

I don't get the "when they want to go to bed" thing, either. MM may wake up in the 5 o'clock hour every freaking day (!!!!!what is up with that?????), but she's in bed the first minute I can justify it - sometime between 7 and 8. I'd do it a little later if it correlated with waking up later, but no. Mommy and Daddy both need their non-toddler time; hell, as son as C's old enough to influence a bit more, he's going to bed on time, too. This isn't a democracy, dammit.

MdG said...

Haha!! M. is funny. People in Hawaii don't believe me about the crazy shoppers. And I have to reming them what they're like when a hurricane is coming. Yeah, exactly the same way!

As for the going to bed thing. I placate Pico with the idea that once she reaches a certain age she is going to be responsible for her own sleep schedule. And she's happy with that for now.

Gifted Typist said...

Never forget that you are running a benign dictatorship, not a democracy. If the little'uns even get a sniff of your democratic inclinations, they'll be all over you with their rights and votes and consensus.

Stay strong mdg.

PS. I always wanted to be from Hawaii

she said: said...

Thats my girl MDG. Sarcastic!

Anyway - I have a girlfriend who is raising a child like that. So I'm starting to understand the psychology. Even though I don't agree with it. The child is slowly killing her inside.. but her choice.

She's slept in the same room as the baby for two full years, and hasn't gotten any sleep in that time. Now that she wants to sleep in her own big people bed thing are a huge mess.

Buuuuuuut.. she doesn't want the baby to feel afraaaaaiiied. The best I could do is remind her about about those mammas boys we dated, and how much they sucked to women.

The trick to the pre-storm shopping, apparently, is to go at 8:30 at night.

She's right as I found out recently. When I needed some benydril at 11:00. The place was blissfully empty. Shopping that late isn't realistic. But it was the best ever.

MdG said...

Mrs. S. My girlfriend Red the Airhostess has a friend just like that. The first time Red ever came to visit us after I had Piko deG she was absolutely amazed that at bed time I would take Piko upstairs, and be back down in less than 20 minutes. Apparently her friend alwas, always stayed with the child until it was asleep, which could take a long, long time. "She just goes to sleeep?!?" she asked me. Uh...yeah.

My whole attitude about child rearing is: Before having your child, decide how you want to live your life. I wanted to live my life *with* my child, not *for* my child. I'm not saying I wouldn't go to the ends of the earth for her, but I still want my own life, and my own time.

I'm really ok with parents who do those kinds of things like letting the child dictate sleeping times, and co-sleeping. Just as long as they don't complain about the choices they made, without first making a serious effort to change. Once they say "Oh, I wish my kid would..." I'm already thinking "Yeah, because it's totally your kid's fault." (rollseyes)

Also, I love late night shopping. I would do it more when Sarge is off, except I don't want to get shot.

GT: I like to give Piko deG a little glimmer of hope. You know, that there is a chance that she will someday escape from under my GIANT IRON FIST OF DISCIPLINE!!!

Tanya Espanya said...

Holy humanity. It's not right for a kid to go to sleep when they want. They don't know what they want. That's not good parenting to not guide and help your kid.

I love that you put Piko to bed at a normal time.

We do co-sleeping and it's the best. No complaints from me at all because I feel I get better sleep when we're all piled in. The babby goes to sleep at about 7, usually in my arms because I'm a baby hog and I don't want to put him down (yeah, I know...I can't help it). Then we join him around 10 or 11. I can sleep in with him sometimes until 8 or so because we don't have much of a schedule so I know how lucky we are.

Also, I've only been to Honolulu, and one day I'd like to explore more of Hawaii. What's that? Of course I'll go with you guys!

Pageant Mom said...

:o)

It sucks for me with my kids, my husband (literally) nearly got killed building our home which is about 45 min away from work! To make matters worse the kids go to private school next to where I work... I can't put Giz to bed by 7:15 because that's when we are just getting home!!! I have begged my husband to move, but he won't due to aforementioned reason.

We never planned Giz (the 1% caveat on the side of the box got us) and it wasn't so bad when we only had Firstborn. So my kids don't get to bed until like, 9:00!!! (if they went any earlier we'd never see them!!)

Fortunately Giz usually takes a nap on the way to school for about 20 min, and on the way home at night for about 20 min. And my mom lets her nap after school for about 30min-1hour. I guess it works out, but its a weird schedule.

We get ice storms here, so I so understand about the milk/bread thing. But I usually buy enough weekly so I don't have to go out any (esp where we live, there are no such things as quick trips to the store!)

The etiquette rules for post 1st baby showers dictate that they should be "diaper showers"... not full fledged baby showers. Maybe for a baby that shows up like 10 years after the first kids I don't have an issue, but when the kids are close, having a regular baby shower to me is pretty rude.

Heck, my kids are 8 years apart and all we got was a diaper shower LOL.

I dunno about the morning thing, my son is in eighth grade and still seems to think getting up for school is just a suggestion...

MdG said...

There you go! Two perfect examples of people doing the exact opposite of my "IRON FIST OF OPRESSION" bedtime method. But it works for them, and nobody is complaining, about how their kids are OMGsoawful because they're running the show.

PMom: Oh crap! I'm always worried about that 1%, because Sarge and I have no plans to have another. He needs to get "the snip" but has been too busy to be able to take the time off. I didn't have a baby shower at all. We had just moved here, and I didn't know anyone. Who would come to my baby shower? The wives of the guys Sarge works with? No way. Sarge bought me a cake, and I was happy, because I ate it all. And granted I was not at this shower, I bet it was more of a "diaper shower". I guess I'm just an anti-shower person all together.