Makeup & Beauty Monday: 8-Free, Vegan, Cruelty-Free Nail Polish

I am seriously considering a social media break. I am embarrassed to admit this, but I think it’s contributing to some of my negative feelings about parenting. From articles telling me how to parent, to friends who seem to be having a better time than we are. There are a couple of friends in particular who have close-to-perfect kids. Well behaved, super smart, good at everything they try. They live two houses down and our families spend a lot of time together, so I feel confident in saying they really are wonderful kids. Her photos of her kids’ latest triumphs (athletics! speech team! honor roll!) are frankly making me feel like crap. It’s not her fault, but I am not in a great place with parenting at the moment. Our challenges with one of our kids are very overwhelming, and professionals are involved. He has not found his place in his peer group. He’s frankly hard to be around sometimes, and it affects our whole family. The same goes with my sisters, who post pictures of their beautiful babies, toddlers, and preschoolers doing adorable things, and I find myself wishing things were that simple. Not easy, but straightforward. Anyway, the comparisons have become too much, or maybe I’m just too sensitive right now. Has anyone else had to step back for these reasons? I don’t think this is specific to social media, exactly, but it’s certainly not helping.

Honestly, this is why I mute people. I still find value in social media in keeping up with loose connections (e.g., friends in other countries). But I make a concerted effort to mute people who make me feel bad about myself (even if I like them in real life!)

Two-city lifestyle update: the second semester is done and we’ve survived! I’ll probably only be away for 6-7 days each month for the next 5 months, so it’ll be nice to focus on home routines a bit. I think I’ve become a bit of a Disney Dad, swooping in for fun stuff, so I’m looking forward to doing the school run, and cooking normal meals again.
A few lessons learned:
We have calls on kiddo’s terms. He can call me on the Show when he wants me but we don’t force a nightly call.
No running commentary on what happens when I’m away. My husband’s running the show.
Jury is out on visitors when I’m home or away. My preference would be when I’m away (avoiding the in-laws + I feel a bit sad and distant when grandparents are there and kiddo ignores me) but T finds it a bit sad when I leave and then they leave?

How do you handle it when your kid’s friends’ parents show no interest in getting the kids together outside of school? My daughter is 4 and over the last couple of months has developed her first real friendship with a girl in her class. Based on what I’ve observed, it seems like a very mutual friendship and we get tons of photos and updates of them playing together. My daughter really wants this girl to come to our house so I texted the mom about having a playdate and she ignored me. I know I have the right phone number for her. My kid keeps asking about when this friend will come over and I don’t know what to say. My daughter also really wants this girl at her birthday party in a few months and I don’t know what to do about that either. I feel really weird reaching out to the mom again when she didn’t even reply to my previous message, but my daughter is old enough now that I can’t just say “Hey let’s invite Billy over instead!” because Billy isn’t a substitute for Jane.

I know this is late in the day but I’m hoping for some career advice: Last year, my boss submitted me for a promotion to reflect that I have taken on new and more substantial responsibilities. My boss isn’t great with crafting these type of submissions. Our organization needs metrics and quantifiable data, which is not a language that my boss speaks. Personally, I did not feel as though the timing was right on the promotion. I thought it would be better to submit it this year, but I was not consulted. I have taken on a huge amount of responsibilities and deliverables for our organization, especially over the last 6 months. I have learned that I did not receive the promotion, and that the reason is that the department is facing budgetary pressures (my promotion would come with a sizeable raise and we are top heavy with VPs). A couple of questions: Is the “budgetary pressures” thing actually a reason that they will not promote someone who is otherwise qualified and deserving? Should I take this as a sign to look for a new job? Any other advice?

My middle child, a kindergarten girl, seems to have very little interest in making friends. She’s friendly and outgoing, and will play with other kids but doesn’t have the same friendships that my older daughter or my younger daughter has. I would attribute this to the pandemic isolation, but it seems like other kids are emerging from isolation and forming friendships. We have playdates over, she goes to other kids’ houses, but a lot of the time she just wants to play by herself. Eventually, the friend/playdate stops having fun with her because, well, they don’t get played with! A family we are friends with has a daughter the same age and our girls went to preschool together. We recently dropped our kiddo off and when we picked her up, it turns out she spent the playdate playing with the family dog, not her friend (who felt frustrated because she thought she was having a playdate!).

DH and I are trying to figure out how much of this is her personality vs needing more practice socializing. We don’t want to force her to make friends with people and she doesn’t seem unhappy, so do we just let things play out? Do we get more involved in playdates, like I would with a 3 year old (all of us play together, then me slowly step out and only be there to referee things?). FWIW, she does play differently (ie “normally” or “more engaged in cooperative play”) when it’s with her siblings. She also does play more “normally” when my older daughter has friends over and they invite her to play with them (eg let’s go build a fort in the woods. You be the monster and we’ll set traps for you! or “let’s make a racetrack in the driveway and race all the scooters”).