Makeup & Beauty Monday: Ceramide Lip Blur Balm

a very smart mom wrote below in response to the Halloween costumes post, “”The phrases that she’ll “probably make my life miserable” and “can bend my will so easily” really jumped out to me. I get those emotions because I have them too, but they are thoughts I have to actively try to combat in my own brain. If I don’t, they cause me to lose track of who is in charge and sow resentment and a sense of impotence in me.”

I need tips for how to be better about this. I do not necessarily let my kids bend my will so easily, but definitely feel like I “let” them make my life/the household miserable with their whining, screaming, explosive reactions. I have one kid in particular who is EXPLOSIVE and it really really really gets to me. Tips for how to “actively combat” these thoughts?

I need to exorcise some mom guilt: there are some things that my mom did, despite working fulltime and having four kids, that I cannot despite having only two kids and being furloughed currently. Among them: making homemade Halloween costumes. My mom always made our costumes or encouraged us to recycle or craft our own. I have the skills to make my kids’ costumes, but I just don’t want to. I am frequently burdened by guilt at my families’ consumption of junk, but somehow my 5YO’s joy of having a correctly branded Paw Patrol costume instead of a re-used teddy bear costume with a vest and police hat seems greater than my mom and environmental guilt. Hereditary mom guilt is a thing.

Update from last week- I had posted about a gifted kid with adhd and how to ask for help in math.

We had our meeting this morning, and it went so well. The teacher shared some other work examples and we talked through where we have seen struggles in the past. We do have some ideas for what to help her with at home but we also have more data points from the in-school assessments that don’t come home and she’s doing very well. She’s participating in class, paying attention- all things that were problematic last year.

The teacher also shared her non-math progress which is really strong. I’m so glad we reached out because the work coming home was not at all representative of her overall performance and our take-away is that she’s doing great so far this year both in terms of attitude and performance (landslides better than last year).

What’s your family approach to screen time if you usually (deliberately) don’t allow screen usage in a given setting and someone else in your party who invited you to the setting (eg, restaurant) who is not in your immediate family pressures you to allow it to ensure your kid is silent? Something about that sits wrong with me- if you invited us knowing my kid is a kid, then some level of kid behavior should be expected. Obviously we go outside if there’s a bad situation, but 98% of the time, there isn’t, and my kid is still a person with whom we interact at dinner. Sighing and “can you just give him the iPad” for talking feels rude to me. Thoughts on this?

This is a narrow question for our Massachusetts sports moms (or I guess any mom who wants to weigh in on how sports are structured in their area!) My husband, who was raised outside Boston, and I were discussing sports leagues, and I remember from comments here that it seems MA programs are structured differently than I’m used to (born in CT, now living in a different part of CT).

Here, rec leagues (or equivalent level) are run by the town (or a group within the town) and the teams play each other in-town. There’s no travel and all the kids are from our town. Then there are travel sports, which generally have tryouts and form 1-2 teams per age group and play the surrounding towns. There are also club options, but those are generally much pricier than either of the other two options, and they involve travel and the teams are often more regional than town-based…more of a “premier” structure.

In my husband’s experience, in his rec leagues they played the surrounding towns. It was like travel, but there were no tryouts. And based on relatives who still live up there, it seems the club and/or regional team aspect is much bigger (and, to me, more nebulous).

So, I’m trying to figure it out! My husband’s parents couldn’t care less about sports so I’m positive he did the most basic rec levels, but he insists they played teams from other towns.

I bought DD10 her Halloween costume a few weeks ago; my mom was visiting and she loves to shop with my kids. It didn’t come with tags, but was attached to a cardboard hanger with the barcode, which I threw away last week after confirming DD wanted to keep it. Now DD wants another costume. I can’t return the old one, so I’m out $50. Do I offer to go halves on a new costume? Or just say you get what you get? She will probably make my life miserable by sulking, threatening to not go trick or treating, etc. I feel partly responsible I threw away the piece needed to return it and was wary of buying a costume that early but also frustrated that DD can bend my will so easily.