Enough Already

Okay, folks, I've about had it up to here with a random assortment of stuff.

Smokers.  In my own family.  Every holiday, those of us who don't smoke are wordlessly and endlessly put on kid-duty while you all go outside every 15 - 30 minutes to destroy your lungs.  Ya know what?  Not any more.  We're passing on all major family gatherings until you either stop with the smoking or at least SAY something before every last one of you leaves us with a room full of children.  Happy-freaking-Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas to us.  (My mother, husband, and I are the only ones who don't smoke and Mom is always in the kitchen.  So we're stuck with as many as 10 kids at one time while everyone else stands outside, talks, laughs, and breathes in carbon monoxide, ammonia, and butane.  This has been going on for 16 years.)

The Eye Roll When I Say No to Something.  Okay, it's not always an eye roll.  Sometimes it's a knowing, "Uh huh" or sigh.  But I am going to say NO to things, people.  I am.  I'm going to say no to selling Cub Scout popcorn.  Again.  Because it's expensive and I'm not hitting up my neighbors to buy something they could just as easily buy in the grocery store.  Come up with a better fund raiser and I'll consider it.

I'm going to say no to family events.  (We've covered that already.)

I'm going to say no to my kids when they ask if I can drive them an hour to a haunted mill and give them $50 for admission and food just so I can sit in the parking lot for 2 hours and wonder if some creep is behaving inappropriately around my teenage daughter.

I'm going to say no to lunch duty when no one demands the kids treat adult volunteers with respect.  I tried for several years, but after listening to kids say "Get me a fork!" or "Open this." well.. let's just say I've heard kids tell other kids, "She'll just stand there and stare at you if you don't ask her nicely.  She is SO mean."

No, when said politely and firmly, is an acceptable answer.  So y'all can just get over yourselves.

Conspicuous Parenting.  Remember learning about types of marketing and persuasion when you were in high school?  Glittering generalities, bait and switch, and conspicuous spending?  Well, those principles apply to parenting, too, and I've so had it.  When I take my son to the community center for swimming lessons, it's so thick with these "I'm going to outdo you" types I want to thwap them upside their non-processed, free range, organic heads.  Every week, I hear in a VERY LOUD VOICE "Little Suzie Sunshine, I just picked you up from daycare and now we're going to share this really wonderful and expensive dinner I purchased in the Whole Foods grocery store 40 miles from here.  I know we don't have fancy grocery stores here, so I made a special trip during lunch time to buy you this beautiful Bento box.  Eat it quickly before you go to dance and then yoga and then swimming!"  Oh for the love of Pete, please take your guilt and your excess to a therapist.  No one needs to hear it.  Or, at least please talk to your child in an indoor voice.

Also?  Take your kid home for a few hours.  An over scheduled kid is not a good thing.

Expensive Coffee Places.  It's bad enough I've spent the last 14 months loving coffee (note:  the baby is 14 months old today), but I only like the expensive kind.  The gas station coffee bars just don't do it.  Evil expensive coffee.  Evil expensive, really good coffee.  Evil expensive, really good, addictive coffee.

Sometimes it all just feels like a constant bombardment of frustration and disappointment... which is why I'm enjoying Happier.com.  It's less pretentious that Facebook and lets me people watch in a positive way.