Tales from the beach house

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Wait. Someone denying "me" coffee would mean war.

I know, right? I totally sympathize with the nauseous pregnant lady. But dang I need my coffee. Take the pot outside and brew it on the balcony. Then bring it back inside and enjoy.

No way. Pregnant lady can go outside.

Oh, come on. You don't make a woman with morning sickness drag herself out of bed and away from the toilet, out onto the balcony while you brew your coffee inside like a big old jerk. Just take the pot outside, sit on the balcony enjoying the sunrise while your coffee brews next to you. You won't even have to get up to pour yourself a cup. Just sit there enjoying that salty sea air with the smell of fresh coffee wafting in the wind - absolute heaven.

So we should run an extension cord to the balcony to brew coffee and the rest of the house of 10+ adults should sit outside while the one person bothered by it sits inside? You're kidding right?

Use the outdoor outlet. Or run an extension cord. Brew the pot outside. People can come out and get a cup and go back inside. It is the brewing that is making the pregnant woman sick. So a small effort on your part to avoid that would be nice.

You are nuts. I am currently pregnant and spent the first 20 weeks throwing up at the smell of coffee. Totally unreasonable to make people brew coffee outside. I could leave the room for a few minutes while people make coffee. Move the entire coffee maker outside for one person? Not a chance. If she is that sensitive to smells she can take medicine like I did.

O.k. but if your sense of smell is heightened during pregnancy and can smell the coffee brewing in your bedroom with the door closed...and the smell is making you vomit, then what?

Then I would throw up. I threw up all the time anyway. Lots of smells made me sick, and I could get sick without offending smells at all. I took prescription medicine to help combat the vomiting. But I would not have insisted that people take coffee elsewhere. At the beach house this summer, I threw up several times when my FIL was making egg salad, for some reason the smell of hard boiled eggs was horrible. But that was my problem, he should be allowed to make food in the kitchen.

Well, you appear to have been sensitive to a variety of different smells. But in this case we are talking about a person in a shared vacation rental getting sick from the aroma of brewing coffee every morning. If she was also complaining about the smell of popped popcorn, sunscreen, scrambled eggs, hairspray etc then I can see how everyone in the house could not possibly be expected to accommodate her by not cooking those foods/using those products.

But, if it's just the smell of brewing coffee that is making her miserable in the morning and there really is no place in the house where she can go to escape it, I would tend to try to find a way to brew my coffee so that she wouldn't be bothered by it. That's me and that's how I handle things I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Beach vacation with my husband, kids and ILs (FIL/MIL, older aunt/cousin, SIL and her wife and kid). All is going well, and we are having fun. But I thought I'd send some dispatches:

1) SIL's wife is pregnant and is making much of it. She sleeps all day/stays in her room, doesn't watch her 1.5 year old AT ALL, and has her wife running all over at her beck and call: bringing her food, doing her laundry, making special requests like "no coffee this morning, please, my wife is feeling nauseous." We are all rolling with it, but come ON. You are pregnant, it's really not that big a deal.


2) FIL's kitchen habits are kind of funny but kind of gross: microwaving coffee in the late afternoon that had been sitting cold still on the burner all day; standing in the kitchen eating rather than ever sitting down.

3) MIL pretending never to eat indulgent food or drink alcohol, but indulging at every opportunity. It's OK! You can eat and drink, we won't judge!

4) The aunt is a crazy cat lady: any time any of the kids do or say something cute, she launches into a story about her 7 cats. She FaceTimes with her cats via the pet-sitter twice daily.

1) wait, they're saying she doesn't want coffee, or that no one in the house should brew coffee?

2) that's really not that bad at all. at least he's not wasting or hogging the best sofa in the house like other people i've gone on vacation with.

OP here. Yeah, they're saying no one should brew coffee because SIL's wife (who is sleeping in on the lower third level and the kitchen is on the top floor) might smell it.

Oh hell no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait. Someone denying "me" coffee would mean war.

I know, right? I totally sympathize with the nauseous pregnant lady. But dang I need my coffee. Take the pot outside and brew it on the balcony. Then bring it back inside and enjoy.

No way. Pregnant lady can go outside.

Oh, come on. You don't make a woman with morning sickness drag herself out of bed and away from the toilet, out onto the balcony while you brew your coffee inside like a big old jerk. Just take the pot outside, sit on the balcony enjoying the sunrise while your coffee brews next to you. You won't even have to get up to pour yourself a cup. Just sit there enjoying that salty sea air with the smell of fresh coffee wafting in the wind - absolute heaven.

So we should run an extension cord to the balcony to brew coffee and the rest of the house of 10+ adults should sit outside while the one person bothered by it sits inside? You're kidding right?

Use the outdoor outlet. Or run an extension cord. Brew the pot outside. People can come out and get a cup and go back inside. It is the brewing that is making the pregnant woman sick. So a small effort on your part to avoid that would be nice.

You are nuts. I am currently pregnant and spent the first 20 weeks throwing up at the smell of coffee. Totally unreasonable to make people brew coffee outside. I could leave the room for a few minutes while people make coffee. Move the entire coffee maker outside for one person? Not a chance. If she is that sensitive to smells she can take medicine like I did.

O.k. but if your sense of smell is heightened during pregnancy and can smell the coffee brewing in your bedroom with the door closed...and the smell is making you vomit, then what?

Then I would throw up. I threw up all the time anyway. Lots of smells made me sick, and I could get sick without offending smells at all. I took prescription medicine to help combat the vomiting. But I would not have insisted that people take coffee elsewhere. At the beach house this summer, I threw up several times when my FIL was making egg salad, for some reason the smell of hard boiled eggs was horrible. But that was my problem, he should be allowed to make food in the kitchen.

Well, you appear to have been sensitive to a variety of different smells. But in this case we are talking about a person in a shared vacation rental getting sick from the aroma of brewing coffee every morning. If she was also complaining about the smell of popped popcorn, sunscreen, scrambled eggs, hairspray etc then I can see how everyone in the house could not possibly be expected to accommodate her by not cooking those foods/using those products.

But, if it's just the smell of brewing coffee that is making her miserable in the morning and there really is no place in the house where she can go to escape it, I would tend to try to find a way to brew my coffee so that she wouldn't be bothered by it. That's me and that's how I handle things I guess.

Here's a place for her to escape normal house smells: the beach!!!

[Anonymous]

^^and the operative word is "shared vacation rental". She had to have known she is particularly sensitive to normal smells and either not go or go outside.

[Anonymous]

If people are visiting a pregnant/postpartum woman's home, even if they are there "to help," she has a reasonable expectation of no coffee smells/no other smells that would make her sicck in her *own home.*

But if it's a shared vacation house or visiting somewhere else, nope. You can avoid that situation by NOT GOING. Asking people not to brew coffee in a vacation house where your room is on the lower floor and the kitchen is on the third floor, as the OP describes above, is ridiculous. If the smell bothers you even from that distance, go for a walk. If you can't go for a walk, you are in no condition to travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am allergic to the smell of fresh coffee...just a delightful allergy to have. You think avoiding nuts is hard!

If it makes grandparents uncomfortable, put a shirt on. Your kids will survive wearing a shirt.

My family weekend at the beachhouse led to me seething with rage at my SIL and sending her texts that should never have been sent...but they were true!

I've never heard/read about anyone having a 'histamine' reaction to the sell of coffee. Are you sure you just aren't 'intolerant' of the smell? Do you have reactions to other smells?

I had a strong aversion to the smell of brewing hazelnut coffee when I was pregnant with one of my kids. And I normally loved hazelnut coffee. But when I got pregnant - ugh, could not handle the smell of it, made me so sick.

Interestingly enough, my son turned out to have a peanut allergy - tested and confirmed at the allergist when he was around 3 years old. We were lucky, he did later outgrow it. But maybe that aversion to the smell of hazelnut coffee was my body's way of protecting my baby.

Doubtful. You decrease the risk of peanut allergy by exposing babies to peanuts early.

Nobody is born with an allergy. Even for cow's milk protein allergy, which happens very early in infancy, it's a matter of a switch getting triggered in an individual with a propensity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If people are visiting a pregnant/postpartum woman's home, even if they are there "to help," she has a reasonable expectation of no coffee smells/no other smells that would make her sicck in her *own home.*

But if it's a shared vacation house or visiting somewhere else, nope. You can avoid that situation by NOT GOING. Asking people not to brew coffee in a vacation house where your room is on the lower floor and the kitchen is on the third floor, as the OP describes above, is ridiculous. If the smell bothers you even from that distance, go for a walk. If you can't go for a walk, you are in no condition to travel.

Exactly. If she could smell it floors away even if she and others opened windows, then she would have been able to smell it brewed from the balcony,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pretending-not-to-eat MIL...I have one of those, too. Is it a generational thing or an old people thing?

NP with a similar MIL. I think it's a disordered eating thing. Noticing/monitoring/observing and commenting on whether people are heavy or thin, what people are eating and how much, constantly announcing what she herself is eating or not eating/drinking. It's CONSTANT.

My MIL does has major body image issues mid 50s 5'5" ways maybe 105 tops and is always on a diet. Swirls her for around on plate to make it look like she ate. Says she does the diets to support FIL in his weight loss. He is normal weight and could care less about dieting. She is just f'ing crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pretending-not-to-eat MIL...I have one of those, too. Is it a generational thing or an old people thing?

NP with a similar MIL. I think it's a disordered eating thing. Noticing/monitoring/observing and commenting on whether people are heavy or thin, what people are eating and how much, constantly announcing what she herself is eating or not eating/drinking. It's CONSTANT.

Oh my God, my MIL is exactly like this! But she can't stop smoking, what she always does far from everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grandparents (DH's parents) told us our kids wandering around in their undies or just shorts inside their house made them uncomfortable. Now we are scrambling to keep them dressed without making them feel weird about their bodies but I can't explain why they want them in clothes because even when they explained it I didn't understand. I just agreed to keep the peace. We've just started saying "grandma wants it this way".

They are 8, 7 and 4 and my grandmother actually said 'she isn't wearing a shirt and she is a young woman!' about the 7 yr old. I corrected her and said 'no, she is a little girl' but I don't want you uncomfortable so that's fine. They are all very skinny- as are his parents- no boobs in sight.

To be clear, it's just us and the grandparents. No visitors/other family. No huge windows where people can see in. My DH is perplexed and we are trying to think where/why this came from. They've never said a thing in our house in DC when they were shirtless. I'm starting to wonder if someone touched grandma as a child

Uh, yeah, they should be clothed at that age, PP.

OP here, and I agree with the PP who agrees that the kids at that age should be clothed. YOU are actually the weird one, no-clothes mom. People are writing about their ILs meaning YOU in this scenario. Why would they not be wearing clothes-clothes, bathing suits and cover ups, or pajamas at least?

Hey Prudence Goodhome--you are aware it's 2017 correct, and one assumes you are not a Quaker. Let the kids live a little. PP didn't say they were naked FFS she said they didn't have shirts on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Beach vacation with my husband, kids and ILs (FIL/MIL, older aunt/cousin, SIL and her wife and kid). All is going well, and we are having fun. But I thought I'd send some dispatches:

1) SIL's wife is pregnant and is making much of it. She sleeps all day/stays in her room, doesn't watch her 1.5 year old AT ALL, and has her wife running all over at her beck and call: bringing her food, doing her laundry, making special requests like "no coffee this morning, please, my wife is feeling nauseous." We are all rolling with it, but come ON. You are pregnant, it's really not that big a deal.


2) FIL's kitchen habits are kind of funny but kind of gross: microwaving coffee in the late afternoon that had been sitting cold still on the burner all day; standing in the kitchen eating rather than ever sitting down.

3) MIL pretending never to eat indulgent food or drink alcohol, but indulging at every opportunity. It's OK! You can eat and drink, we won't judge!

4) The aunt is a crazy cat lady: any time any of the kids do or say something cute, she launches into a story about her 7 cats. She FaceTimes with her cats via the pet-sitter twice daily.

1) wait, they're saying she doesn't want coffee, or that no one in the house should brew coffee?

2) that's really not that bad at all. at least he's not wasting or hogging the best sofa in the house like other people i've gone on vacation with.

OP here. Yeah, they're saying no one should brew coffee because SIL's wife (who is sleeping in on the lower third level and the kitchen is on the top floor) might smell it.

Wait, I can't have my morning coffee because some woman forgot to take her birth control?!?! A treat for me!

That's a non-starter - I don't think I'd even dignify it with a response, and go about brewing my morning fix.

You're being glib but she didn't "forget to take her birth control" since she's a lesbian.

You're being glib. No one said she's a lesbian. She might be transgender, or bisexual. Just because she's married to a woman--and a drama queen--doesn't mean she's a lesbian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Beach vacation with my husband, kids and ILs (FIL/MIL, older aunt/cousin, SIL and her wife and kid). All is going well, and we are having fun. But I thought I'd send some dispatches:

1) SIL's wife is pregnant and is making much of it. She sleeps all day/stays in her room, doesn't watch her 1.5 year old AT ALL, and has her wife running all over at her beck and call: bringing her food, doing her laundry, making special requests like "no coffee this morning, please, my wife is feeling nauseous." We are all rolling with it, but come ON. You are pregnant, it's really not that big a deal.


2) FIL's kitchen habits are kind of funny but kind of gross: microwaving coffee in the late afternoon that had been sitting cold still on the burner all day; standing in the kitchen eating rather than ever sitting down.

3) MIL pretending never to eat indulgent food or drink alcohol, but indulging at every opportunity. It's OK! You can eat and drink, we won't judge!

4) The aunt is a crazy cat lady: any time any of the kids do or say something cute, she launches into a story about her 7 cats. She FaceTimes with her cats via the pet-sitter twice daily.

1) wait, they're saying she doesn't want coffee, or that no one in the house should brew coffee?

2) that's really not that bad at all. at least he's not wasting or hogging the best sofa in the house like other people i've gone on vacation with.

OP here. Yeah, they're saying no one should brew coffee because SIL's wife (who is sleeping in on the lower third level and the kitchen is on the top floor) might smell it.

Wait, I can't have my morning coffee because some woman forgot to take her birth control?!?! A treat for me!

That's a non-starter - I don't think I'd even dignify it with a response, and go about brewing my morning fix.

You're being glib but she didn't "forget to take her birth control" since she's a lesbian.

You're being glib. No one said she's a lesbian. She might be transgender, or bisexual. Just because she's married to a woman--and a drama queen--doesn't mean she's a lesbian.

OP here. For the record, she is bisexual.

[Anonymous]

Holy cow! I am so lucky to be born into such a kind family. I am an extremely laid-back, generous and helpful person. I experienced terrible nausea and vomiting whilst pregnant and had to have a pump installed to stay hydrated and carry on with life. I am sure that my friends and family would have been more than accommodating in brewing coffee or cooking pork outside, for the sake of me feeling less Nauseas. You guys are the worst!! Really- where is the empathy?! This woman is growing another person while at the beach with her in-laws... give her a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Beach house with friends. Every single person in that family SLAMS each and every door they ever close. All day and all night. WTF?! Do they have secret superhuman strength and can't control it on vacation?

This is lol funny! I completely agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grandparents (DH's parents) told us our kids wandering around in their undies or just shorts inside their house made them uncomfortable. Now we are scrambling to keep them dressed without making them feel weird about their bodies but I can't explain why they want them in clothes because even when they explained it I didn't understand. I just agreed to keep the peace. We've just started saying "grandma wants it this way".

They are 8, 7 and 4 and my grandmother actually said 'she isn't wearing a shirt and she is a young woman!' about the 7 yr old. I corrected her and said 'no, she is a little girl' but I don't want you uncomfortable so that's fine. They are all very skinny- as are his parents- no boobs in sight.

To be clear, it's just us and the grandparents. No visitors/other family. No huge windows where people can see in. My DH is perplexed and we are trying to think where/why this came from. They've never said a thing in our house in DC when they were shirtless. I'm starting to wonder if someone touched grandma as a child

You are weird and so are your kids. My kids (boys) never walked around topless unless they were swimming or on the beach.