tell me what's odd about where you're staying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My il's house is a lovely, sprawling, turn of the ( 20th) century manor.
The downside is that DH and his parents insist on putting the baby in the other wing, away from us.
I can hear baby on the monitor, but it still keeps me up all night. It makes me nervous that in the event of an emergency, I am doubtful we could get to her in time.

This makes me feel stressed just reading it. No way would I agree to this. I'd get an air mattress for the floor if the baby's room and sleep in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Step MIL lives alone in a mansion and lets her son (not my DH) and his family spread out across 3 rooms (husband and wife in one, baby and toddler each in their own) all with nice beds, even though their kids are in pack and plays that she borrowed next to each bed. Meanwhile my family of three is in a hallway, with my DH and I on a leaking air mattress and our 6 year old in sleeping bag on the bare floor next to it.

Oh, and the floors were just refinished so we had to open all the windows so we don't die of asphyxiation, even though we still might since our heads are just 12 inches from the floor, scratch that, 11 inches, 10, 9... Time to pump up the mattress again. It's going to be a long night.

Why not stay in a hotel?
Why doesn't your BIL share the rooms more fairly?

[Anonymous]

We're renting the same house we had last year for ski season in Colorado. DS 12 was looking for his iphone that his little sister had hidden from him and found a pharmacy bottle of pot and rolling papers that the renters from Thanksgiving must have left behind.

[Anonymous]

Leaving tomorrow for my inlaws for 2 nights. Beautiful 7 bedroom home in a lovely NYC suburb.
Only has twin beds besides the master bedroom. Husband will sleep in one room with our toddler in a blow up bed. I will sleep in another room with my 6 week old in a pack and play. We have to take the PnP and inflatable bed with us - my parents bought a PnP for our visits. Silly me insisting on sleeping near our children when my FIL offered to push a twin bed against a wall and put chairs on the other side like a DIY bedrail - you know so my 2yr old can sleep in an unfamiliar room with unsecured bookshelves and dressers.

There will be no fruits or veggies served unless MIL washes half a small box of berries and puts it out for everyone to share at brakfast. Dinner might include iceberg lettuce with good seasonings Italian dressing made with canola oil and white vinegar - but will also have a main dish made from a nice piece or meat or seafood - so it's preference not budget. Once when we were there for a week and I was getting constipated from a severe lack of fiber I made lentils as a side dish and for days they kept saying "how interesting" they were. Just French lentils with mirepoix and bay leaf!

All TP is single ply and scratchy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Leaving tomorrow for my inlaws for 2 nights. Beautiful 7 bedroom home in a lovely NYC suburb.
Only has twin beds besides the master bedroom. Husband will sleep in one room with our toddler in a blow up bed. I will sleep in another room with my 6 week old in a pack and play. We have to take the PnP and inflatable bed with us - my parents bought a PnP for our visits. Silly me insisting on sleeping near our children when my FIL offered to push a twin bed against a wall and put chairs on the other side like a DIY bedrail - you know so my 2yr old can sleep in an unfamiliar room with unsecured bookshelves and dressers.

There will be no fruits or veggies served unless MIL washes half a small box of berries and puts it out for everyone to share at brakfast. Dinner might include iceberg lettuce with good seasonings Italian dressing made with canola oil and white vinegar - but will also have a main dish made from a nice piece or meat or seafood - so it's preference not budget. Once when we were there for a week and I was getting constipated from a severe lack of fiber I made lentils as a side dish and for days they kept saying "how interesting" they were. Just French lentils with mirepoix and bay leaf!

All TP is single ply and scratchy.

At first I thought that this was satire, and then I decided that I feel really sorry for your in laws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my in-laws can't throw anything away. The whole time we are visiting, I will find things that I put in the trash can back out on the counter top/on the shelves/in cabinets, etc. Things such as a sippy cup that has a faulty spout and leaks everywhere. I've tried to throw that thing away like 5 times--and after the 3rd or so time, I actually told my in-laws that it leaks and we won't use it anymore so that they would let it go but they insist on continuing to rescue it from the trash can anyway. Other examples of things they've taken out of the trash after I threw them away: a rotten banana (which MIL put in freezer to save and make banana bread later), a ziploc bag with the remnants of a smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich in it (I know now that they like to wash and save/re-use all ziploc bags), a glass ornament that was broken into about a million pieces (we found it broken when we opened the box of ornaments to decorate the tree and in the presence of both my in-laws, I asked them if I should throw it away or if they wanted to try and fix it. They said I could throw it away so I guess they changed their mind later or just didn't have the heart to tell me that they couldn't part with it), some aspirin my husband found in their medicine cabinet that expired in 1988, an old toothbrush that my husband threw out after he bought himself a new one (my FIL said he would use the old toothbrush for 'cleaning stuff in the garage').

I have put things like that leaky sippy cup in my suitcase and thrown away once I arrived back home. Just slowly move it into your room and then into your suitcase. They won't remember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why not stay in a hotel?

+1000. To everyone with a story here. Seriously - What's up with obligation to stay at your inlaws???

[Anonymous]

Dinner tonight was an undercooked pork tenderloin (not pink, red. I didn't feed it to myself or my kids).
Box mac and cheese
Mathama rice.
Sweet potatoes with orange juice poured over them and baked.

The husband is the first to be vomiting on the undercooked pork. PTL I didn't eat it

[Anonymous]

MIL has only a small trash can in her kitchen that fits under her kitchen sink. This is so she doesn't have to buy actual trash bags because she's that cheap and it has nothing to do with concern for the environment. She uses plastic grocery bags in the small trash can and spent our whole visit commenting on how often the trash needed to be taken out. It would have filled less than half of a regular sized trash bag if she would have had one. It was also gross watching her empty the small bathroom trash can into an almost full kitchen trash can. She was stuffing it in there with her hands and it was spilling out the sides. She couldn't bear to take out the kitchen trash grocery bag when it was just 7/8 full.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leaving tomorrow for my inlaws for 2 nights. Beautiful 7 bedroom home in a lovely NYC suburb.
Only has twin beds besides the master bedroom. Husband will sleep in one room with our toddler in a blow up bed. I will sleep in another room with my 6 week old in a pack and play. We have to take the PnP and inflatable bed with us - my parents bought a PnP for our visits. Silly me insisting on sleeping near our children when my FIL offered to push a twin bed against a wall and put chairs on the other side like a DIY bedrail - you know so my 2yr old can sleep in an unfamiliar room with unsecured bookshelves and dressers.

There will be no fruits or veggies served unless MIL washes half a small box of berries and puts it out for everyone to share at brakfast. Dinner might include iceberg lettuce with good seasonings Italian dressing made with canola oil and white vinegar - but will also have a main dish made from a nice piece or meat or seafood - so it's preference not budget. Once when we were there for a week and I was getting constipated from a severe lack of fiber I made lentils as a side dish and for days they kept saying "how interesting" they were. Just French lentils with mirepoix and bay leaf!

All TP is single ply and scratchy.

At first I thought that this was satire, and then I decided that I feel really sorry for your in laws. [/quote

Likewise. Ok, not what you're used to, but it sounds fine to me. My parents and inlaws also only have twin beds because they have the same beds we grew up in. It's not a problem. Why should they spend hundreds of dollars on new beds to be used only a few times a year? And we bring pack and plays or blow-up beds for the kids. No reason my parents should have to deal with that; they're our kids, not theirs. As for food, my mom only serves salad, not cooked vegetables. I happen to love cooked vegetables. But when I go to someone else's house I eat what they serve unless it's gross. Salad is fine. If you hate the dressing, bring your own. Also -- prunes. I always travel with prunes since I eat less fiber and drink far less water when I travel.

[Anonymous]

Colace is your travel friend. The lady with the unsecured dressers and the mirepoix is too much.

[Anonymous]

Here's mine:

Parents fight and bicker constantly, like every single conversation. What to serve for dinner, when to go do errands, how to do anything in the house. They fight more around their own children but slightly talk more civilly when extended family or son in laws are present. Usually lots of yelling and swearing involved.

Dad has an electric stovetop that he is always cleaning and doesn't want anyone to actually use. His dinner one night was boiled white pasta but then microwaved bowls of ragu and frozen meatballs. Also the salad is always contains iceberg lettuce, canned black olives, and Wishbone Italian dressing.

House is packed with stuff everywhere: VHS tapes, Consumer Reports from 2003, a basement full of old crap. Mom wants to declutter but Dad will not allow it, just another thing they don't agree on.

One sibling's family is vegan and it is a total pain to cook and plan meals around.

One sibling is divorced and has an acrimonious relationship with ex. Only has her kids 50% of the time. Never know when she will show up or leave and doesn't respond to texts, and is always later than when she says she will be.

Luckily we have lots of hotel points and we sleep at a local hotel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're renting the same house we had last year for ski season in Colorado. DS 12 was looking for his iphone that his little sister had hidden from him and found a pharmacy bottle of pot and rolling papers that the renters from Thanksgiving must have left behind.

Hopefully you confiscated it and made sure it was what you thought it was "for science".

[Anonymous]

This is favorite dcum thread of all time. Really wish I could share mine but I know members of my family read dcum!

[Anonymous]

Stayed with ILs. They are fully functional adults but will all of a sudden tell DH that he will be cooking dinner for everyone with no notice. (They do buy the ingredients at least.)

No one wakes up before 11am except my 5 yo DD and I, and the living area is attached to their bedroom and they leave the door open. Awkward to hang out in full view of sleeping people. I have taken to leaving the house soon after my kid and I wake up.

We have to clean off surface areas if we want to eat anywhere except on the couch in front of the TV. There's just crap piled up everywhere. But they're nice people.