having a baby

Yes, and what about the poor kids?

Well quite - I was addressed once as Francesca's grandmother. We were in a bakers in Germany after we'd gone back to the UK so she must have been about 8 or 9. "Did Oma want a cake too?". Just because I'd let my hair go "au naturelle". I really don't think I looked well over 50 - no wrinkles then!

I am so glad I live where I live  - nothing over 20c does me and

when it was up to 29c three weeks ago, I hid in the coolest room. 

True Northerner moi.

My daughter in law asked why we were not moving to Sheffield to live so we could look after baby while she went back to work, cannot write what my hubby said

I'm with him all the way! I have looked after my grandchildren - once got a phone call at 8.30pm, one was ill so couldn't go to school and Nat had a shift the next day. I went straight to bed and got up at 5am since it was a 4 hour drive to Edinburgh - I'd have gone straight away but had had a glass of wine!. I sat nearly an hour on the Edinburgh bypass - but I made it with enough time for a cup of tea with her before she left. 

Nat has only ever asked me to do it when all else failed - her MIL didn't know I did any and once asked why. I did a week at a time when needed - after driving 120 miles (or more in Dundee). She said she'd never expect me to do it on a regular basis, it wasn't fair. I saw so many elderly ladies in Durham traipsing to the doctor for themself with a couple of toddlers in tow. Most seemed to do it for no charge - and looked 20 years older than they were. No - not fair.

I feel guilty already but John said not too, as you need to look after yorself or else you will not be there to see them at all, and we are older thanher parents, they live in Glasgow so will not be able to look after them if needed, so we will be on call.

I dont know how you did it Eileen where you ill as well at the time.

Not "we will look after you in your old age then"?  

I must have done some with untreated PMR because I've had it over 10 years now and the kids are 13 and 15. It wasn't too difficult since PMR, they didn't need hauled about and I always had a car - that makes a mega difference. But I worked too - freelance which has advantages but also if work appears you take it or run the risk of the client never coming back. Once they were older part of looking after them was to take them to their before or after school club because mum had a shift that meant she wouldn't be home at the right time. Contrary to what the current gubmint appears to think nurses shifts start very early, finish late and there's no guarantee they finish on time!

John is absolutely right - no feeling guilty and personally I think it was both rude and insensitive of her to assume you would be able do it on a regular basis. If she chooses to have a baby and still work then that is something they must sort out for themselves - we did it in our day and they get a lot more help from the state now for childcare. Many young women also have very high expectations of what their childcare person is to do - running babies/toddlers to Tumbletots and other groups together with strict routines and it can often be very hard work. I always baby-sat on my terms - which Nat had no problem with - but even just the noise and constant questions was very tiring! In fact - a single visit by them to our house was hard work! Looking after them without the parents present is even worse!

As Constance says not  "we will look after you in your old age then"...

I remeber i had to stop woek when Matt was born as you could not go back to work if you had nobody to care for your child, my mum and dad workes as school caretakers and had to be there if needed.

I still dont know how you managed Eileen your daughter was very lucky. 

tAKE CARE mAGS.

thats what i like about this forum, 

ONLY 5 at a time... 

i need a rest justing thing about looking after 1 never mind 5, you are my hereo.lol

By the end of the day, I am cross-eyed, even though my husband does it with me.

One of my granddaughters, who is 8, calls him 'The Entertainer.' I would call myself 'The Enabler.' In other words, I fix food, feed them, provide drinks, give baths, play games, puzzles and enable him to tell jokes and silly stories, which they adore! He is the best!

 

This seems to be the real grandad thing.  The grandad sits down and 'entertains' them and the grandma does all the work!  Don't we just love them?

Unfortunately in that respect my other half was little better as a grandfather than he was as a father! When the girls were small he worked in an Institute that worked all the hours god gave, plus a few more! He was rarely home before they went to bed, I forced the issue by leaving him to deal with breakfast  so he saw them then. They did play hard at the Institute but they did sell their souls to science. He also did his Habilitation in Germany, it's the equivalent of a D.Sc in the UK I suppose, but it took a lot of time. Then we went back to the UK for him to run a hospital department - and his research came too. He came home to sit in front of the computer and that went on until he took early retirement - because he couldn't do his research any more so all the fun was gone.

In all his parent/grandparent years my dear husband has changed half a nappy - together with his mother and they managed to get it totally wrong, back to front! I had girls, thank goodness! That was the only nappy my MIL ever dealt with for her grandchildren as far as I know. She couldn't cope with them - they weren't nice tidy little ladies who wanted to sit and listen to a story being read, they wanted to read it themselves! Or climb trees...

I sometimes wish I'd married a more "normal" dad/grandad - I wonder what it would have been like 

 

You may have got annoyed with him being around all day!😏😏 Think of all the'me' time you have had?  No, don't throw that vase at me!!

On a more serious note.  A local doctor in our village committed suicide six months after she retired.  She left a note saying she couldn't stand being watched, followed, hubby just 'being there'  all the time.  Personally I would have found a more convenient way to deal with it he situation.😈😈

with the situation!

That sounds like someone who had lost her identity by stopping her job. It isn't that hard to create a new one - but you do have to work at it! Silly woman - what a waste for the sake of a bit of imagination.

I did find it a bit difficult when we moved here - for the first time we just had one car so if he was in Innsbruck I was a bit stuck. And he seemed to always want to know where I was going when we were at home. The winter was OK - I went skiing for the first few years but summer is less so. PMR means no cycling. And I have had 2 TGAs (transient global amnesias) so that does sort of play an elephant in the room role. When he was working I worked from home - so what I did all day was my business in every sense. Now I was being watched, albeit it from another room.

The absolutely worst thing was when he started to question why I did things the way I did - washing, cooking, ironing, whatever - and suggesting "improvements". Since he has done none of those things for the last 40 years I thought it was a bit of a cheek - and whilst I'm sure there might be better/other ways of doing them I do them the way that suits me and PMR and I've worked out over those 40 years! He doesn't even know where things are in the cupboard that have been in the same place since we bought the flat!

Sounds like my brother-in-law.  When I visited 'I' felt like murdering him.  How my sister put up with it I don't know!  She was, needless to say, much quieter than me.

We're both Leos - and someone once said to me she'd often wondered what sort of woman could put up with the cartoon academic scientist.

I've come close to murder too - and after 41 years I'd have spent less time in jail! The girls just laugh...

My husband became 'househusband' when our son was 1 year old, as I had the steady job with health insurance. We also had 3 older daughters, the youngest 10 years older than our son. This meant he and  I 'shared' household chores, meaning, when I got home from work, I walked through the front door and straight into the kitchen to cook. He had been home with a small child and could not multi-task. This also meant that when I put something away in the kitchen he would move it. (apropos 'improvements.) Even today, 32 years later, when I put the pot lids on the wall one way, he changes them to his way. Of course, when he is not looking, I turn them the way I like them...and so forth. He also forgets my height vis a vis his (we have been married some 35 years!! I am 5'3" and cannot reach the top shelves in the kitchen, where he has moved some of the things I use more often than he does. However, now, when I cook, he does the dishes and vice versa. When he goes shopping, he asks me for a list and promptly forgets it and then calls me at work to ask what he should buy. It is pretty funny and never a dull moment!

Sounds about right - I have stood at the end of a phone describing how to use the washing machine ... 

When we first got married we shared the washing up - I had cooked, one washed, one dried. We moved to Germany and I realised after a while he'd stopped doing ANYTHING. Fair enough, he went out to work, I just looked after our nearly 2 year old. But I detest housework. I challenged this - none of his colleagues did the dishes I was told. I pointed out that had something to do with them having dishwashers. When we moved from the first appartment (which had a fitted kitchen) out into the country to a place that didn't and we had to fit our own. First thing to be bought, my birthday present, was a dishwasher   Never been without one since...

They`re all the same...completely different when they retire and are bored....mine does all the things that yours does, but funnily enough it`s a pathetic thing he does that really winds me up, and I almost wait for it....when I`m cooking....he has to come and stir the gravy!!....like I have`nt done it enough.....no, the doctor (very sad) should have sorted him out....I`d have found a nice sedative to slow him down

I avoid that by never making gravy...

My pet hate is him putting things to "soak" - it still needs washing, do it now and keep the sink clear. And leaving pans to drain rather than drying them when still warm - so they're all greasy. He soon complains when I leave something in the sink!

Aren't they lovely ... 

Hi Eileen,

Dishwasher? Oh yes. I put things in and then he comes in after me and reorganizes it.

I have let him know that he is an endangered species.

No - that's my role! Did you see the study by a midlands university about the way to load the dishwasher for optimum cleaning? He's a physicist so you would imagine he'd understand about water flow and stuff - nah!

You'd also think that since he empties it most mornings he would have learnt where the plates fit best wouldn't you? Apparently not...

I daren't go near our dishwasher - D is never satisfied even if I put only a couple of plates in.  

she could have tied him up, wow thats some extreme tho, surley she must have not been well to do that,