Category Archives: marriage

Posted inmarriage

Anger has its price

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Angry guyI’ve been nagging my husband about his temper since we had kids. Come to think of it, he really didn’t lose his temper until we had kids. Hmm. He yells at them, then I get on him for yelling, and he tells me that they gave him an excuse to yell. We’ve been doing this dance for some time now, and I could never convince him that his anger had a price. Until now.

We were leaving Target, and my two-and-a-half-year-old son had followed my daughter and me into the ladies’ room. When we came out, he headed to our special two-seater cart  and tried to climb onto it. Not wanting to take the cart to the car, my husband grabbed the bags out of it and said, “You grab him.” I did, he held fast to the cart and he started to cry. Wail. Scream. I held him across my body like a sash while he kicked and screamed, all the way to the parking garage. read more

Posted inAdoption • Emotional Intelligence • marriage • Parenting • Parents

Happy birthday to me!

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Hereditary Insanity is three years old! My actual insanity is much older, but I’m talking about the blog here. So I think it’s a good time to look back and see what we’ve learned. Yes, it’s kind of a gimme for me, but I don’t have another topic and I could use the break. If you’re new to Hereditary Insanity, this “What I did over the year” roundup will be a handy guide to relevant posts. Some new developments: Hereditary Insanity is available as a Kindle subscription and has been accepted by Top Mommy Blogs. Please take a moment to vote so it can stay a top mommy blog. I would really appreciate it. I am also considering sending a post to Huffington Post Parents. Please let me know in the comments which one you think should I send.

I learned that I am passing my fears onto my children, and that’s not necessarily a good idea.  (Some of all Fears)

I learned that I couldn’t blame all of my three-year-old daughter’s bad behavior on her age. I had to accept some responsibility for my actions.  (Is it three or is it me?) read more

Posted inEmotional Intelligence • marriage • Parents • Self Care

Wanted: Happy husband

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I caught a glimpse of the man I married this week. My husband came home to a toddler tantrum – I had my son freaking out in my arms – and he said, in a positive tone, “What’s wrong, buddy?” My toddler told him. I told him. He took the toddler from my arms and proceeded to work out a solution, all without any evidence of a scowl.  It’s a phenomenon I like to call “Happy Matt.”

“Happy Matt” used to be my husband’s only persona. When I met him, his job wasn’t too demanding; we were childless so we had the freedom to do what we wanted; and we were childless – did I mention that? When he met me for dates, he was happy. When we talked on the phone, he was happy. The only time he wasn’t happy when we were dating was when he called me at 3 a.m, frantic because his apartment was on fire. (I didn’t even hear the phone ring.) Soon after, he moved out of that apartment and into mine, and he was happy.

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Posted inEmotional Intelligence • marriage • Parenting • Self Care

Do the math: solve for Z

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I bring you a special announcement: Hereditary Insanity got accepted into “Top Mommy Blogs!” In order to stay there and get ranked, I need votes. Please take a moment to click the button at your right. If the button doesn’t show up in your browser (as in mine), please mouse below the voting message, and click when your cursor becomes the little hand. Thank you so much for your support!

In other news, Hereditary Insanity is now available for Kindle by subscription. Why would you subscribe when you get it here for free? Well, for starters, it’s only 99 cents a month, and it goes directly to your Kindle so you won’t miss a post! If you’re not sure, there’s a 14-day free trial. I’m not sure how big of a draw all that is, but we’ll see. Thanks again, everyone, for your support!! And now, back to our regularly-scheduled program. 

 

“Shut up! Mommy’s trying to sleep!”

“Ma-ma?  A-be-a-be-a-beya!”

“Shut up! Daddy has to get dressed and Mommy’s sleeping in!”

Not anymore. My son continued to babble and my husband continued to bitch as I lay in bed listening to them.

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Posted inEmotional Growth • marriage

The Marriage Games

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My experiment failed. I tried to give a little tit for tat, and I failed. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Last month, I got very upset at the way my husband was handling Mother’s Day. He asked me what I wanted a few weeks in advance. That was good. I gave him a list. That was good.Then we did not discuss Mother’s day again until the Friday night before. “I need you to watch the kids so I can go shopping for you,” was the gist of our conversation. That was bad.

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