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Got to reel it in

Bradymom's picture

We are completely the Disneyland parents. I think we are. We don't always spend money but the second the kids walk through the door the world revolves around them. It's activities, wether it's games & crafts, parks & calls to get people together for a basketball game... or spending money going places...

We are non-stop. I know it's not that way at either home. Not my kids bio dad's & not my steps bio moms. Both of the exes are go out to eat (we 95% of time have home cooked meals or we pack a cooler) & if they do anything out of the house it's movies (we only do the cheap theater & a regular movie 2-3x a year). And when they're home it's--- shut them up with electronics constantly (& I'm anti electronics. Allowing some but they have to mix it up with breaks with other activities)

I feel like we need to reel it in. The kids are always "what are we doing?" They totally expect we have something going on all the time. I don't know how we fell into this. My DH has ALWAYS been this way. But I haven't. I am all about walking, biking, parks, etc but never paying for entertainment.

I feel sick to my stomach thinking about how much $ we spent just this weekend alone.

I had a stroke on 1/16, it's been worse since. Because I am not able to think & plan activities as well as I use to be & I stay home so much that I don't want to be there when we do have the kids. Ugh.

Going to have to make some goals to reel this in. Have y'all fell into this terrible habit?

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NCMilGal's picture

We used to do that in the early years. It didn't help that a significant portion of visitation was over Christmas at MIL's house - where DH magically turns into a pouty teenager.

I think one thing that helped was the long visits, no weekends. As NCPs, we only got SD two or three times a year. When you've got the kid for six weeks, it's impossible to take that much time off, so SD was placed in day camp, and we had a normal routine going.

Some of the things I pushed on the weekends were skills: cooking was a big one. I started with baking cookies and making pancakes, and moved up to dinners from scratch. At 16, she got put in charge of the food budget *and* cooking for the family.

But yeah, we did a lot more when we were NCP. Now that DH is CP and SD actually has friends, we never see her, and our time is our own again, mostly