Living, Getting the Paperwork Started (20 months)

[adinva]

Bklyn that's really interesting, and I have a bit of that in me. I do tend to assume the good and clean looking ones are good, at least on first impression. I don't spend much time with people who smell like alcohol or have missing teeth, so I'm a little intimidated by that. I'm sure there are good and bad people in both categories. I think in general healthy people try to be aware that people will tend to judge them a certain way if they look and act a certain way, and if they care about how they come across they will align themselves with how they want to be perceived. Hm. Anyway, that's why I try to get my S12 to shower and brush his teeth and change his shirt once a week at least. He's not too concerned but he still has to live in the world with other people. I feel I'm getting off topic.

BIL. My H is perfectly nice to his BIL, and when the family organizes a holiday party they talk, and the rest of the time neither of them seems to go out of his way to see or talk to the other. After the holiday parties where he is perfectly nice, my H would comment about their appearance, but I would never have called that a rift or their not getting along or anything like that. My H acts like he's superior to everyone - it's a regular thing that almost any interaction with someone is followed by a debrief to me about how annoying they are, how they've gotten fat, yadayada. I chalked this up to a disguised self-loathing or lack of self-worth, and felt kind of sorry that H was so negative about so much.

I bristle at the suggestion that this needs H's buy-in, and I don't see it as that big of a deal. It mostly likely - if it came about - would generate the normal eye rolling and monosyllabic replies that I expect these days from these kids who already had two years of D.A.R.E. in school and have heard it all already. But it's not something I would hide from H either. It just would be part of what I fill him in on as it transpires. For example, if we talk this weekend I would mention by the way SIL suggested that BIL might talk to S15 about the consequences of experimenting with drugs, what do you think about that? If he had a problem with it I'm not wedded to the idea. S15 isn't doing anything I didn't do at his age, yet, but I don't want him to get the idea that we don't care or won't do anything about it.

Argh, H. I had forgotten how he put words in my mouth while I was in Florida, and acted like I told him not to overreact and not to do anything about the stuff he found while he was in charge of the boys. Honestly if he walked in the room and had grown a second head I wouldn't have been more surprised by that exchange. So who knows what or how he'll react to this. But my guess is like most things lately he'll shrug and say whatever. No, that would be too many syllables, just a shrug and a grunt.