To ask when YOU were unreasonable?

[Fanfeckintastic]

For example, when I was pregnant a well meaning friend said something like "Oh I wonder what tv characters the baby will be into", I threw my head back and laughed claiming MY child wouldn't be watching enough tv to even KNOW characters. It would be only books, learning tools and nature tables in this house.... yeah

I also used to have an inner high and mighty feel when I would see people with young children in McDs, until one day I got a glare from a pregnant woman and her partner when popping DD into a highchair.

I texted my exes sister ranting about him after we had split up, so unreasonable, I am cringing in a ball here remembering it!

When I was pregnant I had a "birth plan" in my bag saying offer me no pain relief whatsoever, fair enough each to their own and I genuinely had the best intentions but I had every pain relief available and even offered money and produced my purse for the epidural

I often look back and shake my head in disbelief at my 23 year old, heavily pregnant self with all these notions (and sometimes judgements )

Surely I can't be alone, me times YOU were unreasonable

I was pregnant at 23 but not judgemental then, I was admittedly clueless.

But before being pregnant I had all the ideals. Wooden toys, thank you very much. Outside as much as possible, no chocolate, all that crap.

However, general unreasonability (new word) I had all the time. I too, cringe at my 19 year old self, my opinions, ideas and the crap I came out with. Yuck.

My 19-year-old self was also generally quite unreasonable a lot of the time, must be something about that age!

oh my god, I was a PAIN. I was an expert on all aspects of child rearing right up to the moment I had kids

MY child will never have a dummy
Long and complicated birth plan (and taking 2 thick books and a box of chocs into the delivery suite midwives laughed at me, but they did enjoy eating all the chocs while I sweated, growled, mooed, pooed and vomited )
MY child will never be rude to me or answer me back
No sweets. Ever. (ha)
Everything will be educational at all times.
No tv. Probably until they are 21

seriously, just so many. The only thing it shows is that we don't have a clue about raising children until they land in our lap. Then we just have to muddle through as best we can. The thing I learned is that a lot of what seemed so vital before I had kids - turned out it didn't matter at all, whereas stuff that had never crossed my mind was really important.

sorry for the emoticon abuse there.

I would do the blush face, but I think we can all agree I ought to be banned from using the bloody things.

All the time. I usually end up being right about it though

Assuming that it is so easy to set 'rules' for your teenager about screen time (you still see this trotted out on Mumsnet ) - I have tried everything - with the exception of destroying every single screen in the house (and we don't even have that many compared to some people!).

I used to think you could calmly say 'just an hour's screen time today darling' .............. we've already had the usual row this morning .

Counting the days until he leaves home ...............

Turn the Wifi off then. He'll not be on it for long if it's not connected to the web.

If he moans just tell him there's a problem with the hub and you will arrange someone to come out.

You can always do what I ended up resorting to with the ex. Go outside to where the broadband cable is wired to the little box attached to your home and unscrew it. That works like a charm because they can fiddle about with the actual stuff inside the house all they want and nothing will work.

Smiles - but if it's not the wifi then it is tv or dvds - and yes, I do say 'no screen time' and enforce it but it is dealing with the sulking and general unpleasantness - it's not that he is on screen time 24/7 but when he isn't (and assuming he is not out doing sport which fortunately he loves) it is the huffing and puffing and being arsey that is so horrible to live with.

We did have some success this morning clearing out his bedroom and getting him to change the sheets himself - as I was recently horrified to hear of some teenagers going to uni and not even knowing how to change the bed linen.

I suppose in my dreams I would have a teenager who would get up, make their bed, open the curtains, lay the table for breakfast, make pleasant conversation, join me for Church, go for a family walk, have a nice lunch, play sports with his team, help make supper and then have a board game or family film evening. But I know that I am being totally unrealistic. .

Well we just had competitive music practice.
Dd2 announced she was doing trumpet practice after lunch.
After lunch, Dd1 started piano practice.

Dd2 has now been stropping for at least 20 minutes after dd1 finished because we pointed out she didn't have to do her trumpet practice in the same room as the piano, we have 3 other rooms plus the hallway she could have used. She's not even meant to do her trumpet in the main room, and it would disturb the piano much more even from the other end of the house than the piano would disturb her. But apparently this is an example of how everyone takes priority over her.

I did suggest that if she wanted to move the piano to another room then that was acceptable.

can't wait for the teenage years

My birthplan for dc1 said "no pain relief except TENs"
My birthplan for dc2 said "insert epidural at around 8 months to make sure it's in in time."

Jeez Louise, I did think the 'no tv no sweets' rubbish too! I'm such an idiot! DS loves his chocolate and crisps and ice cream, but spits out Haribo more for mummy

I didn't bother with a birthplan - "get him out" was about all I could manage. And they did, so, bonus there!

I have been umrewaonable at times I suppose, poking my nose in where it wasn't needed and the like, probably lits of stuff related with my mother

DD was supposed to be bookish, quiet and quirky like DW and I.

We got one out of three, if "quirky" is expanded to "completely fucking barking". Also the cloth nappies, the wooden toys and organic vegetables made an early disappearance, to be replaced with an outsize wheelie bin for Huggies. She liked chewing the camping mallet.

When DD was newborn I decided no dog would ever come near my precious cherub ever, dogs want to eat babies and they will definitely want to eat my DD. In the first 3 months or so If we went to a friends house who had dogs I insisted they be put away

Now she's a toddler she's chases dogs like some lunatic shouting "cat, cat" I have to protect them from her. The dogs we know are actually harmless bags of wussiness and I cringe when I think back to how ridiculous I was.

I've never been unreasonable obviously. I've always been right about everything and always wanted a cheeky, non sleeping, screen addicted, sugar powered child.
Especially after the two most medicalised births known to man
(rewrites history in the way my parents used to but I was never going to)
It makes me wonder what I'm going to think about my current certainties in say 10 years.
Have learnt to keep my thoughts to myself much more these days...

I am often unreasonable but am also (unfortunatley) educated in a field where I mostly recognize how unreasonable I am being and why. It's quite draining actually, goes something like this:

I will go off on one about X event (small/unimportant). While I'm doing it I am concious of the fact that I'm not actually mad about event X, but am anxious about event Y (big/important). By the time I've actually finished venting I have already apologized for the outburst with the promise of going and working out the actual issue that's worrying me.

Would be nice just to be unreasonable and not so bloody self-aware of said unreasonableness sometimes. I tire myself out Being rational is over-rated

Oh mine is awful

After months of listening to a friend go on and on about how bf babies shouldn't be fed to sleep. How to do a routine etc etc (she formula fed from day one).

I asked her if she thought her sons allergies were due to him not being bf obviously they are not

She had spent months telling me how I was getting everything wrong bf and sleep wise and I just cracked. Still a crap thing to do.

Oh there was an incident with a swing, I posted on here 90% thought I was unreasonable but screw you guys I still think I was in the right

I was unreasonable the other night when I call DH a "potato fucker" and said that he'd ruined my dinner by fucking up my potato

I may definitely have food issues and I don't like when food touches other food except in certain circumstances. For dinner I had a jacket potato with some grated cheese mashed into it and a little bit of ravioli and salad on the side. That was the plan. But DS2 wanted a big feed and DH, being helpful, finished off making dinner. Instead of asking where I wanted the potato/ravioli like he usually would he just piled everything on top of the potato, salad included.

I was and and then some more. In my defence (shoddy though it might be) I'd been up half the night with a teething baby then awake at 6am with a very energetic 4yo and 2yo. I spent the day packing (we're moving house) and trawling the kids round the local park to wear them out.

Thankfully DH didn't take offence and burst out laughing when I tearfully called him a potato fucker...

Never. Obviously.

Even if MN has occasionally misguidedly tried to claim I am...

there aren't enough pages here for when I have been unreasonable but the funnier one were:

whilst cleaning out the drawer with the paperwork in it DH handed me some things to shred but I thought it was things that had just come in (because I wasn't listening) and top of the pile was this months old parking ticket that I had paid, so I called up the council and screeched at this young boy to get me his manager, I had paid this, why were they asking for it again, money grabbing bastards yada yada yada I left him with a flea in his ear. after that DH said 'feel better? you were meant to shred that, its months old'. I nearly died when the supervisor called back.

bearfrills. Can't stop laughing at 'potato fucker', you're not related to my DH are you?

DeeWee - epidural at 8 months love it!!

I though people who did extended breastfeeding and co slept we just going out of their way to be hippies. Wasn't like I cruelly cared just thought it was kind of silly.......I'm just starting to think about gently weaning my 2 year old co sleeper.