Jenn is convinced I'm being unreasonable.

[conuly]

I was starting to make dinner, and Ana got into a snit because there wasn't a spare burner for her to make her Nestlé Mexican hot chocolate she had picked up at the corner store. I say that 8 ounces of chocolate milk - that's 256 calories, I went ahead and checked - is a dessert or a snack, not something she should be preparing right before dinner.

Jenn seems to think that drinks don't count, that they don't take up any space in the stomach that could go to actual food.

She also thinks that my occasionally buying 20 oz of soda to split among four people while eating pizza is comparable to each person getting 8 full ounces of hot chocolate. Never mind that that is 60% more to drink!

Then, of course, she pulled a classic Jenn trick of alternating between snapping and bitching at me or talking to me about something unrelated like she hadn't just done that, and got pissy and called me an "asshole" for telling her to knock it off. Yeah, when I am working at a hot stove, using a knife, I don't really want to chit-chat to somebody who is off-and-on angry at me. I cut and burn myself enough when I'm calm, happy, and by myself!

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

So, now you can afford to buy pizza, right? *ducking*

'Kay, here's my continuing thought, because $13.00 and I-told-you-so isn't going to suffice. What's Jenn really upset about? Because it seems like when she does this, it's generally not that she's really mad at *you*, or is trying to be a bitch, but that she's having a hard time with parenting and/or work and/or Life, the Universe and everything; y'know how that goes.

Didn't you have a tiff just about the same as this, last year at just about this time? Maybe your sister's got Seasonal This-Sucks Disorder, and feels bad because she knows she *should* enforce the healthy nutrition and blah blah, but all she wants herself is chocolate and carbs, and ohgawdpuhleese to not have to listen to her kids twitching out about yet another stupid thing. It's hard to maintain standards when the days are getting short and chill, and times iz hard, and one's daughters are doing that prepubescent thing all the time, and... and... and.

Motherhood is a permanent condition of doubt and guilt about whether one's doing it right; Jenn may be just feeling kinda stomped by it, temporarily unable to care what her kids eat for supper, if only they don't throw a fit, and dissing herself for feeling that way. But we all feel that way sometimes. Motherhood is awesome, but it also sucks, there's no getting around it. So don't I-told-you-so Jenn too hard, because she may be feeling bad enough already, and could do with a sympathetic ear.