I’m not really sure. I remember seeing Dick and Suzy trying to figure out the blinds together. I think they were both opening windows. At any rate, it was a bad move. Cherry knows how to keep her apartment cool. the window/AC thing turned the apartment into a sweat box with humidity of approximately 300%. This may have contributed to bad tempers all around.
As far as the familial relationship goes, Suzy (who is Cherry’s age) is Cherry’s ex-husband’s daughter. They’ve remained friends long after the divorce.
I wasn’t trying to pass judgement on your situation, sorry if I came off as snarky.
As for the diapers, I don’t mind them so much. It’s what they’re wrapped around. My home isn’t toddler proof. My dog isn’t fond of toddlers. He might bite one if they kicked him. I could probably make arrangements to have somebody keep him for a few days, but the rest of the house isn’t toddler proof. I suppose that might make me weird.
It doesn’t make you weird it makes you honest. I have kids, I love kids, I adore babies and toddlers, and so on. I truly do. Do I expect every household to be 100% babyproof?? What, you’re kidding, right?
As an about to be guest, I would remind my host that we were bringing BabyTooniverse and if there are delicate and breakables below the height of about 3 feet off the floor ( or on tables or pedestals ), they might wish to tuck them away. If they get snarky about that, then we may have a problem. They know we have a baby ( or did, years ago ). They know they invited us. They are being given fair warning that toddlers do something called TODDLING. It involves pulling along furniture, falling and basically being adorable spazzes. Would I expect any host to spend hundreds of dollars babyproofing all electrical and under-sink situations? Hell no. It’s MY kid and my responsibility to be with them 24/7 at that age.
The breakables thing is the difference between lashing BabyTooniverse to a wooden plank for the duration and allowing them to explore in reasonable and healthy ways, as toddlers will do. Any other babyproofing would only be expected if this were to be an ongoing visit thing. ( Every day, every week, etc. )
I was raised to be a good houseguest. Never arrive emtpy-handed to someone’s door. Offer to do the dishes. Make your bed and your familiy’s beds. Keep your suitcases and dirty clothes/personal affects as clean and tightly organized as possible during your visit. It’s one thing to sleep you, your SO and BabyTooniverse in the den for a few days. It’s another thing to want to visit with your hosts in their den but not be able to find a place to sit that does not have your clothing or personal stuff sprinkled around. When I houseguest, I take a few minutes after I’m dressed to tidy up. It matters a lot, even if you might not hear about it if you were a total slob in their house. When I have guests, it matters to me to see that they keep things relatively neat. With babies and toddlers and smaller kids, toys and games and …stuff…abounds. Most bets are off with them and I understand that stuff. Do I want to stop into a folded up dirty diaper that was thrown on the ground? I do not. Do I understand that I will be wading through approximately 24,000 Blues Clues toys? I do.
I do dishes pretty well. Used to do it for a living back in the day. I’ll offer more than once because I detest being waited upon hand and foot. Just about everyone I’ve ever stayed with has been happy to let me wash. That lets them dry and put away things where they go.
Houseguesting is a fun imposition. It’s nice to have other people in the house. I’m good for about 3 days…then I go insane.
Do you guys have much over-night company? All this just kinda seems normal for guest. The guy was just trying to be helpful by doing the dishes and putting them away. It takes what, 5 or 10 minutes out of your life to put them back in their proper places. I’d take that anytime over just piling dish after dish up in the sink and I’m very anal retentive.
Junk all over your room, that’s pretty natural for guest too. Some are cleaner than others.
Now I do agree the A/C thing was out of line. Did you guys protest their actions? But it is New England after all, if they’d done that here, they would have turned in a sweaty puddle of water in just a few seconds.
All in all I’d say it was an OK visit. Overall did you enjoy their visit? Did you have fun too? If so, don’t sweat the small stuff.
I certainly do have my share of quirks, including some that aren’t so little and are really better described as Issues. I didn’t mean to make light of her quirks, and I’m sorry if it came off that way. I realize too that I might have been doing that annoying thing where you were looking for a little commiseration, and instead I gave pointers for changing behaviors. If that’s the case, then yes, I wholeheartedly agree that having houseguests can be aggravating to beat the band.
Looking back, I didn’t even focus in on the broader questions you asked. As a hostess, I want my guests to feel completely at home, regardless of any differences there might be between my home and theirs. As a guest, I try not to do anything that disrupts my host’s household.
As a cold and unfriendly New Englander myself, I think they did overstep some boundries but not all. The cat thing is unfortunate, but cranky kids who are thrown off their normal schedules do act badly. The dishes issue was probably innocent, since unless she told him why she wanted to do it himself, he probably thought she was just being polite.
But turning off the AC and opening the windows? Not cool without permission. Most homeowners set things the way they do to cope with the weather where they live, and if you aren’t even a native to the climate, so therefore have no idea how much opening the windows is going to increase the heat, you have no business changing things without asking the host if they mind if you do so.
As for spreading their belongings everywhere…adults should know better. Hell, I used to spend a week every summer with my great-grammy when I was young, and by age 10 I knew that you weren’t supposed to leave your belongings all over the place. Once my brother turned seven he came along too, and it was my responsiblity to help him keep his stuff neat too. You’re visiting, not moving in.
I can not imagine behaving as the houseguests are described as behaving. My personality and inclination say that as a guest one should impose on the household as little as possible- that means coping with the climate control which makes the host happy. As a host I’d try to make my climate control meet my guests’ needs, but the balancing line between “You are the guest, let’s do what you want” and “you are the host, let’s do what you want” can be difficult to find.
That said, if the dishes being put away wrong was the biggest stressor of the visit- the solution to me seems pretty clear. Cherry needs to practice saying “Look, I appreciate your willingness to wash dishes- but one of the things that makes me feel happy and like my life is in control is putting my dishes where they belong. I feel this way more strongly than most people- and we’ll all be happier if you just let me deal with my dishes myself”
Oh, no doubt. I’m quite sure he wasn’t attemting to do malicious and harmful dishwashing. Of course he was just trying to be helpful. But he was inadvertantly causing chaos in Cherry’s home and head.
In order to resolve this dishue , two things need to happen. One, Cherry needs to learn how to say No more effectively. Two, Dick needs to learn how to hear No more effectively. Of the two things, I’d say that the second is the bigger problem.
Yes, she does, but I should expound on what I understand to have happened.
She told him repeatedly that she would take care of the dishes herself. He repeatedly responded with “You say that now, but you’ll be glad when they’re all finished.” It was essentially a very nice way of calling her a liar.
Did she at least get a chance to shut the windows and turn the AC back on? I mean, if you’re cold, get a sweater, I have extremely low tolerance for the heat because of my meds, so I’d almost homicidal.
Four years old is old enough not to be threatening cats. At least not seriously-I threaten mine all the time, but they know it’s an empty gesture.
One comment on the threatening the cat thing that no one’s thought of: maybe the kid was immitating behavior he sees at home? I only say that because I threaten my cats with violence all the time. Now, I’d never actually be violent towards one of them, but I mock-threaten them all the time (“If you don’t get out of my way right now, I will knock your little feline head off of your little feline shoulders!”) More and more, as my five-year-old grows, she sounds just like me or one of her older sisters. I could see her talking to someone else’s cat like that, just because I talk to ours that way. I’m sure she’d never hurt a cat, just like I wouldn’t. But she might say it.
BTW, 4 and 1/2 is a little old for Pull-Ups, but, meh.
The thing with the dishes sounds like a breakdown in communications. Seriously, though, if Cherry feels the need for that kind of control, maybe she should make it clear before anyone offers to do the dishes.
The air conditioner thing was a little over the top. They could have asked first, at least.
I can’t even imagine the Topher scenario, because I’d never allow a kid under like seven or eight to stay at my house–and nobody I know with kids that young would even contemplate it–but the rest of it…I dunno. Even under the best circumstances, being a guest and having guests are both rather trying, at least in my experience, so the only way to get through it is for both parties to go the extra mile to make the other party comfortable.
“Mi casa su casa” isn’t really true, of course. It’s a nice hospitable thing to say but what it really means is that you are free to grab a soda from the fridge or find something on TV to watch…it doesn’t mean that you can cover the house in your crap and change the freakin’ climate!
Anybody with half a brain should know this.
And even though Cherry didn’t apparently say “Mi casa su casa,” I’m sure she said something equally polite and meaningless like “make yourselves at home.”
Like I said, anybody with half a brain knows what that means.
Her relatives were tactless and extremely irritating and I’m not at all surprised. That’s what “family” means in Swahili. “Putting up with irritating people who happen to share a shred of DNA with you.”
I’m pretty sure she said it as Dick was walking into the kitchen. It’s not like he’d already cleaned a bunch of stuff before she spoke up. And it’s not like she announced the cleaning rules as her guests arrived. I think she chose the most appropriate time to object.
My suggestion on the dishes thing is to team up and say “You can wash them, and I’ll put them away.” That way, she gets to control the stressor, and he gets to be “helpful”. If he objects to that “You don’t know where everything goes, and I need to find this stuff tomorrow.” should suffice.
Turning off the AC is a bit out of line, but I’ve visited houses where I was dreadfully uncomforable and wished to change something about the climate control. I don’t think I’d be terribly offended that someone changed my AC settings, but we all react differently.
The bedroom thing I don’t see as a big problem at all. Unless they are preventing her from getting her clothes in the morning, or leaving a mess when they leave, they should be free to use the space offered as they wish. If that means a pile of clean diapers and luggage, then that’s the deal. Different rules apply to common space, but this is presumably a separate bedroom.
Seems to me that Cherry is a bit over sensitive to controlling her space. Not that she’s wrong about it, but a pile of luggage, an open window and some misplaced kitchen tools should not throw one into a tizzy.
About the pull-ups thing, they could have been Overnights. They are pull-ups that the kid wears to bed if they wet the bed. (I speak from experience!) That would be a courteous thing, keeping the kid from peeing on the bed.
I don’t think that would have helped. Stuff being put in the wrong place was certainly a factor, there’s more to it than that. Cherry, having pretty severe ADD, cannot cope well with chaos. Dick, also an ADD sufferer, tends to generate chaos. As well, Cherry hates it when people don’t listen to her concerns, and Dick simply doesn’t listen. He tends to blow off concerns as mere silliness.
I have to side with Cherry here.
Re: The pullups. Worn all day. Topher smelled fairly ripe many times while the sun was still up.
I remember when my brother’s family visited from out of state and stayed with my Aunts. My mother and I stayed there as well since we both live a couple hours away and it was easier to just stay with them than to make the drive once a day for the week my brothers family was there.
But I digress. So, brother and family are from Arizona. Brother and family are used to searing heat, while the rest of the clan are from Northern California and tent to melt when it gets about 78.
The first morning we all woke up there, my mother and I as well as my aunts all walked out into the hallway, looked at eachother and said “what the hell? It was like, 90 degrees in here last night!” That’s when we saw the thermostat had been cranked to 80.
Brother and family apparently decided it was a.okay to crank the thermostat without asking and made it horrible for everyone else in the house. We turned it down and brother and family proceeded to crank it back up the next two nights, after being asked not to. We finally put a note on the thermostat begging for it not to be touched. that seemed to work.
Ok, he’s 15 now - but I’m still a MOTHER.
, two things need to happen. One, Cherry needs to learn how to say No more effectively. Two, Dick needs to learn how to hear No more effectively. Of the two things, I’d say that the second is the bigger problem.