I'm a bit of a nosy Rosie. Okay, more than a bit. In a lot of ways, I really don't care what other people do but I am a bit overpreoccupied with the people who live across from my family.
Part of that stems from the fact that the wife/mom of the family and I are friends. For a while we were really great friends but we both had babies within seven weeks of each other and they got in the way of our closeness. Also, her husband is an ass.
When we moved into this neighborhood two years ago, RxMan, Her Highness and I made fast friends with this family. They had a daughter (well, it is his daughter but she lives with them full-time) in HH's grade and we all just hit it off. We took turns taking the girls to school and picking them up, we shopped together and visited often. They watched HH for me one night a week while I was in school and I kept the daughter one evening while they worked. Often, I would babysit the 1 year old boy. We went to hockey games together. Honestly, we were good friends.
But, not long before the babies were born, the dad in this family, who shows a lot of OCD traits, started not speaking to me if I was there when he arrived home from work. Now, this guy is obsessive in many ways: he showers 3 times a day, using a bar of soap a week (per the wife) and he mows 3-4 times a week from March until December. He also scrubs the garage floor and cleans the gutters, inside and out, with a rag and bucket. (Quite honestly, the outside of their home is much cleaner than the inside of mine.) And, he calls himself a "family man" but spends more time outside or inside scouring than he ever does with his three children.
But I digress--
So this guy started acting irritated by my occassional presence when he returned home from work; I just made an effort not to be around when he was home. Then other little things came to my attention, like, the mom was always complaining that the little girl was hard to get up in the morning for school and cried a lot but they would stay out until 11:00 on school nights. Okay, doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. And, the little girl told HH that "her dad said she was going to play soccer and be a better player than HH." Okay. WTF?? I have tried really hard not to make HH a competetive child. I have instilled in her that everyone is different and is good at different things and this really pissed me off. Y'know, it's my kid. She is a lovely, nice girl and it really got under my skin.
And, I thought these were my friends....
So, I have kept my distance from this family a little more than before. Frankly, I am annoyed by the fact that I can hear their nine month old baby crying all day and they are frantically outside scrubbing car carpet and sidewalks and mailboxes. The Conqueror is a little too loved, I know. I probably shoulda let him cry it out way more than I have (never!). My house is a lot messier than theirs.
We are still friendly, the mom and I. I still really like her. I like her kids. But, the closeness is gone. So, for now, RxMan and I peek out from behind our curtains and make bets with the other neighbors on how many times this family will clean the garage, gutters, driveway this week.
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2 comments:
Yeah that's sounding like ocd.. the fact that you hear the baby crying while they keep right on cleaning breaks my heart. I wish I had advice, other then to outright say something to them, but I don't. Good luck with the situation.
Although I would ask the woman, without mentioning the character traits of the ocd, what the deal is with her husband. If you two were really friends, she wouldn't take offense so much as try to explain it. Who knows, she may have felt the tension as well and was hoping you didn't notice.
Good advice and thanks for reading! (:
She is aware that her husband is odd; she pointed out to me that he uses way too much soap, etc. She, though, was very, very young (still is) and he has pretty much trained her into what he wants. It is like she doesn't know any better.
Also, I should have mentioned that he is also a bit of an over-discipliner with the children. He is a spanker. For lots of not so valid reasons.
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