Now Scheduling for Summer: Erika Shupe (pt. 7)

[JillyO]

I love frozen yogurt. I would eat it every day if I could.  There, I said it.

Anyone else think it's super weird that Melanie is sitting at a table all by herself?

[elliha]

3 hours ago, defraudingjezebel said:

I wouldn't be surprised if one of the reasons they go get froyo rather than regular ice cream is because most yogurt places offer fat-free and/or sugar-free varieties that would fit within her dietary restrictions. I bet their sugar free yogurt tastes better than her "coco" concoction, though! 

I think diesel oil might taste better than her "coco".

[mango_fandango]

3 hours ago, JillyO said:

I love frozen yogurt. I would eat it every day if I could.  There, I said it.

Anyone else think it's super weird that Melanie is sitting at a table all by herself?

Maybe Erika was with her and just got up to take the photo?

ETA: Hmm, no chair opposite Melanie. Maybe she was next to Bob and moved so she could be in the photo.

[Desertrose]

Too bad Erika didn't get 4 jelly beans. The amount of food she feeds her kids is a huge pet peeve for me. I have 5 boys. When the older two were at home, groceries was my biggest expense. Even now, doing foster care, I would never tell a kid no you can't eat or limit food at a meal. I may tell them to slow down when eating, but that's it. I look at what she posts and laugh. Frozen yogurt is expensive. You can buy a gallon of ice cream for cheaper. 

[Hisey]

I'll bet she likes froyo because you can be very precise about how much you get. You weigh it before you pay. She can measure the kids' portions very accurately.

All 9 kids, together, gave Erika the Anna and the King soundtrack. I just looked it up on Amazon. It costs $4.99. 

This is her gift from all nine of her children? Even assuming the youngest four don't have much money, it's not much of a gift. Either the Shupe kids are paid very little for the extra chores they do, or they are not all that excited about honoring mom on Mother's day.

[19 cats and counting]

26 minutes ago, Hisey said:

All 9 kids, together, gave Erika the Anna and the King soundtrack. I just looked it up on Amazon. It costs $4.99. 

This is her gift from all nine of her children? Even assuming the youngest four don't have much money, it's not much of a gift. Either the Shupe kids are paid very little for the extra chores they do, or they are not all that excited about honoring mom on Mother's day.

THe kids are paid in jellybeans for the extra chores they do.  Jellybeans are not legal tender so Amazon wouldn't accept them as payment.

[Hisey]

8 minutes ago, 19 cats and counting said:

THe kids are paid in jellybeans for the extra chores they do.  Jellybeans are not legal tender so Amazon wouldn't accept them as payment.

Giving them no money is another way of disempowering them.

Actually, she said the older ones choose money over jellybeans, but even they didn't seem to feel like splurging on Erika.

[mango_fandango]

4 minutes ago, Hisey said:

Giving them no money is another way of disempowering them.

Actually, she said the older ones choose money over jellybeans, but even they didn't seem to feel like splurging on Erika.

Maybe they'll pay back Erika when they're grown up by giving her a single jelly bean for Christmas or something. This is the woman who, for a three-hour babysitting stint, gives her eldest 14 points, which is equivalent to one peppermint pattie and four M&Ms. For an overnight sit (where apparently they have a babysitter too) the eldest gets 44 points, or the equivalent of two headbands and four individual Skittles.

It's bloody ridiculous.

[elliha]

I took the time to read Erika's scheduling post properly. This phrase keeps coming up:

Quote

Light highlighting across rows - I started doing this so that I could see where each of the children would be while I was feeding the baby.  Everyone needed to be productively occupied as I was not willing to have the baby's eating and holding time with me interrupted to have to deal with behavior issues when kids made poor choices knowing that I was occupied.

This made me so sad "the baby's holding time... If you have a tiny baby shouldn't it be held enough that you don't need to be sad because holding time is interrupted. I don't question the general idea that if you know you are going to feed your kid that you try to engage the other ones in something to try to prevent disaster but this should not be because you cannot hold the baby at other times. When you look at the different schedules the babies clearly go from one non-interactive activity to another once they are old enough to do more than sleep. It is so sad. Sure, "everyone" lets their baby play on a playmat or in bouncer or something like that or at least tries to get the baby to like it but some of these schedules seem to mean the baby hardly being touched for long periods. Also, the newborn schedules of basically only eating and sleeping feel very depressing as well. Sure, some newborns do sleep all the time but not all of them. My daughter would probably have been severely disturbed already as a newborn in the Shupe family because she had no idea that newborns are supposed to just eat and sleep. She was awake alot already when we were still in the hospital. She would probably have taken long to break into their stupid schedule too. I am glad we were more go with the flow parents. 

My mom tried to get me to sleep better with one of those methods for sleep which means you are not supposed to come when the baby screams. It worked in a totally opposite way. Before I used to sleep OK but the treatment terrified me of sleep to the point that they had to dismantle the crib because I screamed until I threw up from just seeing it. I would only sleep while holding on to my mom with "eagle claws" as she described it for months and then while sleeping next to her in bed. I slept in my parents bed until I was 9. My daughter suffered no sleeptraining what so ever and transferred to her own bed at 15 months and her own room at 2. I am pretty sure had I tried to teach her to sleep on her own I would have experienced the same thing as my parents.

[Queen Of Hearts]

I'll be in the minority and give the Shupe kids a pass for their Mother's Day gift to Erika.  They seem to have chosen something that was meaningful to her - which is more important than how much was spent.  With all of the Shupe's faults (and there are many), I do like that they don't focus on the materialistic.   

[Hisey]

47 minutes ago, Queen Of Hearts said:

I'll be in the minority and give the Shupe kids a pass for their Mother's Day gift to Erika.  They seem to have chosen something that was meaningful to her - which is more important than how much was spent.  With all of the Shupe's faults (and there are many), I do like that they don't focus on the materialistic.   

It's fine if you don't agree, but I hardly think Erika is nonmaterialistic. She actually focuses a lot on name brands. Have you read her diatribe about how she'll only buy Paul Mitchell shampoo for her girls because grocery store shampoo did not leave it shiny enough? She also likes name-brand fancy makeup for herself. Then there's her love for Olive Garden. And her heavy use of Clorox wipes, something I consider to be an expensive rag. I think she can't afford to buy expensive things that often, but I bet she'd like to. In fact, I often think she is a bit bitchy to Bob, the way she points out she can't afford this or that.

[mango_fandango]

2 hours ago, Hisey said:

It's fine if you don't agree, but I hardly think Erika is nonmaterialistic. She actually focuses a lot on name brands. Have you read her diatribe about how she'll only buy Paul Mitchell shampoo for her girls because grocery store shampoo did not leave it shiny enough? She also likes name-brand fancy makeup for herself. Then there's her love for Olive Garden. And her heavy use of Clorox wipes, something I consider to be an expensive rag. I think she can't afford to buy expensive things that often, but I bet she'd like to. In fact, I often think she is a bit bitchy to Bob, the way she points out she can't afford this or that.

She claims "yes it is expensive but it's worth it to me." Of course- promote buying used but if it benefits YOU then buy expensive stuff.

[fundiesarefascinating]

Did anyone else see the video she posted on Facebook of the twins? Seemed really off to me - but maybe I am hyper critical of everything Erika does because I despise her.  She took this video of one of the twins nearly in tears while the other twin was trying to comfort her.  I thought the twin trying to comfort her sister was quite sweet, and a good display of empathy (which in all honesty I was not expecting Erika's children to have).  But why would she film that and post it on a public page - that's so unfair to the child who is upset. And why is she filming instead of comforting her child?? When my kids are upset I don't whip out my phone and video it only to post it on Facebook.  I get down on their level and comfort them the best I can while encouraging their sibling to be empathetic.  

[Koala]

3 minutes ago, fundiesarefascinating said:

Did anyone else see the video she posted on Facebook of the twins? Seemed really off to me - but maybe I am hyper critical of everything Erika does because I despise her.  She took this video of one of the twins nearly in tears while the other twin was trying to comfort her.  I thought the twin trying to comfort her sister was quite sweet, and a good display of empathy (which in all honesty I was not expecting Erika's children to have).  But why would she film that and post it on a public page - that's so unfair to the child who is upset. And why is she filming instead of comforting her child?? When my kids are upset I don't whip out my phone and video it only to post it on Facebook.  I get down on their level and comfort them the best I can while encouraging their sibling to be empathetic.  

I agree.  I have a real problem with what I saw in that video.  There is no excuse for filming her (very upset) daughter, and Erika should have gotten off her damn phone so she could be a parent and comfort her.

[mango_fandango]

29 minutes ago, fundiesarefascinating said:

Did anyone else see the video she posted on Facebook of the twins? Seemed really off to me - but maybe I am hyper critical of everything Erika does because I despise her.  She took this video of one of the twins nearly in tears while the other twin was trying to comfort her.  I thought the twin trying to comfort her sister was quite sweet, and a good display of empathy (which in all honesty I was not expecting Erika's children to have).  But why would she film that and post it on a public page - that's so unfair to the child who is upset. And why is she filming instead of comforting her child?? When my kids are upset I don't whip out my phone and video it only to post it on Facebook.  I get down on their level and comfort them the best I can while encouraging their sibling to be empathetic.  

Yeah, I saw that. It is very weird. And of course all the leghumpers are all "OMG so cute!!"

Also, what's that noise in the background? There's the parakeets (surprised they still have those actually) and normal talking, but there's also some kind of repetitive noise. Not clicking. Can't put my finger on it...

[TShirtsLongSkirts]

Reading through Erika's page always makes me a bit frustrated because to get to anything actually relevant you have to scroll through hundreds of spammy Christian clickbait articles with insightful captions from Erika like "mm" or "so good!" or "*smile*"

[Koala]

1 hour ago, TShirtsLongSkirts said:

 "mm" or "so good!"

I *gag* a little each time she writes that.  Particularly "mmmm" 

[princessmahina]

Her "mmm-ing" drives me up the wall. I imagine her sitting at her desk chuckling to herself and making those weird noises while Karen and Melanie maintain order. 

[Desertrose]

17 hours ago, fundiesarefascinating said:

Did anyone else see the video she posted on Facebook of the twins? Seemed really off to me - but maybe I am hyper critical of everything Erika does because I despise her.  She took this video of one of the twins nearly in tears while the other twin was trying to comfort her.  I thought the twin trying to comfort her sister was quite sweet, and a good display of empathy (which in all honesty I was not expecting Erika's children to have).  But why would she film that and post it on a public page - that's so unfair to the child who is upset. And why is she filming instead of comforting her child?? When my kids are upset I don't whip out my phone and video it only to post it on Facebook.  I get down on their level and comfort them the best I can while encouraging their sibling to be empathetic.  

I thought it was strange. Recording a child being upset is the last thing I would do. 

[Anonymousguest]

I didn't think the child looked all that upset, she just looked a little grumpy or tired, and sucking on her fingers. Maybe she and the twin who appeared to be suffocating her had just had a tiff and she was apologizing. Or maybe she was hungry and waiting for lunch or something. 

 

The background noise was awful. I funny think I could have birds in addition to the number of children in that cramped house. It sounded cluttered. 

[Eternalbluepearl]

41 minutes ago, Anonymousguest said:

The background noise was awful. I funny think I could have birds in addition to the number of children in that cramped house. It sounded cluttered. 

Oh the birds, the fish, the dog, the 29 kids, Bob's scowl and Erika's crazy eyes...it's all TOO much!

[mango_fandango]

But what was that weird noise? Kind of a clicking/whirring noise, almost like a printer or something.

[Eternalbluepearl]

27 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

But what was that weird noise? Kind of a clicking/whirring noise, almost like a printer or something.

It could have been a kitchen appliance of some sort. *shrug*

[Granwych]

3 hours ago, Anonymousguest said:

I didn't think the child looked all that upset, she just looked a little grumpy or tired, and sucking on her fingers. Maybe she and the twin who appeared to be suffocating her had just had a tiff and she was apologizing. Or maybe she was hungry and waiting for lunch or something. 

 

The background noise was awful. I funny think I could have birds in addition to the number of children in that cramped house. It sounded cluttered. 

We have 9 finches, 4 parakeets, and a cockatiel.  I love the birds, but they are noisy and messy, nearly impossible to keep up with feathers, seeds, and poop that isn't necessarily confined to their cages.  Strange that Erika keeps the birds.

[Hisey]

8 hours ago, Anonymousguest said:

I didn't think the child looked all that upset, she just looked a little grumpy or tired, and sucking on her fingers. Maybe she and the twin who appeared to be suffocating her had just had a tiff and she was apologizing. Or maybe she was hungry and waiting for lunch or something. 

 

The background noise was awful. I funny think I could have birds in addition to the number of children in that cramped house. It sounded cluttered. 

Or maybe she was hungry even though she'd just had lunch.