Maxwell 40: Wearing Their Vests in an Apartment for Fun

[Coconut Flan]

Always remember the expression "A tired dog is a good dog."

[MamaJunebug]

2 hours ago, usmcmom said:

These are my go-to “shorts” to wear under a dress.  
 

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Recently bought not one but two pairs of shorts which turned out to be skorts!

They are above-the-knee and I can’t put them on without thinking about Teri having an “oh, that’s good / No, that’s bad” exchange with me.

Me:  Teri, I’m wearing shorts.

Teri: Oh, that’s bad!

Me: But they have a skirt over them.

Teri: Oh that’s good!

Me: But they don’t cover my knees.

Teri: Oh, that’s G-DLESS! 

 

[jegfile]

Talking about schedules... Steve and Teri give each grandchild exactly 2 1/2 hours on their birthdays. Wow. I am overcome by the way they generously share their time.

[Foudeb]

1:1 time is not a bad idea as these kids have so many siblings they'll be sharing adults' attention with. But God that comes across as robotic. 

Why not make it a sleepover for the older children?

And let them pick an activity that they want to do rather than having them all conform to the same format. An easy one could be to let them choose what they want for dinner and then go grocery shopping and cook it together. Or for the littles, pick a herb or vegetable (within reason) and plant it together in the garden. Then every time they visit they can check its growth. Maybe even come every day to water it! And then the year after that they can harvest it and eat it for their birthday meal! 

Or how about learning a craft. Making paper planes, origami, paper windmills etc for the littles... My grandmother taught me to knit and I still think of her every time I pick up my needles. That could work for the older ones. Or anything really - build your own kite, or bird feeder. Make a hair band. Learn to use the sewing machine with a simple project, like a tote bag or something. 

Or for the older children, just spend some time talking. What are their dreams. Are they worried about something. There are things that feel huge to little people that someone other than a parent (grandparent, godparent, teacher etc) can help them talk through. Even just pointing out that it's something their own parent struggled with at the same age can help. 

They've got 17 grandkids at the moment if my count is correct. Might Steve & Teri them some good to take the time to get to know them as individuals. 

[NoseyNellie]

20 minutes ago, jegfile said:

Talking about schedules... Steve and Teri give each grandchild exactly 2 1/2 hours on their birthdays. Wow. I am overcome by the way they generously share their time.

I agree that seemed a bit odd they way they wrote that.. In the past they made it out like it was an "overnighter" with grandparents.. this is like "we give you 530-800 for one on one attention, but ONLY at our house...They want to make it sound so special when they say all other time is with other children and this is individualized.. So why not go all out.. How hard is it to take them out to eat at the local family restaurant and let them experience this treat- pick your own kids meal, enjoy eating out, we can stop by a park and feed the ducks, play hopscotch etc.  OR eat at the borg but take a drive to the local ice cream stand?   In their sheltered experience it very likely that THIS is pretty special.. but when you want to write about it and share it as a major mind blowing event.. it comes across pretty lame...

[FluffySnowball]

I only check in on the Maxwell thread rather infrequently and just saw Anna Marie’s recent update. I’m glad to see she seems to take her treatment seriously and doesn’t skip the last chemo dose. 
Regarding the 2 1-2 hours Steve and Terri spend with each birthday child, their description is so odd it shouldn’t surprise me (still, it doesn’t fail to actually surprise me regardless). The family seems so devoid of real love and actual feelings. They talk about Jesus all day long, but they act like robots. That’s a sad environment to grow up in. 

[anachronistic]

1 measley candle in a single cookie does NOT a birthday celebration make! Lucky Christina got a little brownie and 1 kid got 2 whole cookies plus an appropriate number of candles but my goodness. Bananagrams, bible time and a single cookie is just plain sad. I hope the kids can laugh about this in 20 years but I somehow doubt it.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

2 hours ago, Foudeb said:

Or for the older children, just spend some time talking. What are their dreams. Are they worried about something. There are things that feel huge to little people that someone other than a parent (grandparent, godparent, teacher etc) can help them talk through. Even just pointing out that it's something their own parent struggled with at the same age can help.

Dreams? No--God determined your role at birth. You are either a mother or a father-to-be

Problems? None--lack of faith

Worries--None--Lack of faith.

Grandparents had FAITH, not struggles. Saying otherwise would deny the work the Lord has done in taking their mind off worldly nonsense.

Pass the Pepsi, I mean the pour-over-latte-coffee--drink-they-do-not-worship-like-a-life-raft in-the-ocean-if-Dad is around.

[Giraffe]

1 hour ago, anachronistic said:

1 measley candle in a single cookie does NOT a birthday celebration make! Lucky Christina got a little brownie and 1 kid got 2 whole cookies plus an appropriate number of candles but my goodness. Bananagrams, bible time and a single cookie is just plain sad. I hope the kids can laugh about this in 20 years but I somehow doubt it.

I won’t begrudge them this. They live such simple lives that the kids were probably thrilled by it. 

[kpmom]

Teri can say the birthday dinners last until about 8 o'clock all she wants, you just know they are pushing that kid towards the door at 7:59.

She also mentioned the birthday grandchild talks their upcoming dinner and indicates they are excited about it.  I cringed a little reading that because they had a whole Corners about taking birthdays away from their kids years ago if the kid seemed too excited about it and talked about it too much.  Seriously.

Maybe they've lightened up a little with the grands?  Hopefully?

[moreorlessnu]

Although the birthday celebrations are pitiful, is it possible that they have to end at 8pm because Steve gets tuckered out early in the evening due to his health issues? Yes, you could start dinner early but...Steve.

[FluffySnowball]

26 minutes ago, kpmom said:

I cringed a little reading that because they had a whole Corners about taking birthdays away from their kids years ago if the kid seemed too excited about it and talked about it too much.  Seriously.

Maybe they've lightened up a little with the grands?  Hopefully?

WTF??? Are you serious? I didn’t know. Do your or does anyone know where I can find info about Steve and Terri denying their own children their birthdays. Crazy and SICK! Normal parents want to see their children happy, excited, loving life. 

[Jana814]

8 minutes ago, FluffySnowball said:

WTF??? Are you serious? I didn’t know. Do your or does anyone know where I can find info about Steve and Terri denying their own children their birthdays. Crazy and SICK! Normal parents want to see their children happy, excited, loving life. 

They did do that. The older 3 were able to have and go to birthday parties. The younger 5 were not. Of all the stuff that Steve & Teri have denied their children this is one of the big ones that really bothers me. 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Jana814

[lilith]

Good god Steve looks gaunt in the latest pics. His diet may be helping his heart but it can’t be healthy to be this thin at his age, especially when he’s not naturally that slightly built.

The 2 1/2 hours of the grandchildren’s special birthday night includes bible time and dinner, which are probably scheduled for an hour each including dinner clean up, so they have a grand total of 30 minutes to play board games or play with their grandparents. 

[Bethy]

27 minutes ago, lilith said:

The 2 1/2 hours of the grandchildren’s special birthday night includes bible time and dinner, which are probably scheduled for an hour each including dinner clean up, so they have a grand total of 30 minutes to play board games or play with their grandparents. 

Or course - because Bible time (which they do every day, multiple times a day) is twice as important as games one night on a child's BIRTHDAY, so it should take twice as long.

 

[Jana814]

11 minutes ago, Bethy said:

Or course - because Bible time (which they do every day, multiple times a day) is twice as important as games one night on a child's BIRTHDAY, so it should take twice as long.

 

Of course. That is the only thing that Steve cares about. He wants to make sure his grandkids know that reading the Bible is more important then doing anything fun. A little fun & a ton of Bible. 

[Bethy]

2 hours ago, Jana814 said:

They did do that. The older 3 were able to have and go to birthday parties. The younger 5 were not. Of all the stuff that Steve & Teri have denied their children this is one of the big ones that really bothers me. 

Teri wrote somewhere (maybe in a Corner?) about homeschooling a difficult child and I think one of the things she recommended (my brain is fuzzy on the details) was giving the child a deadline by which to finish, ordering pizza for supper, and then calmly telling the dawdling child that he wouldn't be partaking because of not finishing school. I can't remember if the kid had to go without dinner or just eat something bland while the family all ate pizza in front of him (like the time Anna tattled on her brothers and got them in trouble when they were on the road, resulting in the brothers eating Wheat Thins for lunch in the van while the rest of the family went into Taco Bell and ate a more enjoyable and nutritious meal.) 

I know there was a dawdling child and pizza involved, and that the punishment was a bit of a suckerpunch - "Whoops, you didn't finish school yet. None for you!"

ETA: I looked it up and it wasn't quite as bad as I was remembering. Kid was always dawdling and could stare at his workbook for two hours and only finish a couple of problems (out of two required daily pages.) They weren't sure whether this was a learning disability or laziness so one night Steve sprang a "pizza in thirty minutes" announcement on the kids, and said that everybody who was done with school would have pizza, and anybody who wasn't done by the time the pizza arrived would have a sandwich alone later, when the work was done.

Still oddly controlling, and I hate how much they control everything about food and use it as punishment, but not quite such a suckerpunch.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Bethy

[usmcmom]

17 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

Recently bought not one but two pairs of shorts which turned out to be skorts!

They are above-the-knee and I can’t put them on without thinking about Teri having an “oh, that’s good / No, that’s bad” exchange with me.

Me:  Teri, I’m wearing shorts.

Teri: Oh, that’s bad!

Me: But they have a skirt over them.

Teri: Oh that’s good!

Me: But they don’t cover my knees.

Teri: Oh, that’s G-DLESS! 

 

I love skorts!  I think, when I was a little girl, they were called scooter skirts.  Or were those the shorts with a skirt panel on the front only. I loved those too.  
 

I am hoping to get back into my skorts before summer is over. Good thing summer never seems to end in Tennessee. 
 

Speaking of...Was there a pandemic I didn’t know about? Like, before COVID? Cause I’m pretty sure I gained fifteen pounds from that one too. 

[ElizaB]

1 hour ago, Bethy said:

Teri wrote somewhere (maybe in a Corner?) about homeschooling a difficult child and I think one of the things she recommended (my brain is fuzzy on the details) was giving the child a deadline by which to finish, ordering pizza for supper, and then calmly telling the dawdling child that he wouldn't be partaking because of not finishing school. I can't remember if the kid had to go without dinner or just eat something bland while the family all ate pizza in front of him (like the time Anna tattled on her brothers and got them in trouble when they were on the road, resulting in the brothers eating Wheat Thins for lunch in the van while the rest of the family went into Taco Bell and ate a more enjoyable and nutritious meal.) 

I know there was a dawdling child and pizza involved, and that the punishment was a bit of a suckerpunch - "Whoops, you didn't finish school yet. None for you!"

ETA: I looked it up and it wasn't quite as bad as I was remembering. Kid was always dawdling and could stare at his workbook for two hours and only finish a couple of problems (out of two required daily pages.) They weren't sure whether this was a learning disability or laziness so one night Steve sprang a "pizza in thirty minutes" announcement on the kids, and said that everybody who was done with school would have pizza, and anybody who wasn't done by the time the pizza arrived would have a sandwich alone later, when the work was done.

Still oddly controlling, and I hate how much they control everything about food and use it as punishment, but not quite such a suckerpunch.

So I do understand how it can be frustrating having a child just sit there doing nothing. I also do remember Teri saying when a kids takes forever her first step was to make sure the work wasn't just too difficult. I bet in this scenario they found out that the child in question really could complete their work in a reasonable amount of time. 

The wheat thin story always irked me. Especially because it happened in the middle of a really long car trip. Kids (and adults!) get crabby on car trips and you have to be understanding of that. 

[freejugar]

I hope the grandkids have an actual birthday at their house to make up for the time at Teri and Steve. I hope they come home to a birthday cake, snacks, balloons, gifts and fun. 

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by freejugar

[IReallyAmHopewell]

5 hours ago, kpmom said:

Teri can say the birthday dinners last until about 8 o'clock all she wants, you just know they are pushing that kid towards the door at 7:59.

She also mentioned the birthday grandchild talks their upcoming dinner and indicates they are excited about it.  I cringed a little reading that because they had a whole Corners about taking birthdays away from their kids years ago if the kid seemed too excited about it and talked about it too much.  Seriously.

Maybe they've lightened up a little with the grands?  Hopefully?

Maybe Christopher or Nathan or whoever said, "Do not do that to my child?" I doubt it, but maybe either that or possibly, Steve saw that it was a ridiculous thing to punish a kid for. I know Gothard did not want Birthdays celebrated at some point--maybe that changed? Remember the weird birthday song the Duggars sang? Yeah, that. Not about you. About God in you and how he's blessing you.

[FluffySnowball]

1 hour ago, freejugar said:

I hope the grandkids have an actual birthday at their house to make up for the time at Teri and Steve. I hope they come home to a birthday cake, snacks, balloons, gifts and fun. 

 

I hope so, too, but who are we kidding? I’m not sure the grown Maxwells would “stray” from how their parents abused raised them. 

[SPHASH]

So the birthday kid has Bible Time at Teri and Steve's then goes home and has Bible Time with their parents not to mention morning Bible time.  What a depressing life.  I bet the meal is as skimpy as the dessert.  None of the kids looked that thrilled

[FluffySnowball]

24 minutes ago, IReallyAmHopewell said:

Maybe Christopher or Nathan or whoever said, "Do not do that to my child?" I doubt it, but maybe either that or possibly, Steve saw that it was a ridiculous thing to punish a kid for. 

As I’ve said previously today, the Maxwells are a family I follow on here occasionally but I don’t know them particularly well.

So my question is whether such a dynamic (with a grown son setting some boundaries) seems likely. I can’t really imagine Steve doing what one of his sons wants him to do out of respect, but who knows... 

[kpmom]

Found it!  The Maxwells don't make it easy to search their site, but I was able to find the 2009 Corner on their birthday traditions (if you can call them that).

https://articles.titus2.com/celebrating-birthdays/

After you read it you'll see why I got a little nervous when Teri wrote how her grandkids get excited and talk about their upcoming birthday dinners. ?