Couple of Questions - Kyle,TX

As you know I'm also in Texas. We wash washcloths every time, but towels are washed once a week. We handle food just like you.

Generally, washcloths are used just once. They are used for washing and hold some dirt/bacteria even if you rinse them.

Towels that are used to dry off a clean body are used a few times before washing. We just hang them over a bar to dry in between uses.

I like trying new foods and recipes, so long as it does not contain peppers or shellfish. My husband and kids all eat peppers and/or shellfish though.

Bath towels maybe once a week. I mean, I'm clean when I come out of the shower. Hand towels more often.

I will eat just about anything. Yes, I tried to encourage this in my kids.

Aging does weird things to people. If this is the worst you get from them, that's not so bad.

I can't imagine washing towels that often. Good God, there's a water shortage and a major environmental issue! Why would people wash something that they use only when they are perfectly clean?

I wash underwear and socks after each wearing (although I usually do bras in the sink for very gentle agitation and then I line dry- they last longer). I wash sweaty shirts and things I wear to the gym after each wearing. Things I wear "on top" - jeans, shorts, nice shirts when I didn't sweat, pajamas, etc. - get worn more than once.

On the food thing - sometimes older people get set in their ways, and they feel they've raised their kids to try foods and they don't have to do it themselves. Your stepmother may be imitating him, or they may make a good couple because they are so similar. I'd go to unique or ethnic restaurants without them. I think it's a little immature of them to make faces at food - I think they should just decline to share food. If you enjoy their company, go to "safe" places with them so a "food fight" doesn't get in the way. They are picking chains because they know exactly what they're going to get. My father always stayed in Holiday Inns, ordered the same cocktail, and ate at 3-4 "dependable" restaurants for his entire adult life. He rarely traveled because the unfamiliar made him anxious.

I don't know how old your father is, but you should be prepared for the fact that people sometimes cling to the familiar if they are starting to get into dementia or Alzheimer's. It sort of grounds them.

As people age their taste buds change. Some people like spicier foods because taste buds get less sensitive and some others get to a point where different and new foods upset their digestive track. I'm only 56 but I can get flat out diarrhea from eating a new food. My body isn't liking it so I don't do it.

Plus, if SHE isn't cooking different foods at home for him but has a bland palette then he's gotten used to that sort of food.

It's hard to realize our parents are aging. When I think about how old I am I don't feel old, really I'm not "that" old.

BUT then I see a person on FB or at the Y or at church and I think they must be 75 or 80 or something and they're barely 60. Then I feel old.

Towels - weekly, even when I lived in Texas.

Trying new food / adventure with your dad and SM.....you just shed a whole new light on the role reversal that happens with aging and losing one's desire to try new things, losing one's curiosity, losing one's open mindedness.....basically, yep, they're growing old and narrow, fragile and childlike....that is a very interesting observation that I've never articulated before but have witnessed numerous times. Parents raising kids to try new foods, but then regress to eating only their favorites as elders.

We use towels, hang them on the shower rod to dry, and reuse them, and keep reusing them until they start to smell funky.

I love to try new foods, but one of the advantages of being an adult is that I don't have to eat foods I don't like, and no one can make me.

I encouraged my child to try new foods, but I didn't make her eat things she didn't like.

1. Towels - weekly. Hand towels and wash cloths more frequently (as needed).

2. Yes - kids are supposed to try something before deciding they don't want any.

How did you offer them the food to try? Was it on your fork across the table? That's not my thing either. If I want some, I'll take my own fork and cut off a little bit to try. I know sounds silly, but I find being fed in public a bit funny :)

We live just outside of DC. Today we are in a heat advisory. It's about 97 degrees outside and the humidity is at 80%. It's nasty.

We wash our towels twice a week. Pool towels get hung and used a couple of times before they are washed. If we go to the lake? Washed SAME DAY!! EEEWWW to the smell..

My kids try new things.

I don't like raisins, so I will NOT fix anything with raisins in it. My kids have to try something before they say they don't like it.

My dad is visiting now. I swear he tries new things all the time. He hasn't changed!! He doesn't like getting stuck in a rut. If he sees something on a menu that gets his salivary glands up and moving? He's on it. He tried some sweet chili the other day....I just made him my first ever peach cobbler!!

I don't think you are grumpy per-se but you are seeing things/traits that you don't want your kids to pick up on.

i don't use a washcloth (i like the lacy nylon sproingy thingies) but my dh does. he usually uses the same one for a week. we reuse towels until they hold the damp or have a odor. they're generally good for 3 showers or so. so we usually use 2 towels each per week. and then, of course, more hand and dish and pool towels.
i think it's very different to encourage kids to try new foods than to expect elderly people to do so. kids haven't experienced much in the world and need to be noodged a bit to open their horizons. it strikes me as a wee bit condescending to offer bites to people who know their own palates and be disappointed because they stick to what they know they like.
but like you, i do notice my dad, who is 82, getting more and more childlike about certain things. and my in-laws, 83, are entirely passive at this point.
i think the 80s are hard.
khairete
S.

I wash my bath towels after about 3 uses.

I love to try new ethnic foods, but when it comes to picking a dish at restaurants I've been to before, I usually end up ordering the same thing.

We throw out towels/washouts in the chute every 2-4 days. Depends.
Poufs? 1/week

I've got a kid that eats everything and tries (a huge bite) of anything. Loves to try new foods.
I never made him "kid stuff." He always had what we had for dinner/meals.
He's a far more adventurous eater than either of us!
Never battled over food. Never forced him to sit and eat. There it is. Like it? Eat it. Want more? Fine. Done? You're excused.
Not hungry? Fine. Don't like it? (Rare!) have a sandwich or a bowl of soup or cereal.

I can relate to the heat you experience since I live in Florida, it’s not always humid here but it is very hot this time of year.

I wash the towels weekly and change them every few days. I don’t like wasting water and energy to do wash every day.

I had to chuckle reading about your dad. I think when people get older they start to act more like kids. As long as he is happy, you should be too.

My kid will always try new stuff without giving me a hard time, my step kids never like trying new things, but they are getting better at it now that they are older.

1) towels and bedding get washed once a week.
Using something once and tossing it in the wash is a waste of soap and water plus the items get worn out from all the washing and you'll have to buy replacements much more quickly than you otherwise would have needed to.

2) sure - trying new things is great.
But older folks tastes change - and so does their digestion.
My Mom is almost 80 and can only eat tiny amounts of very bland food.
It's one thing for a kid to try something new but for an adult - they've been there, done that, got the lobster bib - and by now have a pretty good idea what they like, don't like and what disagrees with their stomachs.
For the record - I loved green peppers but they no longer love me .
Eating them (raw or cooked) gives me a very acid stomach and I get very gassy.
So it's no wonder that I now avoid them.

We wash our towels every 3-4 days. Pool towels I wash daily. As far as food we all love trying new food. Even my kids. For what it's worth as my father has gotten older he seems less likely to enjoy trying new things or especially sharing food in restraunts. In fact he's really not into sharing or treating at all any more. :) It does seem like the older he's getting the more younger/child like he seems at times. (Forgets things, less patient, less into sharing, trying new things, etc) I think people do change with age and it's a little sad when you see it's happening to your folks. You just have to work with it though. Because it's just the way it is.

I use a fresh face cloth everytime I wash my face and we use a fresh towel each time we shower. I have a special towel I'll wrap my hair in when wet. If I'm not home, I use 2 towels ( 1 hair, 1 body). I have a boatload of towels and I usually wash them at least every other day.

I keep a stash of old towels we call "dog towels" for everyday messes with dogs, etc. We always have 3-4 extra dog towels in our cars.

We do like to try new things. You never know what you might be missing!!

Towels and washcloths get used once. The previous person's towel will end up on the floor for the next person so the floor isn't slippery for them. They also get used to wipe down the counters and sometimes the mirror quickly before getting tossed into the garage to wash. We gave up on rugs in the bathroom because they were always wet and gross. If more than one of us is getting showered sometimes the washcloth is used for more than one shower in the same day but not always. I don't have room in my bathrooms to have 5+ towels hanging up at all times to dry and not get gross. They wouldn't dry.
My entire family loves trying new foods! I grew up with a huge variety and all sorts of ethnic foods. My dad grew up moving around all the time in a military family and we traveled too. My mom loved trying to cook new things all the time. My husband did a lot of travel with his family as well and his parents love cooking and try all sorts of things. When my husband and I had kids we treated food as something enjoyable. We never made a big deal of anything. From the time they could begin eating solids we offered tastes of whatever we were eating and skipped a lot of the pre-made, pre-packaged baby food which has very little taste or texture. We rarely, if ever, order food for them from the kids menus. We order off the adult menu and share meals since the portions are always too big, even for an adult. When they were little we'd put their portion of food on my plate and I'd feed them a little at a time so they couldn't make a mess. They saw me eating all the same foods off the same plate. One of my daughter's favorite foods before she was even 1 was curry. We gave her a little of the rice with some of the curry sauce and cut up some of the chicken into bite sizes and mushed up some of the veggies. We always say you can't know that you don't like something if you don't try it. My husband and I are always trying new things so they see us as an example. Instead of playing up that it's a "new food", we simply put it in front of them and say this is XYZ (whatever it is), here is a little bit to try. My kids know that I don't like some things, they also know that there are some foods I can't eat because I'm allergic. But I never make a big deal of it. We always point out that there are going to be some foods you don't like but you'll never know it unless you try and you might be missing out on a new food that you love if you don't try. There are going to be more foods that you like then foods that you don't like.

Towels-- we're in Portland, which isn't quite as hot and humid (although this summer is making us who like it cooler a bit exasperated and wilty)-- I usually wash Kiddo's towel after each use (we don't have a towel rack for him, small bathroom) and the adults, about 2-3 times a week.

Trying food- personally, I'm not one to make my son try things he's not ready to. He will if he's interested. I don't force it and it's not like he just eats processed foods-- he likes the veggies and fruits and foods he likes and so we just sort of work with that. I figure with kids-- there are very few things in life they can gracefully say no to, but this is one I just don't press. Which means, also, no faces or comments about what we adults are enjoying, just a simple "no thank you" is fine. I am very confident that, like myself, his palate will grow more sophisticated as life and friends expose him to new foods. I don't need him to like what I like right now.

I can see why you found the faces and comments a bit off-putting, though. At one of my husband's company dinners years ago, a woman who sat near us just made faces and comments about the food (Greek), which was wonderful. We all just kept ordering more wine and wishing she'd stop acting like a whiny toddler. ugh!

We only wash towels once a week, unless they seem dirty or smelly before that.

I expose my kids to lots of different food, and encourage them to try, but I don't make them try.

My parents always made me try new foods, but they were foods that were new to me, not new to my parents. My parents were pretty set in their ways when it came to food. I never tried any ethnic foods at home. Spaghetti was the most exotic ethnic meal we had. We ate meat, potatoes and vegetables. Sometimes pasta. Not even rice. I love to try new food now, and there isn't much I don't like.

towels get used 3 showers before they get thrown in the pile. pile towels get used to step out of the shower onto or as a mop to clean up the floods that my children love to make. after that they are washed.

i am open to new foods and will try just about anything. dh is always skeptical of new stuff and rarely ever tries new stuff (but he also has food allergies that he has to be careful of) so is less adventurous. dd is like me and will try anything ds will do it if daddy does.

I remember so well as a child that we had to try everything on the plate. There were certain things that I'd just sit at the table for until my mom knew I really wasn't going to eat it. Broccoli, spinach, turnip greens, asparagus, brussel sprouts and califlower were what I just couldn't eat. I tried, but I couldn't. I could eat cooked cabbage with butter. She stopped requiring it of me.

When I was in college, I went to an important banquet and there was broccoli with cheese sauce all over it and I made myself eat it. Turns out I could because of the cheese! I actually learned to like it without the cheese and taught my kids to eat it, telling them that they were eating "little trees" and they thought that was cool. I also like asparagus, but my kids don't care for it. I have never served them greens, turnip greens or brussel sprouts. Blech!

I didn't push my kids to eat what they didn't want to eat. They still have pretty varied palates because we've traveled to so many places in the world.

My mom is careful of her diet, but eats lots of different vegetables. She likes "healthy" stuff without a lot of sauces. And she loves salads. My FIL will eat about anything. They are both in their 80's. But I SO understand what you are saying, when the parents turn into the children. I see that with both of them in so many ways, especially my mother.

About the towels - we wash them twice a week. There's a lot of humidity where I live and my towels are pretty thick. I never throw them into a hamper - they'd smell bad if I did. I learned in college that I'd be forever washing clothes if I washed them everyday.

#1 -- I wash our bath towels every week. They hang dry after showers. Other towels that get used more - like kitchen hand towels or bathroom hand towels -- get changed out every day or two.

#2 -- Yes, I do expect my kids to try new things and I enjoy trying new things. I do tell the kids if I don't care for something, and it's ok not to like it, but you have to at least try it.

My mom is like your dad. I took her to a sushi restaurant where she ordered the fully cooked chicken teriyaki. She said it was "different" and I know this meant bad. I see as they get older, they like what is expected. Not sure why this is. Maybe I'll tell you in 20+ years :)