ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

True, and sometimes people are just racist.

ha, that's fair.

we'd love to stay in boston. i love my job, our neighborhood is great, we have friends here, boston is a great city and it's super fun to live in the city. but the schools are pretty shitty and while there's a chance that J could get into one of the better public schools a lot of the process is fairly random afaik. we could take that chance but we might not get what we'd ideally want. private school is just too expensive too.

but tbh though i think one of the main reasons we probably won't stay here is the price of housing. we'd probably have to continue renting forever, and i guess that's an option, but there is something about the lack of stability that is somewhat scray. we simply can't afford a $400,000 home, and that seems like it's as good as it gets. for what we want (a modest 3 bedroom) it's more like $500,000 or $600,000. we could live in a shitty 2br condo for $300,000 but that's not super appealing.

feeling pretty much everything about marcos' post and we aren't anywhere near the school decision atm. trying to figure out how much we reasonably have to spend to get into a Newton starter house and hoping we can find something under $500K

I'm all for urban living with kids, but it seems like most people who do it still prefer low-rise/rowhousish neighborhoods that are closer to walkable suburbs. And I think that's understandable -- there's a certain constrained feeling you get walking around a very dense urban area that also has heavy car traffic (e.g. many manhattan neighborhoods), like you almost have to have a small child on a leash. There is something to be said for yards, woods, space, also for having a place on your own property where your child can play outside unattended. Whatever though, I mean, obviously lots more people ARE choosing to live in cities with kids than a couple decades ago, it's a widely noted trend.

The other thing is that certain cities (NYC, SF etc.) are getting very expensive to live in with kids -- choosing a neighborhood for us felt like this insane and exhaustive process of matrixing various factors and it really felt like there was only one neighborhood we could find that was within a good commute of our jobs, relatively safe, with good schools, and affordable to us, and it lacks a lot of other things we'd like.

eh sometimes the schools are just shitty too

― marcos, Thursday, November 20, 2014 1:45 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

True, and sometimes people are just racist.

― carl agatha, Thursday, November 20, 2014 1:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you send your kids to school in a newly gentrifying area where most of the students are low-income, whatever race, they are probably gonna deal with some shit that they wouldn't deal with in an affluent school. I say this as someone who went to a totally affluent public elementary, a "mixed" jr. high with lots of bussing, and a magnet high school with pretty much everything from all over the city, and also from my wife's experience teaching in both in one of the poorest neighborhoods in America and in a slightly less poor(and now starting to gentrify) neighborhood. This can vary widely in what it means, and it in no way means you should never do this, but I think it's a bad idea to put on blinders about it.

There is something to be said for yards, woods, space, also for having a place on your own property where your child can play outside unattended

seriously. i mean in nice weather we basically just to playgrounds and parks, all we do is spend time outside w/ J.

In regards to school, as long as it is average to good, I'm fine with it. Any school that my daughter goes to in the city will be many times better than the elementary and high school I went to. And she'll probably be smart enough to figure everything out.

Yeah my baseline is not super high, it's mostly "Is she going to feel physically safe?" "Does orderly learning take place in the classrooms?" "Do they have adequate supplies and equipment?" "Will she not have to feel like the only ___ kid in the school?" "Are the teachers mostly competent, and are the classes not so large that she'll get lost in them?"

WE ARE IN THE NINE-MONTHS SHOUTY PHASE AND HAVE JUST THIS WEEK MOVED FROM A HOUSE TO A FLAT AND OUR NEW NEIGHBOURS MUST REALLY LOVE US KILL ME NOW

Anyone have any suggestions on how to learn to do a little girl's hair, being as I'm the one dressing her every morning? I've actually found trying to make K look nice (buying stuff for her, choosing outfits) to be an unexpected pleasure of dadhood,

Yes! Obviously i missed out not playing with dolls. But Ella won't let us tie her increasingly long hear back. "No ponytail!"

I find myself actually taking a bunch of items out and laying them against each other, trying to find the very ensemble. Maybe some of it is just a matter of not understanding girls clothes as well but I get sort of perfectionist about it. I even look at daycare photos to make sure she is the most stylin kid.

Awww so sweet!, Hurting! I wish I could dress August and fix her hair but it's a fight. Trying to explain dressing for colder weather. Last week was bad. This week she actually puts on outfits I put together and I have hidden some her favorite warmer weather clothing. The kid has strong opinions about what she wears and has for awhile now. She screams and cries if you try to put her in something she does not approve of. What does she approve of? A witches hat and a Disney/Cinderella pj top over purple pants that are a bit to big still. What she doesn't approve of: gorgeous red flannel shirt over tiny skinny jeans with a terrific sweater that looks like it cost a small fortune that knitted for her with lil cowboy boots. I got her to finally sign off on that and she had a good experience in it so hope she will wear it again. I was looking forward to dressing my child until she was at least five.

Jeff otm re schools

I love livin in the city, haven't regretted it yet. I'm fortunate that my wife hates the suburbs as much as I do, every time we have to spend more than a day in one we start to go a little crazy

somehow managed to get our oldest in to our first choice of schools. it's had it's drawbacks (ie a crappy kindergarten teacher with old-timers syndrome) but nothing that is specifically rooted in its urban milieu. I mean, she hasn't been stabbed by a crackhead yet.

protip: Uniqlo is great for little kid clothing -- stylish, cheap, quality doesn't matter too much bc they outgrow it so quick, and the "heattech" stuff is great for winter.

I didn't know Uniqlo had kids' clothes!

Man they have great cheap socks.

Congratulations scik.

I am currently holding the recently born 9lb 12oz Cecil

OMG!

That's a huge baby!

But that's not what the OMG was for - that was my EXCITEMENT about CECIL and YOU and THE MRS.! This is such great news!

Thanks. It's been a crazy day; birth mom is spent, adoptive mom and dad are realizing that we spent 10 years trying to have a baby and suddenly have to figure out what to actually do with one.

ime right now feed, change, and hold him a lot.

When does he get to go home?

We've got to be in the hospital for 24 hours. Gonna hang around for a couple days at least until the legal stuff clears on Monday

yay joygoat!! so exciting for u!!

This is great news to wake up to, congratulations! My grandad was called Cecil - he'd have been 102 in four days' time.

!

Yaay congratulations!
I didn't know all that much about taking care of a baby either but it's amazing how many people who love you do and will offer you many pro tips :)

Congrats joygoat! Cecil is a great name.

WELCOME TO THE CLUB

Awesome. An already-epic journey now begins for real.

Great, great news, Joygoat!!! Congratulations!!!!!!!!

Do any of you have pediatricians that you love? Why do you love him/her? I'm trying to figure out whether my expectations are reasonable as far as how pediatricians's offices work. We've decided to switch from our current doctor (for reasons that make me feel like the worst kind of Yelp reviewer if I were to lay out the situation, but I think is probably justified?), and the new doctor is closer to our house so we'll probably be willing to put up with some annoyance for the sake of logistical convenience, but I guess I'm wondering if that's just the way it is.

Some of my concerns about the current practice -
They are really quick to recommend CAM-type stuff that a quick internet search reveals is not supported by evidence (certain colic remedies, bovine colustrum, probiotics)
The NP we saw last told us we needed to stop using fluoride toothpaste with Ivy even though the ADA says it's a good idea - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/dental-group-advises-fluoride-toothpaste-before-age-2/?_r=0
Front desk staff is craaaaaaanky as fuck. Also stop calling me "Mom," especially if you are scolding me about something.
In at least one case, the doctor basically said that the NP diagnosed/treated Ivy wrong, which is a bummer but shouldn't he be reviewing her office visit notes rather than waiting for me to call with a follow up question?
They are not good at returning calls.
The office is pretty grungy. And I've used the bathroom twice and it was pretty gross both times.

I love our pediatrician. She is a friend of a college friend (and, hilariously, a fellow alum who was a year ahead of me) and knows her shit up and down. Oh and also she is head of the pediatric practice at MGH.

The one whose practice we're leaving is the father of a friend's college classmate (very, very occasional ILX poster sisut, who also takes her kiddo there). ILXors dan m. and joygoat might also know him. I'm sorry I'm leaving the pediatrics practice of the father of someone you might know from college, dan m. and joygoat. He seems like a nice person but he should clean his office bathroom more and stop telling me to buy weird supplements for my child.

Just tell Dr. K to become a pediatrician too. Problem solved.

All of those reasons you listed sound pretty valid.

We've gone to the same place since Beeps was born in 2007. It's easy to get an appointment. The wait isn't usually too long. The waiting room and bathrooms are clean and big. The nurses are wonderful to our suddenly-shy kids while they're measuring and weighing them. We have our "regular" who gets his name on all of our emergency school sheets, but in reality, we get a rotation of four or five doctors (and a Welsh guy who's pretty much a doctor except for some international confusion, from what I gather.) All of them excellent.

It's one of the few times in this whole experience where we walked up to the plate and hit a home run on the first pitch. Might be the only instance.

Thank you for the validation. I have a tendency to stick with a known quantity, especially if I don't have anything better to compare it to, so it's nice to hear some other perspectives.

The current place has one doctor and a bunch of NPs. The new place has a bunch of doctors and two NPs. I love nurse practitioners, do not get me wrong, but I think I will like having more doctors a little better.

another plus about our peds practice is that a former ILXor works there (marianna lcl, I mentioned running into her in the ER a couple of months ago)

No ILXors at ours, though I have wondered about the Welshman.

We get a little put off at times when all they do is prescribe some antibiotics for an ear infection. Like, don't you all have some kitty cocaine she could take or something?

But in the whole long run of things, it's probably a positive mark on their part that they don't go nuts with the prescriptions or try to suggest further testing.

They've got these neat mobile tablets they run around the building with. Only bad part - and I don't hold this agains the doctors - is that there are like 3 Walgreens within a mile of the hospital and they always get the wrong one.

yeah, don't go to healthcare providers that don't practice evidence-based medicine.
And no, MDs do not usually review (nor is there any legal obligation to) NPs notes. NPs in IL can and do practice independently.

Okay that's good to know about the NPs.

The CAM stuff really bugs me. The doc recommends bovine colostrum or whatever, and I think to myself, "Hmmm, that sounds like so much nonsense" and I look it up, and there's like just enough possibility that it does something that I feel like I'm being a bad mom if I don't get it, because the doctor said I should, and I should trust my doctor, right??!?!?!?!???????

Anyway, Ivy's scheduled for her second flu shot next month, because it will be easier to finish up her 12 month shots at the same doctor, I figure, and then we're jumping ship.

There are a lot of crackhead MDs out there, for real. I see NPs for everything I can.

One thing that does kind of annoy me is how freely pediatricians seem to dole out clearly non-medical parenting advice -- what to do about sleep habits, how to potty train, etc.

they probably dole it out because they get asked about that shit all the time by confused first-time parents tbf

I've been a confused first-time parent for four days now and have the first pediatrician appointment tomorrow, where I guarantee I will end up asking about a bunch of non-medical things like sleep habits. And how I am terrified that his umbilical stump is going to get infected and that he is going to have every disease ever because I am exhausted and insane right now.

He's my doctor too so I trust him and he's a big nerd who draws graphs and stuff to explain things which I am thankful for.

And carl I have no idea who your doctor might be. I grew up down the street from k8e and not far from dan m but never really hung out with them until after everyone was done with college.

Xp yeah reasonable. I think I am just annoyed by our first experience where the practice was part of sort of a citywide brand name practice and the head doctor was pushing his book, so I felt like they were pushing a lot of parenting method stuff on us that I didn't like.

Ohhhh yeah that's pretty gross. Our current-soon-to-be-former ped emailed us a power point presentation about how to care for a newborn that we actually found really useful. He also gave us good advice about encouraging Ivy to sleep through the night, which was great because we were coming out of NICU land where you intentionally wake babies up to eat every four hours.

These people:

https://www.tribecapediatrics.com/

they tell you you should have your kids cry it out at three months even if you don't ask