ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

haha wait how did I not know your brother has twins too that is nuts

My wife's mother and her husband came to visit when the baby was only a week or two old which was way too early, though to be fair he was two weeks late.

It was incredibly awful and actually much worse than being alone - her husband is an idiot man-child who is utterly useless and disinterested in the kid and only into doing bullshit chores that sound fun to him, like trimming a shitload of branches from a tree in our yard with no plan for getting rid of the car-sized pile of waste meaning I had to wrangle a friend's truck and spend a day making several trips to the landfill while my MiL tiptoes around trying ineffectively to play peacemaker and trying to stay "out of our way" when we had hoped to work her like a mule while she was here. Just shitty all around. My parents are coming out in late January which is a better time and they're far more accommodating and willing to help out.

All three of our families live within 10 miles of each other but 2000 miles from us so if one set was around sadly all of them would be, not sure it'd be worth it.

that's brutal joygoat, man i am feeling you there

Any other dads experience some subtle discrimination at work for being involved dads? Turns out I do.

Oh shit? Really?

I mean, my colleagues always assume to not like, invite me out to happy hour or weekend gatherings or whatever, but it's an informed assumption.

(man alive, who are you?)

(also, LOL)

(LOLing at "Man alive! Who are you??!?!?!?" and not the discrimination you are dealing with.)

Man alive, there's men alive in there.

fist-bump, joygoat.
When I was in hospital a day or 2 after having my baby, my dad came to visit with my mum (who was staying with us already). He came back to the house for the evening, with my husband, before going home, and in those few hours managed to:
- mess with all the central heating settings my husband had carefully set up
- mess with the settings for the TV/DVD etc that we'd just put together after renovating
- turn off the extractor fan in the bathroom without telling anyone so they all thought it was broken
causing a headache for my husband who was already massively stressed out.

dad's an electrician and is always doing this kind of thing (apparently he does it at other people's houses so it's a real psychological black spot) but the previous time he came up I'd warned him hundreds of times to please NOT TOUCH ANYTHING because we were haflway through renovations. He just laughed and said that was like a red rag to him. ffs.

I mean, my colleagues always assume to not like, invite me out to happy hour or weekend gatherings or whatever, but it's an informed assumption.

I've gotten kind of sick of turning down invites to after-work things from my younger coworkers tbh, who have no conception of what "I have to be home by 5pm so I can see my kids and eat dinner and put them to bed" constitutes

A couple I know who are childless but nonetheless as sedate, non-social and middle-aged as any parent, invited myself and my family over for New Years Eve. I accept. He says "what about the children? (aged 4 and 8). I say that they won't make it to midnight probably but we can just leave earlier. He says "oh well, let's just forget it then". UNINVITED!

I like to still get invites to social things. I can turn them down, no problem, but I don't like when people assume I automatically can't make it.

Basically found out that two supervisors, a male and a female, have a problem with me because they think I too often have to come in slightly late or leave slightly early for childcare reasons. They have also both made various comments to the effect that it should be my wife handling these things more often, or else I should "get better childcare." Co-worker has experienced similar. Worth noting I am salaried, not hourly, and work late/weekends regularly.

assholes

yeah pretty much

Was couched in "everyone gives you good feedback and says your work is good, but" so not really sure what their issue is

what a couple of fuckers

They are terrible managers. Is your HR department worth anything? You might bring this to their attention. You can pitch it as "Hey, just doing you guys a favor because I wouldn't want the company to be open to liability..."

But on your behalf and on behalf of wives who handle plenty, thanks, fuck those assholes.

yeah my wife does handle plenty, for real, plus what the fuck business do they have, etc.

We're too small to really have a proper channel to deal with this sort of thing, unfortunately.

you should definitely bring it up to your supervisors. comments like that are worth calling out. you can do it politely but firmly and unless they are really shitty people (which might be the case) they will probably back off.

the part immediately following "unless"

plus they are old and set in their ways

shit like that would make me update my resume

I mean, my colleagues always assume to not like, invite me out to happy hour or weekend gatherings or whatever, but it's an informed assumption

I get the opposite: "why can't you come out?" "Because I have to pick up the kids, take them home and feed them dinner." "Oh, you still doing that?"

"we won't stay long and we won't be any trouble!"
Look unless you're happy to share a single ikea chair between you and watch me sit with my boobs out, leaking milk everywhere and crying at adverts then gtfo

Oh ffs, my dad has done it again. Not the same thing but my husband is actually on the verge of tears because of how awkward he's made everything.

Oh kinder how frustrating and awful. <3

Oh it's stupid stuff really but just not what we need! Guy needs his own thread tbh

Well and I mean now of all times considering!

Would read his own thread tbh.

Finalized the adoption today which was shockingly fast as he's only 38 days old. There were no legal obstacles and I think it was just easier for a lot of things to do it before the end of the year. Only took a four and a half minute phone call with a judge and our attorney and he slept through the whole thing.

Legally his last name is a portmanteau of the first syllable of my last name and the last two syllables of my wife's last name which has been what a lot of friends have called us collectively since we got married 13 years ago. Only my wife's grandfather has given us any shit about it yet but I expect it to cause some weird issue at some point which I'm prepared to deal with.

Congratulations, joygoat family! Glad it went smoothly.

Wow, wonderful! Congratulations!

congrats!

hurrah!

Yay super ilx adoptive (and non-adoptive) parents! Which makes me wonder what became of haikunym???

congrats!

CONGRATS (also you lucky dog, we had an eight month lag between taking custody and finalizing)

Thanks everyone. We thought it was going to be at least six months between which would have been nice as we would thought we'd pay half the fees up now and half six months later but instead had to do it all at once which was kind of harsh but it's over with. Getting it done before the end of the year should make all the tax stuff easier. Thanks Republican congress for making the adoption tax credit non-refundable you pro-family fucks.

We know some other people who started at the agency at the same time and I think we're the only ones to finalize so far. One poor couple had the birth dad take off because he had a warrant and they haven't been able to find him - they have to publish three notices looking for him in the local paper over a couple months before they can terminate his rights (because everyone knows sketchy absentee fathers with warrants out for burglary often consult the legal notices section of daily newspapers). Our parental legal stuff has been great and super easy.

Thanks Republican congress for making the adoption tax credit non-refundable you pro-family fucks.

This cannot be said enough times.

When I step-parent adopted my oldest kid, his biological father was in federal prison and wouldn't sign/return any of the paperwork that we mailed to him to terminate his rights. We were never sure how much of it was out of laziness and how much was out of spite. She had had him arrested for dv and was later a character witness against him at his federal trial (on a different charge). Months passed and we were very worried that he wouldn't sign at all. Eventually, the paralegal from our firm drove to the guy's prison, a few states away, to try to get him to sign in person. Thankfully, that worked.

I've discovered the most amazing parenting technique recently, one I would almost call a "hack." My 3-year-old daughter is obsessed with queens, and has gotten to that phase where she always wants to wear her "queen" dress and crown in the house. So any time I want her to do something I just address her as "Queen K___" and speak in an exaggeratedly formal manner and a quasi-british accent, as though I'm her attendant.

"Queen K, it is of the utmost urgency that we brush the royal teeth. Please come to the sink at once."
"Queen K, the frigid temperature requires that we put on our coats at once"

etc. Totally changes her attitude toward me and she becomes completely compliant.

Hehe, awesome. May the trick continue to work for many weeks :)

F had broken his new year's resolution to sleep through the night by 3.30am. Honestly, that baby has no willpower.

kids today smdh

It's already wearing off :(

Sleep is a problem again, trip fucked up everything, we caved and let her sleep on her travel bed next to our bed for the moment.

Potty training has been awesome, but over the holiday she made us get rid of her little potty chair because she only wants to use the big one and I'm so sad you guys.

http://rockonmommies.com/rachael/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/pTRU1-4901658dt.jpg

i couldn't get our potty out of the house fast enough, another thing to clean/spill/get underfoot - SEE YA

Yeah, and I hated cleaning up after her and sanitizing it too. By those measures this is a positive. But it was so cute and puffy and the right size for her. The big toilet is cold and hard and blah white (like this cruel world I have brought her into) and she has to awkwardly prop herself up on it to keep from falling in. She loves it - so proud to be a big kid. What can you do? They grow up so fast. *sobs*

she is proud/happy etc! it's win-win!