ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

The gender thing is weird because it's not like I assiduously avoid putting Ivy in clothes that signal gender. Quite the opposite, actually, since her grandparents buy like 85% of her clothes and they are definitely into dressing a little girl, but a lot of her clothes aren't pink or are shades of pink other than BABY GIRL PINK. So like she'll be wearing these brown and sort of raspberry pink striped pants, or like blue pants with sparkly hearts on them, but people will still call her "he" because her clothes aren't pink pink. I don't know. I have a lot of time to think about this on the bus, especially now that the ride is like twice as long due to road construction.

You know, joygoat, I also think that when you and a baby spend a lot of time looking at each others faces, you and the baby start making the same facial expressions, which can make you look alike to the casual observer. Also: C has fantastic eyebrows, FYI.

Weird, I've twice typed out a post about having to explain my adoption situation to other people in casual conversation, but I seem to always navigate away from the page before I post it! Arg. Anyway, just want to say I feel you joygoat.

Adoption has made things weirdest in our hospital visits, when all of these fresh-faced interns start asking us our personal medical histories and we have to be like "oh, they're adopted" and then it immediately goes to "oh, so you don't know the birth parents' histories at all then" and we're all "birth father no, but here's a novel about the birth mother"

Yeah, I've been wondering about our kid's biofather's family medical history too. That's completely out of our reach now. Best we can probably do is genetic testing at some point, as that becomes more consumer-friendly.

the gender thing is very weird. J used to have really long hair, we never really cut it except for his bangs to keep it out of his eyes, but we dress him in very boyish clothes and almost daily strangers would say "what an adorable little girl!!" etc

the other day at the playground i saw a 5 or 6 year-old wearing very baggy, boyish clothes with super long, uncombed hair and i totally thought it was a boy. since i was tired of everyone thinking J was a girl just b/c of the long hair, i decided to compliment the kid's dad by saying "i love it when boys have long hair, J used to have it too" and the dad corrected me and i felt like an idiot and apologized and i have now decided never to say shit like this again.

It's also interesting when people will assume Ivy is a boy, and then ask her name, and I'll tell them and then they just keep on like Ivy is a boy's name. Which I guess it can be? I don't know. Like I said, I really don't care (nor does Ivy at this point) other than not wanting people to get angry at me about it.

Speaking of confusing people with your kid's gender, I'm the one with the truck:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3132/3151634529_e573fed07b_z.jpg

Except for the tube top and tan lines, everyone looks pretty androgynous in that picture.

haha that is such a great picture

We've been struggling lately with keeping the house clean, our apartment is filthy and we have no time during the week to do anything beyond basic maintenance (laundry, washing dishes, etc.) so we end up having to do crazed cleaning on the weekend to try and catch up and even then the apartment's a wreck again by Tuesday.

Yeah, I seriously love that picture. It was taken in Little Rock, Arkansas. Where's pplains?

NA, it sounds like you could use a house cleaning service. Even if they came in once/month it would help.

house cleaning service is a good idea, we don't use one and struggle like NA. just cooking and cleaning the kitchen after is often like a 2-3 hour affair, seems impossible to do and also put the kids to bed and get to sleep ourselves.

my folks are in town right now and they are so helpful. they asked us for a list of recipes we like and a list of chores to do and every day i come home from work to a clean house and a home-cooked meal, it is amazing. my wife and i are terrified about what it will be like when they leave. before they came laundry would sit in the washer for three days, the dryer for another 3 days, then unfolded in a basket for another week.

we have someone come in every other week, which is the only thing keeping us from being the most disgusting humans alive

how much does it cost per cleaning

We use Merry Maids. Deep clean "scrub it 'til it bleeds" sessions (like once every 6 months/year) = $250, biweekly cleanings are $100

Our budget is pretty tight right now but figuring out a cleaning service might be necessary.

You know what my family really needs? A laundry folding service. What we've got right now is a pile. It's all of our clothes in two laundry baskets but stacked 3-4 feet high above the baskets and frequently toppling over onto the floor.

we have someone come in every other week, which is the only thing keeping us from being the most disgusting humans alive

^^^

We use a local place called Best Maids that is similarly priced.

xxxxpost - I'm adopted and I've gotten the "you look so much like your dad" thing many times in my life, even from lots of people (extended family) who should know better. It does feel weird to correct them.

btw I'd forgotten what a nightmare teething can be until this week, as J appears to have completely lost his goddamned mind

every night around 11:30, he bolts himself awake and starts screaming at the top of his lungs, to the point where I'm expecting someone on the sidewalk to call the police about the obvious child torturers

We have a cleaner once a week who also irons five of Stet's shirts. Couldn't manage without her now I'm back at work.

This morning, F opened the pot of Sudocrem and got it absolutely everywhere, including inside his mouth. Seems unscathed, wish I could say the same for the carpet and my favourite work trousers.

*google Sudocrem"

*giggles at "napkin rash"*

the gender thing is very weird

Was very impressed by a friend who couldn't work out the gender of a little kid she was chatting with. Rather than get it wrong, annoying the child and parent, she just asked, 'So, are you a tiger?', and the kid goes "NOOOO, I'm a BOY!'

Have used this tactic myself since, and it's handy

Oh clever!!!

I just avoid talking to strange kids I don't know.

we have teething :(

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/522b39b4e4b04879e6b52fa9/52ed21c0e4b00e157ba4f006/5303b18de4b02368397090ad/1392750990565/sophie.jpg?format=750w

Sophie!

man our sophie is a digusting relic after a couple years of use

Yeah ours doesn't have a whole lot of paint on her anymore.

apparently I am the only person in the world without a sophie. There's posh Sophie baby bubble bath and stuff now too!

we got sophie as gift, iirc they are a little expensive?

Kickstarter to send kinder's kinder a Sophie...

14 feckin quid!

I have tons of loyalty card points so I guess it's that and nappies rather than nice makeup for me...

I'm getting lots of questions about "where did the world come from?" and "where did people come from?" and I've pretty much exhausted my ability to take what little I remember about the big bang theory and evolution and translate it into kid comprehension levels.

I found this goodreads list though which looks useful: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/77985.Kids_Books_on_the_Big_Bang_and_Evolution

The craziest thing is trying to explain how huge the spans of time involved are and not making it sound like proto-monkeys evolved into people overnight. It's hard enough for an adult to comprehend the time spans, must be tougher for someone who hasn't even been alive five years yet.

I look forward to this part of parenting.

Older than stars and Bang! are on my wish list.

yeah for my part I really enjoy trying to figure out how to simplify things enough to be understandable while still being accurate

and even though I'm sure a fair amount of it goes a bit over her head, Veronica really digs Cosmos :)

Yeah I can't wait to get into the explaining the existence of the world part of having a kid, though I imagine their capacity for asking "why?" might be much greater than my patience for answering.

I have discovered that playmobil men come w neckbeards now. Like, you remove the snap-on beard and there is painted on neck n chin stubble underneath.

I have this shirt covered in famous Communists drinking (Communist Party! ho ho) which Ella loves, and now she keeps asking for details about them. Points at Stalin, asks "Do you like him?" "Why not?" etc etc. Very quickly conversation gets out of control.

She's always saying "Wear the Connoniss!"

awww!

Points at Stalin, asks "Do you like him?" "Why not?" etc etc. Very quickly conversation gets out of control.

lol I had to explain WWI the other night. "Um so this guy Archduke Ferdinand got assassinated..."

looking at the wiki now I'm relieved that I got the dates and the various powers involved correct (*whew*) but I still had a hard time explaining the actual *why* of the war

ha

I actually remember being on the kid end of a lot of these conversations!

"If national debt is such a problem, why doesn't the whole world just start over?"

I'm still not convinced that isn't a viable solution (don't disabuse me of this notion, or at least don't expect me to actually read a post about it zzzzzzz).

I remember asking my parents why we had to be scared of the Russians if they were just people like we are or why Communism was so bad anyway. Also still valid questions, IMO.

And asking my mom what eternity was, and to clarify that going to heaven really meant eternal life, and like lying awake for days thinking of how awful and boring living forever in heaven would be.

Anyway, I'm super looking forward to this with Ivy, too. I'm going to give her better answers to the Communism question than I got, that's for sure! ("Because Communists believe everybody else has to be Communists and they won't rest until everybody thinks like they do, even if they have to nuke us!")