ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

i think maybe people who say the jump to 3 is not a big deal is maybe because at that point the older ones are a little more manageable since they are older?

also some of you may recall i mentioned J's autism diagnosis on the previous thread, things were super stressful for a long while especially after F's birth but things do seem to be falling into place a little w/ his services and planning for preschool next year. we found some really incredible home-based therapists and b/c of his diagnosis J also got offered a spot at one of our city's best public schools allowing us to bypass some of the anxiety-inducing byzantine lottery process. one benefit i guess to having a kid with special needs. also J is just doing amazingly well right now and we've seen so much growth and progress, it is really hopeful.

Oh good! That's good to hear.

Thanks for the update Marcos, that's good to hear.
My friend with 3 kids says the jump to 3 is the craziest ever. You only have 2 hands for a start!

Yeah I've heard that 3 is the hardest - harder than two, harder than four.

LOL survey says - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/three-children-is-most-st_n_3229032.html

I think we'll stick with one to be on the safe side.

http://adequateman.deadspin.com/14-things-you-will-say-to-your-kids-a-million-goddamn-t-1717985943

I would add "Put on your shoes" to this list.

Ivy's only 19 months so some of those don't apply but we're already well on our way with "Careful," "You're fine," and "Don't eat that."

yeah I dunno with #3, #1 was already 6 years old, so didn't need the kind of management that newborns do, and got along well with #2 so our lives were fine. plus we knew what we were doing by that point, at least as well as we ever were going to. but when #2 was born...I don't know how we survived tbh

Oh god, "careful!" is getting a lot of use now, as well as the related "gentle hands!" F's top three words are "no", "nono" and "nonononononono".

"Did you take another bite of your dinner yet?"

Ivy's daycare teachers use the Spanish "linda" to mean "nicely," which Ivy picked up on early so we say that instead of "gentle hands." And we say that a lot... Also my mom's old favorite: People are not for hitting. People are for loving. Usually said through gritted teeth after Ivy smacks my glasses off my face.

our perfect granddaughter, who always slept through the night even from birth and has never been the slightest bit difficult during year one, has FINALLY has her first tantrum, tried to scratch her mom with her little fingernails. we breathed a sigh of relief tbh, thank god she's not some pod person experiment and is actually human.

I have a couple of new Isolde pics as well, will post later

Damn straight.

"gentle hands" wtf does that mean, like what is the situation

pets?

ime it is another way of saying "don't scratch my fucking face, boy"

Yeah like "don't hit scratch slap pinch me/your dad/this other child/the cat."

"What did I just say?" is another thing I say a lot.

I've been trying to get a little more real about "rules" lately, especially with eating, e.g. I keep repeating "we don't get something else until we finish what we have," because she has a really annoying habit of asking for something, taking a few bites and then asking for another thing. Also trying to stop snacks in the stroller and carseat so she'll actually eat her goddamn meals instead of snacking all the time, but that one is challenging (because on the morning where she DOESN'T eat her goddamn breakfast, you feel guilty sending her to school hungry).

Also we have a grandparent who sees her every week and undermines all this

gah, that thing when your newborn is finally asleep and completely quiet and then you keep checking every twenty minutes to make sure they're alive.

:)

double congratulations, man alive!

small man still alive

So I may have missed something, but I think Nora only woke at midnight and 3am last night. It's 7am now and she's still asleep. And it's Em's birthday.

Ha, I slept straight through a 5am waking..,

Happy birthday Em. I was just thinking I hadn't seen her over at the other place for a while. If it's any consolation, our sleep has gone back into a bad pattern after having a really good thing going for a couple of months. Hoping we find that groove again.

We are in a good patch - a whole fortnight of sleeping right through. Oh please, please, please let that be it.

One day Molly will start sleeping through. Maybe when she starts school in September, maybe that will tire her out so much that if she stirs she'll just drop off again, rather than padding through to our room.

My sister-in-law is in the hospital giving birth to twins right now, and my sister's water just broke. I could have three nieces/nephews born on the same day.

Woah!!! That's so awesome, NA

Big birthday parties in your future

Babbies everywhere!

Yay babies!!!

So our least favorite daycare teacher let Ivy play outside in the hot hot heat while wearing a dirty dirty diaper (Ivy, not the teacher) and then let her hang out in her hot dirty diaper for who knows how long because her "coworker forgot to remind her to change diapers," which you know what, fuck you, lady, (we're changing daycare in August so I opted not to make a big deal just in case this asshole decided to make Ivy's last weeks difficult) but point being Ivy has some wiiiiicked diaper rash rn.

The best cure for diaper rash being to air out the booty, she was spending some time going commando around the living room. I was keeping an eye on her because the last time we indulged in post-bath naked baby time she peed on the floor a little yet I somehow missed the immanent Number Two until I spied an actual turd creeping out from between her cheeks (I yelled "Oh shit! Literally!" of which I am inordinately proud). Luckily I was folding laundry at the time and had the presence of mind to grab a pair of underpants to catch the turd before it fell onto the white chair Ivy was standing on so it could have been worse.

Anyway toddler parenting achievement unlocked: I caught a fresh turd.

Congratulations?

lol thank you

I remember pulling out a fresh hot turd from the ass of one of our kids when s/he was constipated

Hehe, giggling aloud, thanks Ivy.

now there's a girl scout badge

Huzzah!

my baby poops yellow dippin' dots. i gather this is normal and good.

time to rent a mall kiosk, i guess

New baby poop is a wonderland of weirdness.

Also congratulations!

When we started trying solid food we had a couple episodes where Cecil wouldn't poop for three days then produce what looked like solid perfectly round golf ball made of feces and lawn clippings. One of these rolled out of the diaper and onto the changing table which was gross but fascinating.

haha

cornstarch is amaaaazing for nappy rash

tonight we hung out with other parents of young kids and ate dinner and drank awesome beer and wine and that is like the best fucking thing in the universe, thank fucking god for other parents, just felt like I needed that so badly. they were so chill, we ate back porch and everything was a fucking mess and there was food everywhere but nobody gave a shit. after they left I got to wash the dishes drunk and feeling great and very satisfied with the state of things. thank you to all ILPM folks you all rule and i would get drunk and cook food with all your families anytime

cue the goddamn music
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EvVVsFOKLjE/XK9V8rj2mqI/AAAAAAAAnuQ/FVxt3BwyfYwfjl4eOga9Ib0kXhM_l41xACLcBGAs/s1600/buttermaker-cries.gif

leaving the house without being late AND having major trauma seems to be increasingly impossible.

last week i pretended to get hit in the head by my daughter's toy train for an easy laugh, pretended to faint, then i actually in reality hit my head on the chair behind me

thats some Mr. Bean shit right there

my 15 year old really likes to stay out now. he has basketball practice from 5-7 and it takes him like an hour and a half to get back home afterwards.. because it ends late.. then he takes his time changing.. then he messes around, chatting w his friends.. all v innocuous but it drives me bananas. we don't eat together those days. everything gets pushed later. he's showering at like 9:45. today his coach asked him if he would play in the older age group's game, which was after his practice, a big thrill for him, how can he say no, and he texts me to give me the heads up, but with no ETA or anything.. he gets home, in the dark London rain, at 10:15... i mean.. i don't like it but also a little voice is like, well, he's 15, this is how it is now sometimes. idk when i was 15 i had to be home by 5:30pm and i doubt it ever occurred to me that this boundary was transgressible but he's a very different kid (doing very wholesome things by and large)

Yeah my elder kid has color guard practice. Allegedly it's either 4 to 6, or on alternate days, 6 to 9. And then dance class is 6:30 to 7:25, and voice lessons are on the weekend. And the younger one has speech therapy and swimming on alternate Fridays, unless he doesn't.

But in reality it's everything everywhere all at once.

Mine used to have schedules like that. Now, they're all out on their own, except the last one. I miss the hubbub.

So far I have dug in my heels and put limits on the amount of extra stuff the kids do. Their mom sometimes wants to pile more on and NO NO NO. They each have one activity that sometimes takes multiple days a week and temple obligations. That’s enough.

Our next four things are working, college, driving, and housing.

None of them are optional, so we don't get to be picky. Alas. Eldest probably needs to drive. May need to work. Definitely needs college.

Younger (severely disabled) one needs something like a sheltered workshop and group housing.

yeah we have something 5 days out of the week with ours, I'd try to scale it back but I didn't get to do a whole lot of that stuff when I was a kid so I'll take the bullet

The 10 year old is asking for more freedom, what do you let her do? Walk to the corner store by herself (no street crossings, just around the block)? Walk to school? Stay home alone while we run out to the store?

When I was 10, I was out for hours at at time unsupervised. But I lived in a hay field.

I live in London and yeah both kids were doing those things by 10. I think even by like 7 we were letting them go to the park on their own. It’s funny how quickly it goes from nerve racking to normal (and then back again if they haven’t come back even they said they would)

So another first grader told my son he was going to bring a gun to school and shoot him. This is at home room the other morning. My kid handled it well until bedtime and started freaking out about death. Had to have some really hard conversations with him.

This obviously set off some alarms and procedures for the other kid and his parents at the school and county. He’s not a real threat or anything but what the fuck are 7 year olds talking like that for. Goddamn America

And yeah I know we said things like I’m gonna kill you at that age but this is different

jesus christ that is terrifying. i’m so sorry

When the free-range parenting thing was a thing, I had a friend who had a 10 year old and he was buying into it, talking about what it was like when we were kids and how much more restrictive we are with our kids even though crime and scary things happening to kids was at an all-time low. I suggested that perhaps scary things happen to kids less often because we keep a closer eye on them than our parent did. His eyes widened and I could see his wheels turning.

I have no idea how that actually plays out, statistics wise. I just know that I did incredibly stupid things when I was ten, footloose and fancy-free. It's a wonder I didn't burn the damn house down. I guess it really depends on your kids and their maturity.

Thanks. It fucked me up too if I’m being honest

So sorry to hear about that, Heez. That's nothing a kid should have to go through. Given that we have things like the Newport News teacher shooting, it's so much scarier. I remember bullies at school in the 80s who said they were gonna kill me, but it was all just dumb bravado.

On a lighter side of that type of story, a couple of years ago, I got a call to come to the elementary school because my fifth grader was in the principal's office. Another student had found a post-it note in his locker that read "the Illuminati is coming for you" on one side with a drawing of a bloody dagger on the reverse. When the administration reviewed the surveillance video, it was my daughter who had slipped it in the locker. Apparently, they had been joking around about the Illuminati at recess for some reason and she thought he'd appreciate the joke. She didn't mean to freak him out and was distraught about it (although she didn't apologize right away and kept quiet about her involvement until the truth came out). After chatting with the teachers and the principal for half an hour, they agreed to let her off with a warning because it was obviously just a misunderstanding. Anyway, they are still friends and had a picnic together yesterday.

I posted this in the mass shooting thread but the active shooter drills have definitely messed my son up - every time they do one he spends weeks talking about what he would do if a "stranger" came into the school and how he would protect his sister, but really he just asks over and over again if there are any bad guys where we live, and where they *do* live, if they would come here, etc. etc. not only that but I hear him late at night getting up and checking the locks on the doors. it terrifies him. as I guess it probably should. luckily after a couple weeks he kind of 'gets over' it, but still I can't imagine this is good for them, it's not a reality I want them to be aware of just yet

That’s the thing that upsets me about it. He’s 7 and ever since this happened he’s being more mature. Hugging me more and being thoughtful. I’d rather him throw tantrums and be an asshole like before. Something was opened up to him and I should be happy he’s handling it well but I just want him to be a kid

Pastopianism is a hell of a drug. "I did (x) and turned out fine," except some folks didn't.

Congratulations, you drank from the hose, stayed out until the streetlights came on, etc. But lots of bad things happened to lots of people during those days. Several of my friends did NOT survive.

that said, in the 1970s nobody was going through the anticipatory trauma that comes from living in a society where school shootings have become normalized so

Yes. People always talk about "oh times were simpler" well maybe thats because you werent being told OMG A GUNMAN COULD BURST IN AND KILL YOU ALLevery freaking month. :(

even when I take out the garbage at night after he's gone to bed I come back and hear "Daddy is that you? Ok just wanted to make sure it wasn't a bad guy"

Oh geez :(

Ha got my first ever puking toddler problem to manage today!

Somehow I have avoided the other times

I myself have not puked since 1994 so it’s a wild journey! Maybe this is the week!!

I am going for the “it’s impossible to be careful with a sick toddler so I’m just not bothering to be careful“ approach

Why are there so many sequential parenting threads

I got to spend some quality time with my 14 yo today and it was so great. I talked my face off about college years and the Godfather movies