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

Did it work?

The good cop bad cop routine did the trick regardless!

OMMAWAY

Rusted Root Neologisms

OOMBASEEYOU

SEBADEEYON

Can't workout if my two-year-old keeps shouting "fuck!" (word daddy uses) or "cluck!" (been reading chicken books) or "uck!" (her own invention). Very joyous expression either way

"Cuck," however, if less joyous.

if=is

hi everyone, i'm not a parent, but i do have a 12-year-old niece who rules. i'm having a very bad year, so in the spirit of self-affirmations, i want everyone to know is that i just had a full house moment with her. she was telling me about how she couldn't find any robux online:

Actually no, I just getting some gifts for the cousins! 🙃 I like to give them stuff every once in a while, idk why XD

and i was like "i know why! it's because you love them! i mean, that's why i give you and max gifts. i don't give everyone gifts you know, i'm not made of money."

i could almost hear the full house sax coming in as i texted it to her, then i hugged my dog

i feel like if i have a kid i would accidentally fuck them up for life by the age of 4

but i am very good in the uncle role, because it allows me to sometimes just vanish without explanation for days at a time, and to never have to directly discipline them in any way

i guess i do some hardmanning when we're playing videogames, when max is just blatantly cheating. but even then i can do it from the uncle perspective, where we are basically all just goofing off constantly

i feel like if i have a kid i would accidentally fuck them up for life by the age of 4

oh it’s ok everyone does this

Spent thirty minutes talking down/consoling the younger one tonight who was insisting we don’t love her and only care about her amazing sister. Then I spent the next thirty minutes doing the mirror image with the older one.

We are probably just shitty parents.

don't be so hard on yourself, if you're spending 30 min a piece w/both of them listening to them talk about their feelings and emotions. . . you're doing pretty great dude

thx

waterface otm. my sister and i had a similar dynamic, growing up. i was the younger one, but i got all the good grades and said the funny things. my sister started to feel neglected, i think. difference was, my parents never spoke to either one of us about that (or anything else that was difficult to talk about). and that was bad!

also, in a way i think it's a good sign that they're open about it (insisting we don't love her) rather than hiding those feelings. and then, you can see them being open about it and spend 30 minutes talking about it with them. i feel like that's how it's supposed to work, in a better world!

so anyway, must have been some hard conversations but i think you're all much better off for it. :)

Thanks for the kind words. We had a pretty rocky couple of years of parenting with all the COVID stuff plus a move, and I've been doing some pretty deep examination of myself and my angers and anxieties, the way I communicate with my kids, with my wife, etc. Without stereotyping too much, I think girls learn to express their emotions in much more outward and dramatic ways sometimes than boys, so I was not prepared for some of the kinds of expressions I've seen coming only from a household of boys and having only girls. Hearing stuff like "you hate me" or having your kid stubbornly sit in the closet can be really hard sometimes, no matter how many times you go through the calming down process and realize that they're just a well-placed dadjoke, a hug, and a couple of pages of a book from back to 100% normal.

Personally I just go sit in the closet myself. I bring snax and weed and it works out great

the power of a well timed joke is wild. it can break the spell and restore the good vibes

part of me wants a voice from the heavens to tell me it’s okay to stop trying with breastfeeding, but I’m going to see how it goes up until she hits six weeks and reevaluate.

― horseshoe, Monday, July 12, 2021 4:10 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol i lasted till five weeks; babby started being extremely fussy at the boob; i freaked out that she was going to totally starve. for a while i pumped and supplemented with formula, but i hated pumping and quit around eleven weeks, i think? she's almost 6 months old now and formula seems to be treating her fine. also, we just started sleep training on Saturday and though it has been harrowing, it seems like it's working.

she is pretty awesome. in a very cute stage right now, smiling and laughing a lot. i already get choked up about how much bigger she is than she used to be. i had a bout of PPD/PPA during the first three months, but i am loving things right now.

we just started sleep training on Saturday and though it has been harrowing, it seems like it's working.

this is huge!

i remember the harrowment.

I'm getting snipped on Tuesday. every time I read about the pumping and feeding and sleep training it kinda confirms in my mind that it's the right thing to do. I'm a bit freaked out about it honestly, but the cool thing is if you tell your doc you're scared they'll give you a valium. I should've started crying in the office...probably could've gotten two

good luck to you, frogbs! lol i am pretty old for a first time parent and every so often i will hint to my husband about possibly having another baby, and he gets this look like, oh damn, can we actually survive that?

great to hear it's going well! Those first 6 months are crazy, then they're gone, then your baby gets magically replaced with an older one and this keeps happening!
I couldn't face thinking about a second babby for a really long time but it has turned out to be an excellent idea. they entertain each other!

we had the 2nd one two years after the 1st and it's incredible how much you forget. babies change so much month-to-month in that first year. tbh I kinda wanted a 3rd but we had a pregnancy scare last month where I actually went through in my head what it would all mean and I realized pretty quick that I just don't wanna do it anymore.

the truth is given the way American society is set up there's really no good time in your life to have a kid. there are even fewer good times to have a *second* kid.

I had a vasectomy immediately after our second child was born. No regrets whatsoever.

When we started getting clues that he would be seriously disabled, I think my wife had a moment of wanting to try again but fortunately that went away with the realization that having two was going to be plenty hard, and there would be no guarantee of an easier time on the third.

For us, the wee-baby stage is over - I do not miss the late-night stuff - but we've basically had 14 years of toddlerdom in some form. Our son is 10 and still not quite there on some stuff - pretty good on toilet training in the daytime but still needs a pullup at night. And he will still do shit like spill all the cereal out onto the floor for fun, or scribble on walls with a marker. Sigh. He's generally sweet and fun, though.

so glad to hear things are good horseshoe!

we’re just past 8 months and she’s still happily immobile but very fun and more and more engaged with us every day. i’m pretty sure we’re done, we are older and for a lot of reasons i tend to think one babby will be the right choice for us.

good luck to you, frogbs!

Update: ouch !!! But it was quick, 80% painless, and one of my balls feels great!

Gonna tip my kids bus drivers tomorrow morning with envelopes of singles from the bar

i think this is a good book for parents who found the first few years hard and/or wonder what life would be like if they hadn't had kids (especially dads) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931085-a-lie-someone-told-you-about-yourself. CW for termination, NICU, developmental difficulties but it's pretty sweet in a nick hornby sense.

that sounds relevant to my interests, thanks for the rec

Trying to decide whether Die Hard is appropriate to watch with my 12 year old. It would be fun and she would like it, but it would be a big step up in terms of mature content. Of course, by the time I was ten I had seen all of the Friday the 13ths, Halloweens, Nightmare on Elm streets, etc. Not that it was good for me.

Go for it

fun parenting moment today, went over a friend of mine's and my son and his (7 and 6) played Mario Kart 8. which we bet $10 on, of course. I won but to be fair they both just tried to hit as many bananas as possible. the whole time they were just laughing and yelling at each other. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" "I SEE YOU I'M GONNA GET YOU!!" "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?"...etc etc. my son ain't too social at school yet so it's awesome to see him connect with another kid like that. he was talking about him the whole car ride home. here's the kicker: this friend of mine is someone I met when we were 10, in 4th grade. we used to play a bunch of Mario Kart 64!!

Xxp I saw “Edward Scissorhands” was on Disney+ and my oldest is at around the exact age I would’ve seen and been messed up by it.

Wife said NO to Die Hard. We watched Sixth Sense instead which turned out well.

Unrelated: 12 year old is turning into a teenager with the constant arguing/testing boundaries. My sanity is slipping away, it is so difficult to be a calm rational parent when someone is arguing with you about the absolute stupidest shit. "I'm going to put the dishes away dirty and we'll just wash them when we need them." "NO ARGHFFADKLAFDJLJS!!!" "But why?" "BECAUSE FJKALDFLJWOAFJLKADFS" "sssssigh..."

Let them have their own supply of dishes they can try this method with. (Probably a terrible idea for many reasons.)

shatter the dishes on the floor. then say "now you can clean these up when you want to eat. you fool! YOU FOOL!"

I recommend Spaceballs for 12 year olds

Creepshow is also good

Is there a thread for family viewing recommendations? It’s a constant struggle here with 11 and 14 year olds. Mostly because we think of good ones to watch and then immediately forget! Some winners have been the original Bill and Ted, Galaxy Quest, The Fugitive (had to get them to see it to prove my theory that Clone Wars was referencing it in the Asohka chase) and they both absolutely loved The Martian for some reason.

Original alien is good as well

And 2001

Lol at Karl

xxxp Raiders of the Lost Ark, Happy Gilmore, Hot Rod

We have a 7 and a 12 year old, so movies are tricky. Friday night is 7's movie night and we often watch something that 12 already seen and everybody goes to bed more or less on time. Saturday night is for 12 after 7 goes to sleep and we get to watch more mature stuff. This weekend we watched The Dark Crystal and Sixth Sense. During the week we watch one short cartoon before they go to sleep, if time allows. Right now we're on Owl House, which is great.

Tonight we broke the news to the kids that we are going to be moving out of state. This is the only house they've ever known. Holy shit it was rough.

my spouse showed Dark Crystal to our first kid when they were 2 and it was an immediate "what the fuck is wrong with you" response on my end. i remember sesame street segments traumatizing me at that age.

xpost wow CA that's a big one.