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

"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

There seems to be this incredible effect where four drunk parents are better at making sure two kids don't kill themselves than two drunk parents (who are married to each other) are at watching one child.

And yeah, those friends are essential. We have a semi-regular friday night thing with a neighbor family where we basically just eat takeout and drink and bitch, it's very cathartic.

We're staying with some friends who we haven't seen in two years and we both had babies since we last hung out and it's pretty great. A bunch of other friends we haven't seen in an equally long time came over last night and we ate a shitload of tacos and drank beers and talked about ridiculous things like we always did but now there are an 8 month old and a 20 month old around and it felt totally normal despite being unprecedented.

aw that sounds great. I'm getting a bit pissed off with my group of mums (in the UK there are a bunch of pre-natal courses you can pay to go on that lots of people do just to meet other couples having their first babies at the same time). Since the babies hit 6 months we're all a bit more lax about meeting up but we have a WhatsApp group which I never seem to get a response on. I get that ppl are busy/on holiday but I want to know about specific things that they're usually really helpful about but they all seem a bit flaky atm.

also Scik Mouthy, I think we are hitting something similar to you guys. It's not as bad as that but I'm still struggling to get more than 3 hours of sleep in a row. His daytime naps are fine and he doesn't have a problem going to sleep (if anything he's overtired when he finally goes down, which I'm going to try and address). He just wakes up a ton in the night - I'm guessing a mixture of teething, starting to roll over and doing that a lot in his sleep, being in his own room, getting over a cold. I thought it was temporary but if anything he's getting worse, actually waking and staying awake for an hour at night. Apparently there is a 'late sleep regression' around 8-10 months but this has been since at least 7mo.

The good thing is he's fairly chill about it and I'm doing my best to get as many chunks of sleep as possible but we had a REALLY good thing going not long ago.

Kinder, we found the same with our NCT group and it's really been falling apart since the mums went back to work. A quarterly pubnic is the best we can do, usually somewhere convenient for the four families who live near each other (which doesn't include us). Fortunately the other family near us are lovely - though our parenting styles are completely different we get on pretty well.

Did you know NCT also run 'tea groups'? I've heard they're good for meeting people if you're not getting on so well with the people from your class. Keep meaning to check the website for our nearest one.

In our group we've had a stillbirth and a suicide, so as well as the unimaginable awfulness for those directly affected, it has affected the group dynamic as well.

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.

― from batman to balloon dog (carl agatha), Saturday, July 18, 2015 5:50 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao that is amazing

I think there's a certain zen to having two kids, if you allow it to wash over you. Like, there is just going to be something demanding your attention at all times, so you learn to accept that and maybe it can even quiet some of your self-obsession and anxiety.

Also K is just at such a fun age now in certain ways -- 3.5, and she's a total daddy's girl. We have great conversations, I take her swimming, to museums, we play music together, she makes me do dialogue from movies with her, I know it's bad to be too much your kid's "friend" but she's kind of my best friend lately, other than H of course.

something demanding your attention at all times

You mean like this? "Hey dad look over here. Hey dad. Hey dad, turn around and look. Hey dad, check this out. Hey dad. Dad, turn around. Hey dad Hey dad Hey dad!"

Yeah, like "Honey, can you pick up E--" "Dad, look at what Winnie the Pooh is do--" "--WAAAAAAHHH!!!"

Does hearing bad news about babies/children ever get any easier, as your own kids grow up? I've lost count of the number of times I've been sitting at my desk at work, catching up on the news with tears welling up reading about a freak accident/insert other bad thing here, because I can't help but put myself in that child's parent's place.

and finally, after dad has managed to turn the burner off under the skillet and deposited the kid in his left arm safely to the floor and pushed a tall, full glass of lemonade out of harm's way, all in one motion, he turns to see what the hell the other kid has been HAMMERING him to pay attention to: "look, i balanced this pencil on this other pencil!!!"

xpost i don't think so

xp, I can't read stories about bad stuff happening to kids, I cannot even get through them. Even "heartwarming videos" about someone entertaining a child with cancer in the hospital or something, I just can't fucking watch. Hard to even type this.

^^^

stupid fucking empathy

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