So....yuppiest thing I have ever done: run a criminal background check on a potential babysitter via care.com.
Result: she was convicted of conspiracy to commit credit card fraud. She saw that we ran the check and messaged us "I fell in with a bad crowd." Ok, genuinely wish her the best but it's not gonna happen.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Monday, 11 July 2016 14:03 (seven years ago) link
That's kinda wild
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 11 July 2016 14:12 (seven years ago) link
I just gave a potato chip to my 3 year old and feel like I just ruined his life
― calstars, Monday, 25 July 2016 00:47 (seven years ago) link
Today's manifestation of severe sibling envy -- K smacked me in the nads super hard, and after I walked into the other room so as to avoid lashing out in anger, she came in and said "Daddy, I did something really funny to your sunglasses." She had snapped them.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Monday, 25 July 2016 03:01 (seven years ago) link
I'd have... not dealt with that in a sane parental manner I have to admit :/
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 25 July 2016 05:33 (seven years ago) link
Marin is currently at the height where every time I pick her up her feet are in the perfect position to kick my nads, whether intentionally or by accident. I think I need to get a cup.
― An artsy picture, but you know, she was a model. Really successful. (stevie), Monday, 25 July 2016 06:35 (seven years ago) link
yeah, already happens to me a lot by accident but this was p clearly on purpose. Like I said, I walked into the other room to avoid raging, but she clearly wanted to get a rise out of me and was disappointed by that. They were nice Ray Bans too, the first and only "nice" pair of sunglasses I ever owned. But even in the moment you remember (hopefully) that a four year old has no concept of what that means, and they're only sunglasses anyway.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Monday, 25 July 2016 14:28 (seven years ago) link
Welp, we decided to take all the refined sugar sweets and empty carb snacks out of the house. Wish us luck.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 15:50 (seven years ago) link
baller move
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 15:57 (seven years ago) link
It was H's move ultimately, although tbf I had originally suggested we not buy them at all. We had the old debate a couple years ago of whether it's better to just not have them around to avoid the habit vs do "moderation" so they don't develop some weird relationship to the foods. I advocated not having them at all at the time but H convinced me that we should try to just do it with rules and boundaries. H now has rethought that -- the rules are too easy to let slide and they become a crutch for the parents as well, like basically you bend the rules so they'll shut up tbh.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 16:00 (seven years ago) link
I think seeing that even the one-year-old was getting addicted to "veggie straws" was sort of the breaking point.
there is a whole universe of, like, organic junk food
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 16:06 (seven years ago) link
I feel like all that stuff exists to give you cover to enjoy junk food rather than to actually trick you into eating junk food you think is healthy. Like I never *really* believed veggie straws were good for my kids, given that I read the labels, but it still somehow allowed me to look the other way.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 16:51 (seven years ago) link
I wish we could cut out all the junk in our house. I've prob gone over this already but the youngest has coeliac and on top of that is vegetarian and has some strange kind of pathalogical food fears (possibly due to trauma from the coeliac before diagnosis)
All he will eat - and they have to be very specific brands and types - is potato chips, corn chips, cheese, bananas, those chewy fruit bars, Zooper Doopers (ice lollies) and if you cajole and push past his crying, he might eat poached eggs or spagetti with tomato sauce. Try anything else and he has crying/screaming meltdowns. I hate that he eats the iceblocks and chips but if he didnt hed be eating next to nothing. Hes way too old to still be throwing such fits over food. I want bf to send him to a dietician tbrh.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Thursday, 28 July 2016 03:27 (seven years ago) link
I have a cousin whose daughter literally only eats honey sandwiches and ice cream, nothing else. She's now 14 and has been on this diet since the age of 2.
― 🐸a hairy howling toad torments a man whose wife is deathly ill (James Morrison), Thursday, 28 July 2016 04:18 (seven years ago) link
guys that's not good
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 28 July 2016 09:10 (seven years ago) link
poached eggs are great tho. maybe that and the spaghetti could be the starting point? i.e. sneakin stuff into the sauce
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 28 July 2016 09:12 (seven years ago) link
There's very little my 20 month old won't eat, and I swear he's eaten a wider variety of foods in his life than my 72 year old father has. He seems to love everything we've given him, even stuff that was kind of a joke like olives and pickled onions, everything except melons. I hope this keeps up.
― joygoat, Thursday, 28 July 2016 15:03 (seven years ago) link
Like we went to russian and indian restaurants in Portland last month and he was eating all the cod liver pate and cilantro chutney with a spoon and demanding more.
― joygoat, Thursday, 28 July 2016 15:05 (seven years ago) link
our kids were very adventurous, voracious eaters and, fortunately, will still eat a wide variety of things but one of them now defaults to bacon and sausage and the other defaults to french fries and cheese
like, every single meal is "what do you want to eat?" "BACON!" "CHEESE!" "um okay, here is some baked chicken and Brussels sprouts (or some other non-bacon non-cheese meal)" "YAY"
― Don't boo, vote (DJP), Thursday, 28 July 2016 15:10 (seven years ago) link
There's very little my 20 month old won't eat,
Our daughter went through this phase – she loved the attention and approval she got when she ate everything willingly. She developed a few dislikes later – I think those were an extension of learning how powerful "No!" was – but got over them.
― pleas to Nietzsche (WilliamC), Thursday, 28 July 2016 15:18 (seven years ago) link
It's very unscientific, but I can't help but feel like I noticed a correlation between the introduction of carby and/or sweet snacks and "kid" foods and the decline in my kids' interest in other foods. It's hard to say though because these things also just change with age.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Thursday, 28 July 2016 16:14 (seven years ago) link
in my experience there's a bit of a curve - at first they'll eat almost anything, then around 3 or so they start to narrow their tastes down.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 July 2016 16:25 (seven years ago) link
yeah it may just be that. Still, I already see some positives from the removal of the junk snack foods. K is eating more at meals.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Thursday, 28 July 2016 16:26 (seven years ago) link
I got a sales robocall on my cell phone last night. It was a woman's voice informing me that my student loan (which I have never had) had been flagged for consolidation at an approved interest rate, or some such nonsense. An obvious scam, I cussed out the recording as I hung up: "You stupid piece of shit."
I returned to my daughter, who I'd been playing with when the call interrupted us. She looked astonished and asked "Who was she?" I immediately felt horrible for behaving that way in front of her. She thought I had been speaking that way to an actual person. "Oh that wasn't a person, it was just a robot," I tried to explain. "A robot?" Her bewilderment grew here. Her eyes were wide. She must have thought I had Bender on the other end of the phone or something.
At this point, my wife stepped in and rightfully called me out: "...but we shouldn't talk that way about anybody, right?"
Not much of a point to this story, but don't cuss out robocalls in front of your kids.
― how's life, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 14:04 (seven years ago) link
lol
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 14:42 (seven years ago) link
your daughter is more forward thinking than you. She may well go to school with robots one day.
so we just moved to a new place, renting one half of a side-by-side 1907 duplex, and have realized there is a ton of peeling lead paint in the window sills (when you open the windows - the window stools and frames in the interior of the house have fresh paint), several window jambs, and the interior window frames of the kitchen windows. parts of the front porch have it too, especially the main walkway to the front door bc of the foot traffic. we confirmed all this by using lead testing kits from home depot. we are freaking the fuck out right now since we have a 16-month-old and a 4-year-old. the kitchen windows especially scare the shit out of me bc we are preparing our food there.
we told our landlord about it in writing yesterday, also told the next-door neighbors in the other half of the house and they had also noticed it. most of the house is okay - all the walls most windows have fresh paint. but all the windows are ver old and we're concerned about what kind of repairs the landlord will do - whether they will be sufficient, whether they will kick up even more lead dust, what should we do with our stuff while repairs are being made, etc. the landlord said he will come by this weekend to look at the areas I mention but I really want a certified lead inspector to do a risk assessment so this can be handled in the right way. the landlord is a DIY dude and if he hasn't done anything about the lead paint in the 16 years he's owned the place i'm doubtful that he knows the right way to handle this
we're hoping to be in the place only temporarily anyways since we are looking to buy a house, but that could be a while. i'm tempted to just get the fuck out of there, bring our little boys to my parents' house or something.
― marcos, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 15:53 (seven years ago) link
also i'm super pissed at myself for not doing a better inspection before signing the lease. the lead issue just wasn't on my radar - we've almost always lived in very old homes but most of them had replacement windows and were in good shape so it's never been a concern
― marcos, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 15:55 (seven years ago) link
You might want to talk to an expert or do some research. I think a badly done "remediation" can actually be worse than doing nothing because it can stir up a lot of lead dust into the air and spread it around the place.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 16:08 (seven years ago) link
yea, i think my landlord's first inclination will be to just do it himself and i'm worried that would make things worse. i've been doing a little research and it is universally recommended to have a certified lead inspector take a look and assess things. with one exception when i lived in a shitty deteriorating old house in college, i've always had good landlords so i've never really had to advocate or push for things, but i really want to push to have this done the right way. it's a lot easier to do that when my kids' health & safety is at stake.
― marcos, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 18:02 (seven years ago) link
but jeez this is majorly stressing me out, i've been reading about lead poisoning nonstop the past week and have been waking up at night worrying about it.
― marcos, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 18:04 (seven years ago) link
oof my sympathies. on the plus side "won't somebody think of the children" tactic liable to get some traction from your landlord, unless he's an inhuman monster
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 18:09 (seven years ago) link
yea he does have kids too so i'm just going to push it from that angle. neighbors in the other unit have three little kids too. i'm just pissed, at myself for not being smarter and more aware and at him for not making updates for a decade and a half.
by law he was required to give us a lead disclosure form but in ohio a landlord can easily get around that by just stating "i have no knowledge of lead paint in the home", and that's what he did
― marcos, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 18:24 (seven years ago) link
"Won't someone think of the children" is also a good way to imply without implying massive future liability if anything actually happened, if he's smart at all.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 20:14 (seven years ago) link
yea i'm very curious to see how he responds to this. he owns multiple properties in the city we live in, one next door that has a lot of peeling exterior paint (which is being repaired now), all of them are very old homes and his claim that he "has no knowledge of lead-based paint" strikes me as complete bullshit for someone buying and renting multiple multi-unit early 20th century homes
― marcos, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 20:58 (seven years ago) link
I feel like if there's clearly visible peeling paint it's kind of transparently bullshit. You're taking pics right?
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 21:00 (seven years ago) link
definitely
― marcos, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 21:00 (seven years ago) link
In NYC I feel like I'd just be calling 311, but IDK how it works there, how responsive local agencies are etc.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 21:15 (seven years ago) link
When we bought our first place I seem to recall a disclosure form about it possible existing (house was built in 1940, so obviously) but that it it had been sufficiently encapsulated due to having been painted over a bunch of times and wasn't chipping. Maybe this was in the inspection, I don't remember.
But some friends just passed on buying an otherwise perfect house because of chipping lead paint everywhere and the massive cost to deal with it properly.
― joygoat, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 21:20 (seven years ago) link
We had a little bit of what looked like it might have been lead paint on our radiator covers. Our understanding was that having the painters paint over it was a good middleground solution. Had we had it on more surfaces it might have been a bigger issue.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 21:53 (seven years ago) link
Eventually just want to replace the covers, but new ones are shockingly expensive.
yea I definitely have the number on hand for the county health department, Ohio laws though are more landlord-friendly than other places I've lived and everything I've read says to notify the landlord first. I do have the right though to pursue my own inspection with a professional though
― marcos, Thursday, 18 August 2016 01:07 (seven years ago) link
Here's an ILP meets TMI update:
I've probably taken more hits to the crotch in the last 4.5 years than the rest of my life combined, but as of this week I finally know what it feels like to have my dick stepped on.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Thursday, 1 September 2016 16:08 (seven years ago) link
toddlers generally at prime dickpunching level
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 1 September 2016 16:13 (seven years ago) link
and like not even on purpose that's just the natural target for their reach
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 1 September 2016 16:14 (seven years ago) link
it's probably in retaliation for their eyes being at prime level to get poked by errant fingers
― Don't boo, vote (DJP), Thursday, 1 September 2016 16:20 (seven years ago) link
Sure I've taken punches, kicks, headbutts, flying elbows etc. but never had the main event itself pinned between a foot and a bed. I woke up to it, and briefly in my painful stupor imagined it might have to be partially reattached.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Thursday, 1 September 2016 17:38 (seven years ago) link
The worst I've gotten was a knock to the temple with a maraca. That shit hurt for over a week.
― Jeff, Thursday, 1 September 2016 19:57 (seven years ago) link
worst child-related injury for me involved a toy similar to thishttps://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31R-EaiXNAL._SX300_.jpgit was on my daughter's bed and i plopped down on the bed and managed to hit the bee just right so that the stick part flew up and the handle at the end hit me right in the bridge of my nose. just like sideshow bob and the rakes. no lasting damage but it hurt so bad.
― Immediate Follower (NA), Thursday, 1 September 2016 20:16 (seven years ago) link