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

Wait wait... you dont have the same class mates each year? In HS i get that, youre picking subjects but when I was in primary school, we more or less had the same set of kids going thru the same classes unless they like, moved or something.

Actually even in high school I did up til year 10.

Well in my elementary school actually it was a relatively static group -- we might shift back and forth btw classes but there were only two or three teachers in a grade so we were mostly with the same kids in K-6. Middle school fed from a bunch of different elementary schools and also some kids I was friends with left and went to private school. I guess had I gone to my neighborhood high school instead of a magnet school I would have stayed with a lot of the same kids.

K's school has 8 fucking kindergarten classes of 25 kids each. Also the area is just more transient and a lot of people move to the suburbs somewhere btw K and 5th grade/

Not sure about elementary, because we moved so many times when i was in K-5, but def staring in 6th grade we had multiple teachers throughout the day and different kids in each class.

8 kinder classes! yikes thats a heavy load of kiddies :)

Henry and Bee's school has 8 Pre-K classes

Maybe it's 6. They take up a 1/3 of the school.

K's class seems fine but the overcrowding is really felt at dropoff and pickup. Dropoff is basically a huge bottleneck at the gate and you have to kind of push your kid through the crowd and just send them in by themselves. At pickup (which is split into four locations), you feel like you're waiting for someone to be released from a POW camp.

Friends who have kids our kids' age are turning 40, and they're having their 40th birthday as a no-kids event during the day on a weekend. For some reason I feel IA about this -- it seems like common decency to either allow kids or have it at night. I don't want to leave my kids with a babysitter in the middle of a Sunday.

lol yeah that seems like a dick move, who's going to babysit all those kids

it's valid for them to have a no-kids party, it's valid for you to say you can't go because of it

I don't mind a no-kids party at all, I just don't like it being in the middle of a Sunday. Like, we all work, and weekends are our time with our kids. I don't want to leave them with a babysitter at 4pm when I don't see them during the day all week.

Today one of my sons asked our Amazon Echo to play "Lady Gaga, 'Bad Running Man'". I really wish this song existed.

it's about me at parties

middle of sunday too that's a bad time for a party. we're getting ready for the week man

is having constant heart palpitations a normal side effect of letting your toddler play at painting? "oh fuck the sofa... the floor... where's she going, fuck, the wallpaper, no not the spare room with the bed with white sheets!"

Yes. We try to do art outside, or say "on the paper or not at all." But still end up doing a lot of "oh god not there please."

Cleaning the house while children are living in it is like shoveling the sidewalk while it's still snowing.

Me, I pretty much think we'll repaint the walls and get the furniture recovered once we're past Nonstop Chaos Stage. In the meantime we'll live with an awful lot of chaos.

outside, tarp, newspaper, full hazmat only way i roll

We have this huge plastic sheet we put over the table for painting, which works quite well, except for Ella's clothes, which inevitably get througly painted

When he was like, 4, the stepkid wrote his name all over the hallway wall. Mo mo momo mo mo mo mo mo mo in rows. B has shown me a video of him walking up to this mess, and asking Mo to his face "did you do this?" and the little shit says "no, it wasnt me!" to the camera!

he also once daubed "I Luv u daddy" on a pillowcase in texta.

I parked next to a beat-up car a couple of weeks ago, and on the back of the headrest among various scribbles in market was scrawled in childlike hand I <3 YOU MOMMY

*marker

Adorable!

I picked up our toddler from the childminder once and she said they'd been doing messy play in the kitchen with water and flour. I looked round her spotless kitchen in amazement.

outside, tarp, newspaper, full hazmat only way i roll

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, October 15, 2017 4:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

I think I may be fully done with ever hanging out with childless friends with my kids after tonight. Granted this is an especially taxing friend.

I'm basically down to one pre-kids friend who is still childless himself that I can still deal with. And he's a very familial guy with nieces and nephews so he gets it.

Huh. What's the problem? I have a handful of childless friends

Get better childless friends.

Maybe I just had a weird way of picking friends before I had kids

I mean tbc, 50% of it is just that almost any childless person is going to be less accustomed to the rhythm of life with children, so they won't really "get" for example why plans have to be scheduled in a certain way, why you can't be as loose about things as they can etc., even if they rationally understand it via explanation/observation.

Also, I just had an especially annoying experience with a friend, so I'm coming off that.

Yeah I have given up on doing quite a lot because of lack of understanding of schedule. Christmas day last year was a particular example - family several hours late to arrive during nap time and yet surprised that I couldn't join in Christmas lunch because I now had a wide awake toddler to look after. Not bitter...

BBQs due to start at say 4 that don't get started until 2 hours later because no one can light the damn thing.
I think this is probably just my friends...

Your child-free friends may very well welcome this decision, man alive. Win-win (-win, for THE CHILDREN)

TBF I've had the opposite issue, where my child-free ass would try my best to tell newly parented friends that no, they really, really should not bring their just-walking 3 year old around because my house is full of cat litter and bongs and pointy tables and lots of breakable crap. I dont want to spend the afternoon freaking out every time they stuff something in their mouth.

(this was in days gone by, ov course)

Xp and I get that complete rigidity around naps and bedtimes can be irritating too. I'm past that at this point. I'm talking about a friend deciding to walk a total of 13 miles rather than take an Uber WHICH I OFFERED TO PAY FOR so we wouldn't have to wait around for him and we'd actually have a reasonable amount of time to hang out. I'm
simplifying the story slightly but that's the gist.

Yeah thats a bit weird.

That’s pretty terrible. I get it with naps and bedtimes, that’s something that just doesn’t register with a lot of people. It’s pretty key for remaining harmonious.

Like oh skip a nap is nothing for some people but can be disastrous for kids.

I mean tbc, 50% of it is just that almost any childless person is going to be less accustomed to the rhythm of life with children, so they won't really "get" for example why plans have to be scheduled in a certain way, why you can't be as loose about things as they can etc., even if they rationally understand it via explanation/observation.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Saturday, October 21, 2017 9:58 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lack of empathy/understanding is a symptom of dicks, not childless people per se

My son insisted that was going to be a robot for Halloween (he has a cute home-sign for robot). I lovingly made him a robot costume. All week, he was signing robot robot robot. He went to school today as a robot.

At 6:45 PM tonight - just about to leave for trick or treating - he signed that he would only go as a dog. Dog all the way. Nothing but dog. Screaming on the floor while also signing dog dog dog. (Which tbh was kind of darkly hilarious.)

Fortunately we save previous years' costumes. When given three choices (robot, dog, firefighter), he went with... firefighter. Of course.

sounds about right

Um, Nora (and 46 other kids) did this: http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/toddlers-bunny-hopping-likely-caused-958447

Pre-parenting I'd be all "aww adorable bunnies", now I'm basically "omg thank christ they weren't in there, that's terrifying, jesus"

Ugh, tfw the kid opens the most expensive item you got him for xmas that you know he wants, only to have him crankily declare its the "wrong" Megatron. >:|

:(

feeling that one

took 3-year-old to outside carols and santa-appearing-on-a-roof thing (which he was in awe of). Santa shouts out 'have you been good boys and girls' and my child informs everyone 'NAUGHTY CHILDREN GET COAL'

<3

Trayce, I remember being that kid on at least two occasions and regret it terribly.