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

that's good! How old is she?

Hi ILX peoplemakers, I'm expecting my first child in somewhere between 7 and 10 weeks! I'm sure it's not a big deal right

yeh just a normal day, nothing to crow about nbd

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!! congrats !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Congrats Chuck!

xps to kinder: She's eight. We actually did get to talk to her mom on the phone this afternoon, so that was good.

awesome news chuck - congrats!

Join us on the People-Making board!

Omfg. My 13 yo decided to cut her own hair in a bob style at 2 am. I didn’t realize till my husband sent me a pic. I find it hilarious. I kept laughing and told my colleagues. My husband was so shocked he couldn’t say anything.

Honestly I’m happy. She’d been feeling down last two years. Now she’s interested in fashion and apparently hair.

I told her she was awesome for cutting her hair.

was not expecting to have a "they grow up too fast" moment this early on but my 4.5 year old just started riding a bike and it got me pretty choked up. he fell his first try but quickly got the hang of it, resulting in me chasing him down the street as he went probably about 8-9 MPH (or thereabouts...I know how fast I can run). at some point I realized I couldn't catch him if he kept going for too much longer and it felt like a moment heavy with significance. eventually I had to just yell "Car coming! Pull over!" cuz I didn't know what to do

parenting is about letting go

Aww! I was getting seriously stressed trying to keep up with F when he started on a bike until I realised he was pedalling constantly.

I taught him about freewheeling and things got a lot more sane after that.

I keep being reminded of that early simpsons line: “I think the saddest day of my life was when I realised my dad At most things. Bart experiences that at the age of 4”

my son starts school in September and the (state) school has just announced they will be asking for 'voluntary contributions' of £10/month. I understand why they have to do this but yet again FUCK THE TORIES

my newly 9-year-old daughter (today's her birthday) has asked if she can have her own email account. i'm thinking she's too young, even for google's family link account, but it would make things more convenient since right now emails from her friends come to me or my wife. thoughts?

Happy 9th! That's coming up quickly for us as well.

Email? Sure, but monitor, monitor, monitor, imo. Have rules in place about transparency. How much internet access does she currently have? All I really want to say about that is I've learned lessons this year after having been laisez-faire about my older kid's internet access.

My first child is due in, er, 16 days. What's an emoji that combines anxiety, joy and terror? Perhaps it's just my normal face

That's so exciting Chuck! All three emotions are entirely appropriate.

https://thereviewweekly.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/good-luck-chuck.png?w=1000

lol my niece (11) just remembered she can now text me (since last weekend)

so far it is a blizzard of near-miss spelling and emojis arriving as question marks in squares

yeah but how’s her texting tho

My 4yo told me yesterday he didn't think Father Christmas was real! I asked him who he thought put presents in his stocking and he said 'you'.
So he's had literally one Christmas where he's been old enough to 'know' what's going on and possibly believe in Father Christmas.

Incidentally he'd started school the day before, but doubt he'd have talked much about Christmas and definitely not with any older kids.
:(
I waffled a bit but didn't confirm either way. We were talking about angels and whether they were real. He doesn't care about angels but really seems to want fairies to be real.

(xp) lol my friend has twins who are 6. they both have ipads (she said don't judge her). she imessaged them saying "go to bed." the girl then imessaged the boy something like "mommy said go to bed. if you don't you are in trouble and i will tell so just do it or you're in trouble like serious trouble!" she sent me and someone else on a group text screenshots of this and we were all like "how does she write so well on an ipad, and so fast?" then simultaneously realized she had figured out how to talk into it.

xp if my 3 1/2 year old figures out pa xmas is fake in the next year or two i will be delighted. i'm certainly not going to be pushing it as a thing, though my wife my be more ambivalent.

parental santa lies did trump *and* brexit

We had a daughter! It’s been a long week. Our water birth plan turned into an induction plan which turned into a last-minute emergency C-section. That took two days. Then we spent two days staying in a busy maternity ward like something from MASH, which was actually a riot. Then we went home! Then we went back to the hospital! And spent two days in an austere ward for a terrible-seeming health issue that turned out to be quite fixable. Then we went home again today! Fingers crossed this stage lasts a lot longer.

Anyway our daughter is a fucking joy and have 87 frozen family-cooked frozen meals to eat <333

Congratulations!

yay!! congratulations!

Well done!

Hurrah, congratulations on making it through all that with so much joy! And bon appetit...

huge congrats chuck!

Congratulations! I wish all the love and luck to you and your family.

Congratulations!
Maternity wards SUCK ime, glad you're home

Congratulations Chuck!

Congrats!

Congrats Chuck! Sounds very similar to the birth of my daughter, except she finally came out as my wife was on the operating table about to have the emergency C-section.

Lots of fun times ahead but be sure to enjoy every moment as my daughter started secondary school this month and I have absolutely no idea where the time went.

Not sure where to put this really, but need to put it somewhere. Since my daughter was born 6 1/2 years ago I have pretty much been one step away from tears the whole time. Everything is both amazing and terrifying and she's so small and vulnerable and I don't know what I'm saying really but it's quite exhausting.

Oh man, I'm with you.

The joys of parenting!

It’s only been a week but totally cosign that

Sometimes when she farts on my lap, I end up laughing so much I have to put her down to stop from shaking her :)

I haven't checked in here in awhile. Got an update to this post from four years ago: ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

the other night he's messing around with an old PSP handheld game, looking through the camera just before bed. "See, Dad, look at this," and he hands me the console. We've got just the one lamp on, so there isn't much to see, especially on that low-res display.

"What, what do you want me to see?" I ask.

"You see all that dark stuff coming out of the walls? THAT'S the stuff that comes to me in my nightmares."

And he's talking about the lousy artifacts you get on a bad camera.

That five-year-old is now a 10-year-old who heard all about freakin' LSD at Red Ribbon Week. Trying to tell me it's like watching a movie that's real, characters coming up to you who aren't really there...

I tell him that "I hear" it's not like that at all. Stuff gets a little wavy, colors get a little vibrant, but Mickey Mouse doesn't knock on your door or anything. Then I remember that PSP game. "Remember what that camera looked like? How you saw stuff in the walls that wasn't there? LSD is more like that than it is 'Alice in Wonderland'."

He thinks for a moment, and then says, "Maybe all our brains are trying to 'see' something that's not there, and that's why life looks like that crappy camera sometimes."

I swear, he's *this* close to figuring it out. Lord knows I haven't yet.

Wtf is red ribbon week

I thought it was a USA thing?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ribbon_Week

Though that's the first time I've heard its origins from a tortured DEA agent.

The red ribbon became their symbol for prevention in order to reduce the demand of illegal drugs. California Congressman Duncan Hunter and teacher David Dhillon launched "Camarena Clubs" in California high schools.

This caught my eye but it's not that Duncan Hunter. (It's his dad!)

That's uncomfortably close to Macarena

Red Ribbon Week sounds like some bullshit. Do they still have D.A.R.E. too?

I posted this on Facebook a while back so sorry for those who have seen it twice.


Me, trying to tell Henry about Snoop Dogg’s (his fave artist and birthday-sake) cover of Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand while his big sister is in earshot:

Henry: Who is Nick Cave?
Me: He’s an Australian singer. He was in a band called The Boys Next Door...
Beatrice: That’s a bad name for a band.
Me:...and then a band called The Birthday Party...
Beatrice: Stupid name!
Me:...now he’s in a band called The Bad Seeds...
Beatrice: Awful!!
Me: ...and Snoop Dogg covered one of his songs.
Beatrice: DISGUSTING!!!!!!
Me: 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

Wait till she hears about 'Grinderman'!

I tell him that "I hear" it's not like that at all

hah

there was this kids video we'd watch that had this weird glitch where for like, 3-4 seconds all you'd see are the wireframes of the characters, it's like the people who made it forgot to watch it before uploading (it's racked up 100 million views since, LOL). my boy (who is almost 5) gets very unsettled by this now.

Loving Henry's running commentary there, beautiful!

Tell him he has an album called 'Henry's Dream' and a song called 'Henry Lee'

Fuck, misread it was Beatrice, I shall go boil my head