Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
SpaceViking
Sep 2, 2011

Who put the stars in the sky? Coyote will say he did it himself, and it is not a lie.

Koivunen posted:

Divorce mediators are supposed to… mediate… right? We got absolutely nothing accomplished today. Husband, despite still not having a place to live, wants joint physical custody. He also wants a poo poo ton of money. We basically argued for an hour, and the mediator just sat there. At the end she said “well you can’t come up with an agreement at this time so we will have to reconvene.” I thought she was supposed to HELP us reach an agreement???

I’m so frustrated with how it went, $300 down the toilet.

I've only done a little bit with family court as a counselor (thankfully), but there are bad mediators out there. Mediators are supposed to be involved in the discussion and focus on points of agreement and try to build those into bigger agreements. That said, I can see a mediator not knowing how to deal with someone being patently unreasonable without risking their neutrality. If she tells your husband to gently caress off with his dumb ideas he's going to go back to his lawyer and his lawyer will complain to the judge that the mediator is biased against him and you have the same result, except that you now also have to agree on a new mediator. A lot of family court breaks down the moment you run into an unreasonable person, which is unfortunate, because family court has no shortage of unreasonable people.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009

SpaceViking posted:

That said, I can see a mediator not knowing how to deal with someone being patently unreasonable without risking their neutrality. If she tells your husband to gently caress off with his dumb ideas he's going to go back to his lawyer and his lawyer will complain to the judge that the mediator is biased against him and you have the same result, except that you now also have to agree on a new mediator.
This is really illuminating, even for someone not going through the process. Its amazing how much of western society's idea of fair process involves tiptoeing around unreasonable behaviour when justice would actually be a short sharp mental slap and being told to buck the gently caress up and start acting like a functional person.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Yeah there’s honestly no reasoning with unreasonable people anyway

BadSamaritan
May 2, 2008

crumb by crumb in this big black forest


Yeah honestly, until he is able to pull his head out of his rear end and realize he needs to make decisions about what his kids need vs what he wants, I don’t think mediation will be particularly effective.

Whatever gets set up through the courts needs to benefit your toddler and infant, and he seems unwilling to critically examine his actions and desires and how they conflict (and have already sorely conflicted) with that.

I’m sorry you’re dealing with this schmuck.

SpaceViking
Sep 2, 2011

Who put the stars in the sky? Coyote will say he did it himself, and it is not a lie.

Tamarillo posted:

This is really illuminating, even for someone not going through the process. Its amazing how much of western society's idea of fair process involves tiptoeing around unreasonable behaviour when justice would actually be a short sharp mental slap and being told to buck the gently caress up and start acting like a functional person.

That happens eventually in family court, but unfortunately it's designed to exhaust all other options first. In my experience, that comes when the Home Studies come out, but those can get very very pricey too so most people try to avoid them.

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

You Are All
WEIRDOS




Just had to deal with a solid hour long 5yo melt down that ended with her not eating breakfast and almost being late to school. Topics ranged from "i want you to carry me to the table for breakfast" to "NO DON'T GO AROUND THE CHAIR!" to "the pancakes you cooked half an hour ago before my initial freak out are cold warm them up!" to "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE DRIVING TO SCHOOL INSTEAD OF WALKING!?" to "i want you to hrlp me get dressed" to "you're getting me dressed wrong!" and culminating with her giving me a hug and saying she loved me and would miss me when biodad picks her up from school today.

This is god drat exhausting but i managed not to take any of it personally, even when she flailed around a bit and in the process of grabbing my shorts to tug at grabbed smacked a rather unfortunate bit of my anatomy.

She has her second therapy session today (she has two a week, one with us one with him) with fuckface so we'll see how that goes. Her behavioral issues seem to spike on days where she knows she has to deal with him.

We also tried to have a talk with her about her feelings re me not being her birthdad and being upset about that. She continues to go "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW I FEEL" but said that she wasn't mad at me for being there for her when her real dad wasn't - she's mad at me because I'm the one that tells her no about such things as "not having another cookie/treat before dinner" or "we need to turn the tv off because it's bedtime" or "we're going to have to drive to school instead of walk due to the melt down you just had putting us behind schedule".

citybeatnik fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Sep 16, 2021

L0cke17
Nov 29, 2013

Last night the 16mo ate mostly ketchup for dinner. But he learned an entirely new word yesterday in order to ask for more ketchup. He just kept pointing at the bottle and going "MUH MUH". So I guess that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make??

DaveSauce
Feb 15, 2004

Oh, how awkward.
That reminds me, I came across this tweet only a short while ago and it seems appropriate for semi-recent thread conversation, and for our recent experiences with our 4 year old:

https://twitter.com/rebekah_diamond/status/1362214092564549632?lang=en

I have literally no idea who this is, the only thing entertaining to me is that this apparently-credentialed expert has the same issues as everyone else

So far we've managed to avoid ketchup with the 16mo. Maybe he got some a few nights ago I think? But it doesn't yet have a hold on him like it does with his sister. It's only a matter of time, though...

I'm slipping. 4yo did so great for a while with new/different foods, and now she's gone full pre-schooler and only eating junk. And I'm enabling her... because otherwise she doesn't eat. Finding our freezer stocked more and more with processed foods. Part of it is because of her, but also because with 2 kids now cooking is a huge chore. Try to cook huge meals sat/sun so we can eat leftovers during the week, but lately this just results in throwing away a pile of stuff form the 4yo's plate that goes untouched. 16mo does... OK, but not as well as his sister used to. And because we have to cater to her more now, it's going to be a challenge to get him to try new stuff, so my fear now is that this is going to hit harder for him in a few years.

Veggies seem to only be in very specific forms. Carrots are usually a winner, but otherwise we have to resort to frozen veggie concoctions like "veggie fries" or whatnot. Which taste pretty good, honestly, but I'm not sure that the veggie part offsets the highly processed part.

Eh, part of it is I'm just not happy that I can't cook good food anymore. There's a limited menu these days based on time, quantity, and whether the kids will eat it or not. Guess the job now will be to try to figure out dishes that aren't unhealthy as gently caress but will also be consumed by the kids. Can't have mac and cheese every night...

I mean, I know the whole strategy for toddlers is to get them to eat as many different foods as possible in order to accommodate for the inevitable pickyness, but I didn't figure it would hit this hard. Going to try a few more recipes she used to love (lentil soup is one we haven't done for a while), but I'm not holding out hope. If it's not ketchup or carbs, it's a hard sell these days...

Renegret
May 26, 2007

THANK YOU FOR CALLING HELP DOG, INC.

YOUR POSITION IN THE QUEUE IS *pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt*


Cat Army Sworn Enemy
My godson is really into unicorns right now but doesn't want anything girly god damnit kid why do you have to make things so difficult

He's gonna have to get a gift card or something because my Etsy order isn't going to get here in time which loving sucks so much

truavatar
Mar 3, 2004

GIS Jedi
My 19 month old just started daycare 2 months ago and has had a cold on and off for pretty much the entire time. Just got denied on her 18 month well visit because of the cold and rescheduled for two weeks when she will, inevitably, have another cold. How do I ever get her seen?!

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Renegret posted:

My godson is really into unicorns right now but doesn't want anything girly god damnit kid why do you have to make things so difficult

He's gonna have to get a gift card or something because my Etsy order isn't going to get here in time which loving sucks so much

I would posit that it’s society and gender roles feminizing interest in a fictional creature which is making things difficult

BadSamaritan
May 2, 2008

crumb by crumb in this big black forest


If I put enough sour cream on her food, my toddler will accidentally eat at least a little of whatever else is on her plate through her quest for sour cream.

truavatar
Mar 3, 2004

GIS Jedi

BadSamaritan posted:

If I put enough sour cream on her food, my toddler will accidentally eat at least a little of whatever else is on her plate through her quest for sour cream.

:same:

Sweet Gulch
May 8, 2007

That metaphor just went somewhere horrible.
My kids (7 and 3) are super picky lately, but it's really random. The toddler refuses most "kid" foods like chicken nuggets or even fries and the 7yo will specifically request tofu instead of chicken and then not touch it anyway. Heck, the 3yo ate just nori for supper the other night - she wouldn't touch the white rice or the tuna I'd made for rice ball filling. But will they both absolutely devour unagi rolls or a shawarma with all the toppings? Yes. Honestly, I've given up catering to them and cook whatever I want - I just try to make sure there's at least one thing they will eat, even if it's rice or corn, and let them have a cup of milk each (limited only so they don't fill up on milk). They both eat well at breakfast, and they both eat their lunches at school and daycare, so whatever. I give up. It's more frustrating cooking something I think they'll love and then watching them refuse to touch it. At least I'm eating the things I want to eat, and I can tell myself that I'm modelling healthy eating! And sometimes they even eat, too! Sometimes!

Smoothie supper is my fallback, though. I freeze all our bananas that go brown and try to keep soft tofu & frozen fruit on hand. Plus I can usually sneak in like, an entire tablespoon of spinach or kale without them noticing.

Alterian
Jan 28, 2003

My kid got the greatest unicorn shirt from the boys section of Target a few years ago. Its a drawing of a unicorn, but it's wearing a punk rock jacket and sunglasses and its rainbow mane is like a mohawk.

Nessa
Dec 15, 2008

We’ve got new restrictions in place now due to 24 people dying in 24 hours and the ICUs needing to transfer patients to other provinces. We’ve finally got a vaccine passport, but it also means we won’t even be able to have our immediate family over for the baby’s first birthday unless we celebrate outdoors. :(

Renegret posted:

My godson is really into unicorns right now but doesn't want anything girly god damnit kid why do you have to make things so difficult

He's gonna have to get a gift card or something because my Etsy order isn't going to get here in time which loving sucks so much

This unicorn is blue. https://www.amazon.ca/Aurora-Bright...658&sr=8-5&th=1

Amazon has some other blue unicorns too, if that helps.

Silent Linguist
Jun 10, 2009


My parents are currently in the middle of a 14-hour drive to finally come see our baby (now almost 11 months old). I haven’t seen them in almost two years. Exhausted from cleaning but so loving excited.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Silent Linguist posted:

My parents are currently in the middle of a 14-hour drive to finally come see our baby (now almost 11 months old). I haven’t seen them in almost two years. Exhausted from cleaning but so loving excited.

What is it like to be excited to see your parents?

truavatar
Mar 3, 2004

GIS Jedi

truavatar posted:

My 19 month old just started daycare 2 months ago and has had a cold on and off for pretty much the entire time. Just got denied on her 18 month well visit because of the cold and rescheduled for two weeks when she will, inevitably, have another cold. How do I ever get her seen?!

took her in for a sick visit - ear infection... bleh... hopefully the antibiotics clear things up by her well visit in two weeks

External Organs
Mar 3, 2006

One time i prank called a bear buildin workshop and said I wanted my mamaws ashes put in a teddy from where she loved them things so well... The woman on the phone did not skip a beat. She just said, "Brang her on down here. We've did it before."
Antibiotics for actual bacterial infections usually kick tremendous amounts of rear end. Hope she feels better soon!

Renegret
May 26, 2007

THANK YOU FOR CALLING HELP DOG, INC.

YOUR POSITION IN THE QUEUE IS *pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt*


Cat Army Sworn Enemy

Nessa posted:


This unicorn is blue. https://www.amazon.ca/Aurora-Bright...658&sr=8-5&th=1

Amazon has some other blue unicorns too, if that helps.

His mother specifically asked no stuffed animals because he already has a million of them. Then my wife put a ban on clothing.

Hippie Hedgehog
Feb 19, 2007

Ever cuddled a hedgehog?

BadSamaritan posted:

If I put enough sour cream on her food, my toddler will accidentally eat at least a little of whatever else is on her plate through her quest for sour cream.

Our soon-to-be-3 year old has gotten a lot pickier about food, gradually over a few months. Now she's being like other toddlers, ie won't even try new things until we patiently serve and watch them go uneaten at least three to five times. But she gave me a positive surprise today at dinner!

I had improvised a pasta sauce that's something like a cabbage, onions and carrot stir-fry, but then I threw in some cream cheese, sour cream, some leftover regular cream that was about to spoil, and a big sprinkle of dried thyme. Dilute with some of the water from the pasta until a nice consistency. Came out freaking delicious if you ask me. Of course I knew she wasn't gonna try it. I decided to roll the dice.

Cue a big yell-fest when I served it to her - how dare I even put it on her plate. "No, I don't want sauce!" She proceeded to flip the salt shaker and threw her fork on the floor, something she will do when upset and which we are trying get her to not do. I powered through and simply added her macaroni, even letting it touch the sauce (the horror). Once she calmed down, though, of she ate all the macaroni and was pretty happy throughout the meal. Naturally I prodded her a bit to try the sauce after all, and she responded "but I already tried it. There was some on a few of the macaroni. It was tasty."

I can't help but feel like I won even though she didn't intentionally eat a single spoonful of the sauce... I guess we take what small victories we can.

Hippie Hedgehog
Feb 19, 2007

Ever cuddled a hedgehog?
In other news, came down with second daycare cold in three weeks today. Out of 16 kids in her room, there were 4 attending yesterday, the rest were out sick. I guess there would only have been 3 of them today.

On the plus side, she happily sat through the entirety of My Neighbor Totoro while I cooked and cleaned etc. It doesn't bring the money but being a homemaker for her sick days is kind of fun even if her temper is worse with a fever.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Put in a call to doctor, spoke to nurse who said she’d get with the doctor and call me back to give me more info on what he said and make appt yes/no etc. Received no call back all day (talked to them in the earlyish morning), but today so far no accidents of any kind came from toddler’s urethral opening or anal opening. Will see if he makes it to bedtime, at which point I’ll give him an extra sticker on top of the one he earned this morning for staying in his bed all night and not coming into our room.

Have yet to see results of our switch from Enfamil to Similac where infant daughter is concerned, but didn’t see a notification of a loose BM at daycare today so that’s encouraging at least.

Fake edit: aaaand in the middle of writing this post the doctor’s office called me back after hours which I didn’t expect. Miralax and fiber it is

Nessa
Dec 15, 2008

Renegret posted:

His mother specifically asked no stuffed animals because he already has a million of them. Then my wife put a ban on clothing.

Ah, understandable! My baby isn’t even 1 yet and already has too many stuffed animals.

Found a black unicorn figurine though! https://www.amazon.ca/Schleich-7057...31840942&sr=8-5

Xand_Man
Mar 2, 2004

If what you say is true
Wutang might be dangerous


My toddler, inadvertently describing his developmental phase in a nutshell: "I don't KNOW what I want from the cupboard but I WANT IT!"

Somebody upthread posted something about Tergazyme, anyone had any experience with it? Wondering if how long a 4lb box might last.

Xand_Man fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Sep 17, 2021

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

In the bath tonight my toddler was flicking his penis going, “penis penis penis” over and over again. Then he pointed to the blue whale on the bath faucet and said, “penis whale!”

So it begins

Renegret
May 26, 2007

THANK YOU FOR CALLING HELP DOG, INC.

YOUR POSITION IN THE QUEUE IS *pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt*


Cat Army Sworn Enemy

Nessa posted:

Ah, understandable! My baby isn’t even 1 yet and already has too many stuffed animals.

Found a black unicorn figurine though! https://www.amazon.ca/Schleich-7057...31840942&sr=8-5

Ohh not bad

Too bad the party's on Sunday so I don't have time for Amazon anymore. I'm still pissed about the Etsy order set to arrive on....Monday.

He's 4, I'll just stop at the store and get something shiny. Maybe something annoying to start a passive aggressive annoying toy war with his parents.

I feel bad though because his mom is the best gift giver in the world and we constantly never do right by her kids.

L0cke17
Nov 29, 2013

The kid learned 2 words in 2 days. Both ketchup related.

Yesterday it was more. Today we asked if he would like more ketchup and he said "yeah". Then we asked if he wanted milk and he also said yeah.

Apparently he's very food motivated.

Nessa
Dec 15, 2008

Renegret posted:

Ohh not bad

Too bad the party's on Sunday so I don't have time for Amazon anymore. I'm still pissed about the Etsy order set to arrive on....Monday.

He's 4, I'll just stop at the store and get something shiny. Maybe something annoying to start a passive aggressive annoying toy war with his parents.

I feel bad though because his mom is the best gift giver in the world and we constantly never do right by her kids.

There might be some fun Halloween stuff out now! I accidentally got my cousin’s 4 year old obsessed with Pokémon. He saw into my office when he went to use the bathroom and saw all my Pokémon stuff, so I told him I had a bunch of old Pokémon cards kicking around that I could give him. I attempted to teach him how to play, but considering he juuuust started kindergarten and doesn’t know how to read or do math yet, my lesson could only go so far. My cousin is now having to constantly look stuff up for him because he has questions about his new cards. I created a monster, lol.

I picked up a cute, light up, plastic ghost today and my baby is obsessed with it. It’s very cute. I also went toe the Children’s Place for some cute Halloween pajamas and they only had one set. They had dozens of different Christmas ones though. Ugh.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Toddler came in twice last night so no sticker this morning, but after the second time he was done with that for the night.

Baby girl woke up at 1am despite having like 36oz of milk/formula all day, and would not go back down without eating first. Then she woke up at 5:30. Not sure why she can’t make it through the night because she’s technically supposed to be doing it at a younger age with 24oz throughout the day and not need it at night. Anyway, this morning on her play mat, she rolled from her tummy to return to her back for the first time unassisted like it was no big thing, so that’s pretty awesome. Hoping this means she will soon find some more comfy sleeping positions and not need our help in the night when she’s turned over and can’t get back to her back.

Koivunen
Oct 7, 2011

there's definitely no logic
to human behaviour

life is killing me posted:

Toddler came in twice last night so no sticker this morning, but after the second time he was done with that for the night.

Baby girl woke up at 1am despite having like 36oz of milk/formula all day, and would not go back down without eating first. Then she woke up at 5:30. Not sure why she can’t make it through the night because she’s technically supposed to be doing it at a younger age with 24oz throughout the day and not need it at night. Anyway, this morning on her play mat, she rolled from her tummy to return to her back for the first time unassisted like it was no big thing, so that’s pretty awesome. Hoping this means she will soon find some more comfy sleeping positions and not need our help in the night when she’s turned over and can’t get back to her back.

Fwiw my 15 week old has never slept more than 4 hours at a time. His night is usually 4 hours, eat, 2 hours, eat, and then around 3am he gets restless and it’s a crapshoot if he will sleep for more than an hour at a time after that.

Last night was rough. Toddler has a cold and of course she loves kissing the baby so he’s sick now too. He was up every 2 hours, restless between, then at 3am he was so stuffy he couldn’t feed, so I took him downstairs to bulb suck out all his snot, the song 3AM by matchbox twenty going through my head. 3AM I must be sukkin boogers. Then he just wanted boob so I let him sleep on the boob until toddler came in at 5am, then was up for good at 6.

sharkytm
Oct 9, 2003

Ba

By

Sharkytm doot doo do doot do doo


Fallen Rib
So last night was my first night alone with our 2 month old. I had given him a bottle several times, with mostly positive results.

It did not go to plan.

My wife left at 6:15, and by 6:45 he was hungry. I pulled out a bottle and put it in hot water to bring it to room temp (which he's been fine with in the past), stuck him in our ring sling to snooze, and once the bottle was warm, tried to feed him. The bottle (a MaM) dumped a ton of water out of the base, which set him off. Cue an hour of crying, screaming, and me desperately trying to get him to calm down and eat, give up and carry him around to calm him, try again to feed him, fail, repeat. Every time I'd get him calmed down, the instant the bottle touched his lips, he'd turn purple and freak out. I got maybe an ounce and a half into him the first hour, then gave him a bath, failed completely with the bottle (warmed this time), then he puked up a lovely mix of milk and mucus (from all the crying). Cue another bath, and then he finally he calmed down enough to eat without choking, and I got another 3 ounces in and got him to bed. He then proceeded to sleep for 6 hours, his longest stretch ever. I slept in the nursery with him, woke up at 0245 when he did, and fed him another 5 ounces of room temp milk with zero fussing or problems, and he passed out for another 4 hours. Ups and downs, my friends, ups and downs.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

sharkytm posted:

So last night was my first night alone with our 2 month old. I had given him a bottle several times, with mostly positive results.

It did not go to plan.

My wife left at 6:15, and by 6:45 he was hungry. I pulled out a bottle and put it in hot water to bring it to room temp (which he's been fine with in the past), stuck him in our ring sling to snooze, and once the bottle was warm, tried to feed him. The bottle (a MaM) dumped a ton of water out of the base, which set him off. Cue an hour of crying, screaming, and me desperately trying to get him to calm down and eat, give up and carry him around to calm him, try again to feed him, fail, repeat. Every time I'd get him calmed down, the instant the bottle touched his lips, he'd turn purple and freak out. I got maybe an ounce and a half into him the first hour, then gave him a bath, failed completely with the bottle (warmed this time), then he puked up a lovely mix of milk and mucus (from all the crying). Cue another bath, and then he finally he calmed down enough to eat without choking, and I got another 3 ounces in and got him to bed. He then proceeded to sleep for 6 hours, his longest stretch ever. I slept in the nursery with him, woke up at 0245 when he did, and fed him another 5 ounces of room temp milk with zero fussing or problems, and he passed out for another 4 hours. Ups and downs, my friends, ups and downs.

His walking bottle wasn’t around and that made him mad, or he was overtired? Our second does this occasionally, went through a phase of refusing to take a bottle from anyone after having taken bottles with zero problem for weeks.

Glad there were some long stretches of sleep though. Cherish those. Cherish them.

E: been alone with our first numerous times, wife out of town for work etc and you just survive the best you can. My wife will be out of town Monday through Wednesday and gets to go to Napa, which like, no fair, but this’ll be my first time along with two children for anything longer than a few hours or overnight. And boy am I not looking forward to it. Luckily our first is starting back at 5 days daycare so I’ll at least have the days to myself but fuckkkkk

life is killing me fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Sep 17, 2021

sharkytm
Oct 9, 2003

Ba

By

Sharkytm doot doo do doot do doo


Fallen Rib

life is killing me posted:

His walking bottle wasn’t around and that made him mad, or he was overtired? Our second does this occasionally, went through a phase of refusing to take a bottle from anyone after having taken bottles with zero problem for weeks.

Glad there were some long stretches of sleep though. Cherish those. Cherish them.

E: been alone with our first numerous times, wife out of town for work etc and you just survive the best you can. My wife will be out of town Monday through Wednesday and gets to go to Napa, which like, no fair, but this’ll be my first time along with two children for anything longer than a few hours or overnight. And boy am I not looking forward to it. Luckily our first is starting back at 5 days daycare so I’ll at least have the days to myself but fuckkkkk

Probably a little of column A, little of B, plus I took too long to start trying to feed him so he was hangry. Overall terrible experience at first, but a necessary one. I need more practice learning his cues, getting the necessary equipment in place before starting a feed, and controlling my emotions. I'm hoping to take more of the load off of my wife so she gets more sleep and doesn't feel guilty going out for her normal activities (now that they're returning and she's going back to work part time). I'm not ready for her to be gone for multiple days, but that's the hope in the next couple of months. At least I'm not outnumbered!

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

sharkytm posted:

Probably a little of column A, little of B, plus I took too long to start trying to feed him so he was hangry.

Been there.

sharkytm posted:

Overall terrible experience at first, but a necessary one. I need more practice learning his cues, getting the necessary equipment in place before starting a feed, and controlling my emotions.

I'm with you 100%, I know my infant's cues somewhat but I'm still getting used to them--by the time I do, she's changing them on me. She can go from smiling brightly at me one seconds, and the next second she's taken a dark turn and is screaming loudly and forcefully and arching her back to get out of her bumbo. It's super tough to nail down on breastmilk because she's on a schedule but she consistently gets hangry before her next scheduled feeding, and then I find myself frantically making and heating a bottle while she is so intensely angry she almost leaves her body. If I pre-make one, that'll be the one that goes bad after two hours because she ends up taking a long nap or something like that. But if I don't, it's one ticket to Hangrytown, pop. 1

Controlling your emotions just takes practice as you said. I'm still not perfect at it and never will be, but I have more trouble with it when it comes to my 3yo than with my 5mo old. He can be extremely frustrating at times for myriad reasons, and even once I got on antidepressants that actually worked for me after admitting to myself and my wife that I was pretty depressed and had been for a long time, it's not a magical thing that just gets fixed when the meds set in. Yesterday I managed to be calm and collected as my toddler threw a tantrum over Paw Patrol and having to stop that to go with me to pick up his baby sister from daycare, and then once I got him calm after literally carrying him and changing his clothes against his will, he got mad at me because...I wanted to bring his water bottle in the truck, knowing he'd be whining about being thirsty at some point during the round trip. A year ago that would have been a much more difficult situation for me, but yesterday it seemed surprisingly automatic to remain calm but still very much in control of what we were doing

sharkytm posted:

I'm hoping to take more of the load off of my wife so she gets more sleep and doesn't feel guilty going out for her normal activities (now that they're returning and she's going back to work part time). I'm not ready for her to be gone for multiple days, but that's the hope in the next couple of months. At least I'm not outnumbered!

We are balanced with a boy and a girl. But my wife and I desperately need a date night, both of us need alone time also, and neither of those are happening much. I tend to err on the side of, "Go do what you need/want to do, you've been working hard and doing a lot around here so go relax, I've got the kids" to give my wife a break but the prospect of three days of solo parenting is daunting.

negativeneil
Jul 8, 2000

"Personally, I think he's done a great job of being down to earth so far."
Sorry for the long vent post, but it's a week later and I'm still in a state of shock at the sheer incompetence. Last Friday, my son's preschool sent out an email welcoming families to the coming Fall season. School started this Monday. The email was the normal orientation stuff and some info about COVID precautions and how they're going to keep everyone as safe as possible. There's also a liability waiver parents need to sign, releasing the school from legal liability if there's an outbreak. Makes sense given that none of the kids can be vaccinated. Then this nugget:

quote:

We have supported and encouraged all of our staff to be vaccinated. The majority are fully vaccinated at the time of this letter. Vaccines and testing are not currently required by our Community Care Licensing and we will continue to follow their guidance.

We had assumed all the adults were vaccinated. I emailed the administration and said that was a surprising and disturbing thing to learn now, 4 days from the start of the school year, when we have zero chance of ever finding another preschool that could boast full vaccination (and there are a lot of preschools in California that use that as an explicit selling point). I needed to know if our son's teacher was vaccinated.

Them: "We cannot release private medical information about staff. The vast majority of the staff are vaccinated."
Me: "Yes you absolutely can, but fine. You don't have to name them, just tell me how many staff are vaccinated? You're asking us to assume risk, the least you can do is help us understand what that risk is."

Much hemming and hawing about how they're in an awkward position, blah blah blah TELL ME THE loving HEADCOUNT OF VACCINATED STAFF.

"Of our 20 staff, 4 have not yet been vaccinated". Loving the word choice here, as if those 4 are gonna get the shot any day now. No, they're anti-vax morons and they're never getting it. The administrator is useless, so I just email my son's teacher directly. I tell her we're excited for the school year, but this news came as a shock. The administrator says her hands are tied in releasing vaccination info so I'm asking her directly, are you vaccinated? No response all weekend. Finally, Sunday afternoon:

quote:

I am so excited to have <BOY> in my class!!! I have already started planning some of my curriculum around him and a couple of my returning students from the summer. <BOY> likes to know why and how? He comes up with so many great ideas.

To respond to your question, I am not able to disclose that information at this time. I completely understand your concern as a parent. I do know every teacher works very hard to keep the children safe and the environment clean and well maintained. If you feel uncomfortable please let me and the admin know we want the best for your family. If there is anything else I can help with please let me know. Sorry for the late response. I am returning emails today. Happy Sunday!

What loving planet do these people live on where they think they don't owe the parents of the kids in their care basic transparency about whether they're vaccinated against a deadly virus in the midst of a loving global pandemic? I wrote 5 different responses and had to trash all of them because they were way over the line. I should point out here that responses from everyone so far had this "if you feel uncomfortable let us know" but all that means is that they're happy to offer us a full refund and wish us luck. That's not a realistic option.

So we spent the rest of the day in anguish, wondering if we're horrible parents to expose our kid to this risk. But we need him in school. He really needs school and he loves it there. I took the morning off to take him to school myself. I never responded to her email and when I walked him into class I just ignored her dumb rear end because there's nothing to say. After dropping him off, I went to the administrator and calmly explained that this is not going to work for us. We need him in a class with a teacher who can positively affirm their vaccination status. She again explains that she can't reveal information, etc. I'm actually proud of myself for not melting down here, but just calmly explained that I don't care and I'm not asking her to reveal anything about her goddamn staff. I am asking her to use her personal knowledge of her staff to figure out how to fix this situation. She has all the information needed to make these decisions, I don't need to know any further details. She said she'd see what she could do but there might be an opening. Great.

By that afternoon, we got confirmation that he'd switch to a different teacher. She was happy to tell me she's vaccinated. Turns out it's also a much better classroom for him anyway so it all worked out. But man, I'm shook. This school's admin is hiding behind the law to do the absolute bare minimum for safety. Then they hide behind poo poo like HIPAA, which they don't even loving understand, to claim they can't reveal information to which I'm entitled. All in the service of... what exactly? It'd be really nice if 98% of the preschools in every part of this country weren't run out of the back of churches because I'm really, really tired of people like this.

Once we were fully switched over, I chewed out the first teacher as politely as I could

quote:

Unfortunately, we had to transfer <BOY> to a different class. We were excited to join you for the Fall season but given that we're still in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, it felt highly irresponsible to expose him to unnecessary risk. You're aware of this by now, I think, but I wanted to be straight with you instead of relying upon innuendo.

On that note, your refusal to give us a straight answer on this subject was really disheartening. I did not ask you what personal reason you've conjured in choosing to remain unvaccinated, that's none of my business. The fact remains that you've made a personal choice that impacts the rest of us. The least you could do is have the courage of your convictions and be honest instead of playing coy with this absurd "I am not at liberty to disclose" nonsense. As a result, telling me you completely understood my concerns as a parent felt disingenuous at best. I hope you can do better for the next family.

Best of luck in Fall season,
negativeneil

She never responded. Oh and I never signed their loving liability waiver and they never remembered to ask for it. Competence!

negativeneil fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Sep 17, 2021

Olanphonia
Jul 27, 2006

I'm open to suggestions~
Just gonna pat you on the back and say you did the right thing because you did. Horrible that they waited until so late to let you know they are not taking covid seriously.

2DEG
Apr 13, 2011

If I hear the words "luck dragon" one more time, so fucking help me...

Xand_Man posted:

My toddler, inadvertently describing his developmental phase in a nutshell: "I don't KNOW what I want from the cupboard but I WANT IT!"

Somebody upthread posted something about Tergazyme, anyone had any experience with it? Wondering if how long a 4lb box might last.

That was me. A really long time. Pretty sure our last box hit expiration (2 years at room temp) before we ran out. Recommended concentration is 1%, which is about a 1oz scoop to a gallon of water, or 2Tbsp to a liter (source). But even that felt like overkill for most household stuff. I definitely used less for, say, soaking poop accident undies and it worked well anyway.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Tom Smykowski
Jan 27, 2005

What the hell is wrong with you people?

Olanphonia posted:

Just gonna pat you on the back and say you did the right thing because you did. Horrible that they waited until so late to let you know they are not taking covid seriously.

Ya this for sure

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply