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We're all just doing our best for our [Kids]

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  • JansonJanson Registered User regular
    That is adorable!

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    My daughter learned how to say fork today, but ofc she can't pronounce the r yet, so instead she sat on my lap saying fuck over and over. I was trying so hard not to laugh.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

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  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    Reminds me of a neighbor's kid who once excitedly told me about his mom's big knockers.
    binoculars

    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • ceresceres When the last moon is cast over the last star of morning And the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator mod
    "when you look into them you can see forever"

    And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
  • JansonJanson Registered User regular
    How do you say no to this face? Because I have a hard time doing so...

    2019-04-06%2021.10.56.jpg

  • SolventSolvent Econ-artist กรุงเทพมหานครRegistered User regular
    On toilet training, ours was done with nappies not long after age 2. Now while having the toilet training out of the way was/is great, it's a difficult path to having it done that quickly. The Vietnamese way involves actually waking the kid up during the night and putting them on the toilet. That's pretty disruptive to everyone's sleep, but it did work for us. It's unpleasant to wake up your baby and sit them, often crying, on the toilet at 2am...

    I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.

    http://newnations.bandcamp.com
  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    My wife shared this short, cute video on Facebook of our son happily watching me stack blocks. I wish there was an easier way to download the videos to youtube for easier sharing.

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  • m!ttensm!ttens he/himRegistered User regular
    MNC Dover wrote: »
    My wife shared this short, cute video on Facebook of our son happily watching me stack blocks. I wish there was an easier way to download the videos to youtube for easier sharing.

    Link seems to be no longer available.

    Unrelated, today was baby Mittens' first day at daycare. She is still too young to have any stranger danger so she was pretty easily passed off to the teacher. I was a little sad to leave her behind but my poor wife was in tears as she was leaving for work this morning :sad:

  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    We have knocked down to half hour naps at daycare.

    Help me

  • SelnerSelner Registered User regular
    MNC Dover wrote: »
    The wife and I were planning a vacation last night. We originally wanted to do a cruise but that looked like a huge hassle whichever kid we brought with us. Therefore we changed our minds and are driving down to Cannon Beach in Oregon.

    So my question to you all is; which kid should we bring? Abigail is 3.5 now and Luke is going to be turning 1 just before we go. Pros and cons to either choice. Naturally the best choice would be leave them both with grandmas, but I don’t think she could handle them both even with Abigail in preschool.

    Are you staying at the beach? For how long?

    I've been taking my three kids to the beach on the East Coast (North Carolina) since they were born.

    We took my oldest (now 7) when he was 7 months old, and he's gone every year since.
    We brought the twins when they were 6 months old (and the older son was 2.5).

    This is actually a big family trip, grandma goes too. So it's a little different than just one family going.

    This year we're taking everyone (7, 5 and 5) to the Dominican Republic :) .

  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    Yeah, we'll be right next to the beach. Probably going with the 3-year old since she'll have more fun than the 1-year old.

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  • BlazeFireBlazeFire Registered User regular
    We have knocked down to half hour naps at daycare.

    Help me

    Our 3yo is not allowed to nap anymore. If she does, she doesn't go to sleep until 10pm.

    Yesterday she accidentally had a 2hr nap at daycare. Ugh. Luckily I am still on parental leave with our boy so it wasn't a big deal for me to get her to sleep.

  • SyphonBlueSyphonBlue The studying beaver That beaver sure loves studying!Registered User regular
    MNC Dover wrote: »
    Yeah, we'll be right next to the beach. Probably going with the 3-year old since she'll have more fun than the 1-year old.

    Why can't you bring both kids?

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  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    MNC Dover wrote: »
    Yeah, we'll be right next to the beach. Probably going with the 3-year old since she'll have more fun than the 1-year old.

    Why can't you bring both kids?

    Oh we can, we just wanted it to be a little more vacation-ey.

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  • MuzzmuzzMuzzmuzz Registered User regular
    We've discovered that Mini-Muzz reeeeeallly doesn't like water running in the bathtub, especially when she or anyone is in the tub. She cries and screams for us to turn it off. I've never seen her so scared since she first saw a vacuum.

    But the moment you do, she happily plays in the water. So it's a perplexing, but not too worrying.

  • SyphonBlueSyphonBlue The studying beaver That beaver sure loves studying!Registered User regular
    MNC Dover wrote: »
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    MNC Dover wrote: »
    Yeah, we'll be right next to the beach. Probably going with the 3-year old since she'll have more fun than the 1-year old.

    Why can't you bring both kids?

    Oh we can, we just wanted it to be a little more vacation-ey.

    In terms of "vacation", one kid is the same as two. You don't get "vacations" with kids lol

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  • SeptusSeptus Registered User regular
    Only having one kid, I can't imagine loving being at the beach, and having to deal with two meltdowns instead of one. It seems like a worthwhile approach, if there's no way to foist off both kids.

    PSN: Kurahoshi1
  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    Only having the one kid means the wife can step out for a late-night walk without having me getting swamped by both kids. I’d like to go with her, but someone has to be responsible and I’d rather her get some fresh air and quiet. She gets easily stressed and bored while that sort of stuff never bothers me.

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  • KetarKetar Come on upstairs we're having a partyRegistered User regular
    Ketar wrote: »
    My 4 year old and my 7 year old both have friends coming over for playdates at the same time this afternoon. The friend of my 4 year old has an older sister who's in the same class as my 7 year old and his friend, so she might be coming over too - it depends on whether some activity is canceled or not for her. My wife is leaving for work about 10 minutes before the kids show up and thinks I'm insane for setting these up on the same day. Tomorrow morning she leaves town on a medical mission trip and won't be back until the following Sunday, so I'm solo with both kids for 9 days.

    Thoughts and prayers, please.

    The playdates went perfectly. The week of single parenthood was going well too, until my son's school called at 12:30pm today and told me to come and pick him up because he threw up in his classroom.

    He's taking a nap right now; he stopped napping at 18 months, outside of times were he's sick like this. He had a low fever - about 100 degrees - so I gave him some children's tylenol. School isn't an option for tomorrow whether he's feeling better or not, so now I have to decide if I wake him up and bring him with for the 25 minutes roundtrip it takes to drop off my daughter at her pre-K. Or if I should let him sleep in and take her late. Or just keep her home too.

    Ugh.

  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Hooboy

    just got an email from daycare

    They're apparently having an Easter themed funday next wed.

    The kids are to design and decorate their own Easter themed hat at home to wear into school on that day.

    How do I help her participate in something when we don't celebrate Easter, but she's too young to really get that and the response will likely be "but, it's all secular here anyways"


    argh

  • EntriechEntriech ? ? ? ? ? Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited April 2019
    Hooboy

    just got an email from daycare

    They're apparently having an Easter themed funday next wed.

    The kids are to design and decorate their own Easter themed hat at home to wear into school on that day.

    How do I help her participate in something when we don't celebrate Easter, but she's too young to really get that and the response will likely be "but, it's all secular here anyways"


    argh

    As an initial thought, do the activity but strip out the theming? I don't know how your daycare rolls, but as long as she gets to make a fun party hat and wear it to daycare, I can't imagine anyone bringing up that it isn't festooned with easter iconography.
    We do this all the time with various 'theme' days our daughter's kindergarten does. Lots of 'colour day' or 'crazy hairstyle day' and it's like "We don't have a yellow article of clothing appropriate for winter". So she just goes in whatever.

    Entriech on
  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    We’re doing an egg hunt on Friday at our preschool. I’m not worried about forced religious themes since a lot of the things they teach are on diversity. It’s so amazing to me to see open-mindedness being a priority after the forced ideals shoved on me during my time in the south.

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  • MulysaSemproniusMulysaSempronius but also susie nyRegistered User regular
    I think I may have just figured out why my kids' daycare is so popular with a lot of the more secular Jewish families in the neighborhood.
    It's owned by Jehovah's witnesses, so no holidays are ever really even mentioned (other than holidays to take time off for).
    I got so used to public schools not doing religious things outside of cultural sharing, that I forgot daycares tend to not have so many restrictions.

    If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Entriech wrote: »
    Hooboy

    just got an email from daycare

    They're apparently having an Easter themed funday next wed.

    The kids are to design and decorate their own Easter themed hat at home to wear into school on that day.

    How do I help her participate in something when we don't celebrate Easter, but she's too young to really get that and the response will likely be "but, it's all secular here anyways"


    argh

    As an initial thought, do the activity but strip out the theming? I don't know how your daycare rolls, but as long as she gets to make a fun party hat and wear it to daycare, I can't imagine anyone bringing up that it isn't festooned with easter iconography.
    We do this all the time with various 'theme' days our daughter's kindergarten does. Lots of 'colour day' or 'crazy hairstyle day' and it's like "We don't have a yellow article of clothing appropriate for winter". So she just goes in whatever.


    Yeah. We'll end up doing that probaby.

    just dealing with a lot of Jewish mommy guilt with things. I'll get over it.

    Thank you though!

  • JansonJanson Registered User regular
    Usually once I get home from work (around 6 pm) I have to eat, feed cats, do dishes, fetch kids snacks, clean litter boxes and fold laundry. I prefer to get it all out of the way so I don’t end up doing it late at night.

    I was finishing up laundry when Anya comes stomping up the stairs: ‘Moommmmmm you’re taking so long! You never play with us!’

    Normally I will apologize, explain what I have to do, promise to be down soon, etc.

    Tonight I said: ‘Maybe if you didn’t create so much work for me I’d be done sooner.’

    I mean, it’s true. Anya is messy and goes through an inordinate number of outfit changes. Plus she’s nearly 7, extremely capable of helping out.

    And instead of shouting at me Anya actually said ‘alright’ and helped me fold laundry and match socks! And she said she’d do the same tomorrow.

    Also she’s continuing to resist showers hard, but I got her in tonight and now she’s spent over ten minutes in there, singing away.

  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    She did just explain to me how annoyed she is about how long it takes her hair to dry, because she "only has fourteen hours a day to play."

  • HardtargetHardtarget There Are Four Lights VancouverRegistered User regular
    edited April 2019
    Hooboy

    just got an email from daycare

    They're apparently having an Easter themed funday next wed.

    The kids are to design and decorate their own Easter themed hat at home to wear into school on that day.

    How do I help her participate in something when we don't celebrate Easter, but she's too young to really get that and the response will likely be "but, it's all secular here anyways"


    argh

    As a jew I'd be beyond annoyed with that kind of "homework"

    Edit - I'm aggravated just thinking about it lol. People don't really get it because to the world at large Christmas and Easter are secular holidays but to me they absolutely are not and it can sometimes be extremely hard to raise a kid when you are only 0.02% of the world's culture and people can't see it from that point of view.

    I have friends who are flabbergasted I don't have a Christmas tree. They argue with me about it and will say things like "but this other Jewish person I know has a tree" as of that somehow wins their argument.

    Ugh. This is my 1 big life trigger.

    Hardtarget on
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  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Hardtarget wrote: »
    Hooboy

    just got an email from daycare

    They're apparently having an Easter themed funday next wed.

    The kids are to design and decorate their own Easter themed hat at home to wear into school on that day.

    How do I help her participate in something when we don't celebrate Easter, but she's too young to really get that and the response will likely be "but, it's all secular here anyways"


    argh

    As a jew I'd be beyond annoyed with that kind of "homework"

    Edit - I'm aggravated just thinking about it lol. People don't really get it because to the world at large Christmas and Easter are secular holidays but to me they absolutely are not and it can sometimes be extremely hard to raise a kid when you are only 0.02% of the world's culture and people can't see it from that point of view.

    I have friends who are flabbergasted I don't have a Christmas tree. They argue with me about it and will say things like "but this other Jewish person I know has a tree" as of that somehow wins their argument.

    Ugh. This is my 1 big life trigger.


    Exactly the same boat here.

    add in that I have 0 community around me and don't have the ability to take her TO the community cause whoa anxiety.
    But I can't seem to quite get myself to start teaching at the moment either. Like I pulled out my Children's bible that I remember reading myself all the time as a kid. but I can't read it to her? something feels wrong with it? I dunno? question mark?

    but yeah. I'm thinking of emptying one of my matzah boxes and turning it into a hat for her to wear. But then, she'll get asked about it and be singled out and ARGH that SUCKS so much. (insert overthinking spiral)

  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    Hooboy

    just got an email from daycare

    They're apparently having an Easter themed funday next wed.

    The kids are to design and decorate their own Easter themed hat at home to wear into school on that day.

    How do I help her participate in something when we don't celebrate Easter, but she's too young to really get that and the response will likely be "but, it's all secular here anyways"


    argh
    Have her bring a lucky rabbit, minus the lucky rabbit feet.

  • ceresceres When the last moon is cast over the last star of morning And the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator mod
    edited April 2019
    My son goes to school on Christmas Day.

    My son goes to school on Christmas day. It's a half day, but it counts!

    Nobody asks him to make Easter bullshit. Nobody hands out Santa cards. He doesn't have to do reindeer crafts or be asked why he hates Jesus by kids on the playground. If I send him to school on Yom Kippur his classroom doors will be locked. He is able to observe his holidays and not de facto celebrating Christianity like he would be at public school.

    I think in some ways sending him to his school is healing damage done by that kind of situation when I was a kid. Our holidays are all the other kids' holidays too. It means the world. And he loves it, and he loves the school and his friends and I get to see what it's like for a kid to actually grow up excited about participating in Jewish holidays and traditions that he actually gets to learn about when he's actually at school. Sending him to a private school with private school costs was a big step for us, an especially for me I guess. At this point I have no doubt that this was the right decision for us.

    In retrospect I'm not sure why I thought it would be impossible to find Jews in an isolated patch of desert. :P

    ceres on
    And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
  • furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    My nephew and niece are not going back to my brother and his wife for at least the next 3 months. The child services people are either acting maliciously towards them or so incompetent that it ends up being the same thing. That is probably the limit of how long we can keep them. My son has started therapy and hopefully it will help him feel better for the next few months. On top of that his grades slipped a bit this semester, he is only 8 so it is not exactly an emergency but it is worrisome.

    My nephew is almost certainly on the autistic spectrum but his parents and my mom are being incredibly obtuse about it. I think we are going to have to take him to a doctor without them so they will stop interrupting the doctor and insisting everything is normal. He threw a massive fit at daycare yesterday and I had to go pick him up, which meant I got way less sleep then I need for work. Hopefully he doesn't do it again because if he can't stay in daycare we are probably going to have to put him back in foster care. Bleh just a shit situation all around.

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  • schussschuss Registered User regular
    If it's any consolation, the first thing 99 out of 100 kids think of in relation to Easter is the Easter Bunny or candy.
    I went to a private elementary school that was at least 1/3 Jewish where we celebrated all of those holidays, so I get the angst (also all the awful shit kids dealt with that made their parents pull them from public and put them in our school).
    That said, like Kleenex losing brand identity because no one calls them tissues, Easter is being stripped of any religious significance for the greater population as people get less religious worldwide.
    Part of being a parent is not letting the awful shit that stuck with you transfer to your kids. It's awful and nothing takes away from that, but they're just kids that want to paint eggs and do some of the things their friends do. If anything, when a fun Jewish holiday comes up, see if you can go in and share it with the class. My daycare has done Chinese New year and Diwali in recent memory, and all cultures SHOULD be celebrated.

  • SeptusSeptus Registered User regular
    I'm really sorry about that, it sounds like such a complicated situation with no easy choices. I hope you have some people to lean on for support to release some pressure when you can.

    PSN: Kurahoshi1
  • HardtargetHardtarget There Are Four Lights VancouverRegistered User regular
    edited April 2019
    I have a really hard time with Christmas. It's by far my most hated time of the year and this has only gotten worse as I've had kids and those kids have started getting older.

    I'm a reform Jew that also does not believe in god at all, it's all culture for me and it's important (to me). My rabbi runs a yearly "how to deal with Christmas and kids" session for 2 hours around the holidays that you can go to while the kids are in Sunday School and last year we had one lady full on break down during it and cry for like 30 minutes.

    I'm not sure any of us can explain it that well to non-Jews but it's really hard.

    edit - I didn't notice this post:
    schuss wrote: »
    If it's any consolation, the first thing 99 out of 100 kids think of in relation to Easter is the Easter Bunny or candy.

    Easter is being stripped of any religious significance for the greater population as people get less religious worldwide.
    this is my big issue. Just because its become non-religious for you doesn't mean it has for me. Again, it's hard to explain.

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  • ceresceres When the last moon is cast over the last star of morning And the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator mod
    edited April 2019
    I don't think it's something you can just explain. I feel like it probably doesn't make any sense to people who aren't Jewish. At least, none of the people I've talked to about it seem to get it. I think the hardest thing to impart to non-Jews is that in these cases "secular" is not really all that secular. Making decorations (or having to watch your kid make decorations) for a holiday that is anathema to your religion and culture and literally got its start by demonizing and killing your ancestors and relatives and has continued to do so into the present day is not "secular." It is personal. Getting someone else's holidays as assumed vacations and having to fight bureaucratic bullshit to get off for yours is a terrible feeling. And even if you can get off, making sure protections are in place and being respected so you or your kid doesn't miss a test someone scheduled for that day on purpose or otherwise can be a whole separate fight. My husband doesn't get to spend our holidays with our kids. He'll spend every last bit of his vacation and possibly then some or lose pay at best and his job at worst. Jewish people don't get to celebrate our holidays and also get vacation days, and it means disclosing his religion to his workplace.

    "But everyone gets vacation for Christmas and Easter so it's fair." No. Fuck you. It is not fair, it is pretty severe marginalization if I have to risk my career or possible truancy for observing the most important days of the year to me and my family while being forced to recognize yours that I have to put my kids through, and send them the message that in the grand scheme of things they just aren't important enough to respect. You could stop giving any of those days off by default. That would be secular. "But that will make it hard for families to celebrate Christmas together." Don't care. Not my problem any more than you want Yom Kippur or Passover to be yours. You want to still have those things? Give a couple floating two-week holidays to replace them, or even for atheists to do whatever they want. Give them to everyone, on top of vacation days.

    It is damaging. It's damaging to people, to families, to an entire culture. So yeah. When you say "they're just secular holidays so it's not worth begrudging" you aren't diminishing them, you're diminishing me. And yeah that sucks and I get real mad.

    ceres on
    And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
  • ceresceres When the last moon is cast over the last star of morning And the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator mod
    "Just bring something meaningful for Hanukkah to put under the tree"

    "Okay how about our menorah? I'll even light it for you ahead of time to make sure it's extra meaningful"

    And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
  • HardtargetHardtarget There Are Four Lights VancouverRegistered User regular
    edited April 2019
    It's also just everything about how in your face Christmas is and how people don't even know what the holiday is. like Christmas Wreaths drive me crazy, people just putting them out because that's "what you do" but they have no idea what they are even symbolizing.
    Advent and Christmas wreaths are constructed of evergreens to represent everlasting life brought through Jesus and the circular shape of the wreath represents God, with no beginning and no end.[23][24][25] Advent and Christmas wreaths are now a popular symbol in preparation for and to celebrate the coming of Christ, with the former being used to mark the beginning of the Christian Church’s liturgical year and both serving as décor during Advent and Christmas festivities.
    like how do you hang one and have no idea what it represents.

    I was reading a article about some refugees who managed to get settled in Canada last year. They got their Permanent Residency and they were so excited, they said something along the lines of "we're so happy to now be able to feel like we can celebrate Canadian holidays like Christmas with everyone else". These are people who are not Christian and had to flee their country to come here and Christmas is so in their face that they just assume it's a national holiday to everyone.

    blech

    Hardtarget on
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  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Do we have any Muslim posters living in America? I wonder if they feel similarly. It's certainly not something I've ever thought that hard of, short of sitcoms treating it like a punchline.

    Thanks to those of you who've posted about it, I really appreciate the little bit of experience I've been able to share through your posting.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

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  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    It seems to work better if you're in a diverse community, people seem to be usually more respectful that not everyone does the Christian thing. My kids learn all about Diwali, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur as part of their usual public schooling. Then again I live in a pretty diverse town in Massachusetts so perhaps it's just a liberal masshole thing to be more aware of other people and cultures.

    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
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