So, the Mrs. got offered a job today. It is a good job. Which, as recent immigrants to a new country, in a pandemic, is important. Assuming she says yes, we're back to being a two-professional-income family again, which is a) a massive relief for me and b) great for looking into the future, having a bit of spare funds to put away for the little dude's college or whatever.
But. We have 4 weeks before we'd need to have childcare sorted out, for our five-month old. Because daycares here seemingly won't take kids before 15 months. She's heartbroken to have to hand him over to a nanny, basically, and worried about having someone new in the apartment during a pandemic, and I am, a bit, too.
I think in the long term this is the right call, but it's going to be hard, sat on the sofa fielding zoom calls, while a stranger plays with our kid a few yards away. IDK, just feeling a bit weird about it. (If anyone has experiences of having in home childcare, or a cheaper alternative, reassure me!)
ETA: We were also planning to start sleep training this weekend, because we apparently have very poor timing. If anyone wants to talk to me about that, I would also be thrilled.
So, the Mrs. got offered a job today. It is a good job. Which, as recent immigrants to a new country, in a pandemic, is important. Assuming she says yes, we're back to being a two-professional-income family again, which is a) a massive relief for me and b) great for looking into the future, having a bit of spare funds to put away for the little dude's college or whatever.
But. We have 4 weeks before we'd need to have childcare sorted out, for our five-month old. Because daycares here seemingly won't take kids before 15 months. She's heartbroken to have to hand him over to a nanny, basically, and worried about having someone new in the apartment during a pandemic, and I am, a bit, too.
I think in the long term this is the right call, but it's going to be hard, sat on the sofa fielding zoom calls, while a stranger plays with our kid a few yards away. IDK, just feeling a bit weird about it. (If anyone has experiences of having in home childcare, or a cheaper alternative, reassure me!)
ETA: We were also planning to start sleep training this weekend, because we apparently have very poor timing. If anyone wants to talk to me about that, I would also be thrilled.
I'm in the UK, but I'm hoping my experience might be helpful... we've had a nanny for about 5 years now - first for our 6yo, then for our 3yo twins. She's been an absolute lifesaver, particularly in the pandemic. We didn't use her early on (initially we weren't allowed, then we felt it was safer not to) but now we've got her again, and we've asked her to follow the kind of rules you might in any workplace (hand sanitiser, temperature checks every day, etc - she'd wear PPE if we asked her to, but so far we haven't). We keep out of her way as much as possible - we've got the space to do that, but that might not be so easy for you?
In more normal times, I would absolutely take a nanny over a daycare/nursery (our other option here). With more than one kid it's a much more cost-effective option, and we even managed to arrange a sharing setup with our neighbours, so it became a no-brainer. She's checked by the education authorities here in the UK, so she maintains a level of pre-school education for them, though tbh I really don't care about that so long as they're safe and healthy. She takes them to play groups, museums, the park, etc - again, all great in the Before Times, but even now she's basically in the house with them she's coming up with games, roleplay activities, all sorts.
I guess a lot of it comes down to who you get and how much you feel you can trust them to follow health guidelines.
So we’ve gotten a little sloppy with the baby sign language and have accidentally taught the little’n some confusing habits. Normally not a big deal, and I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but one of them has become unintentionally amazing.
So she is at an age now where she is starting to push the limits of things. So in a lot of books/story times we emphasize the word “stop” with the usual stop hand motion. But we also are doing nursery rhymes, and often use a very similar hand motion for when the horn on the bus goes beep beep.
So now she has the two words sort of confused. Which means when she gets frustrated with us she now yells “No! beep beep!” while putting out her hand. I thought it would get old, but I crack up every time.
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
I drive a truck for a living. Yesterday was Grandma's turn to watch the little, who just turned 4. We went over, I had a few cups of coffee with Mom, then as I'm getting ready to go:
Charlie: "Daddy going to work?"
Me: "Yeah, baby, I gotta go. Love you!"
Charlie: "Love you! Wear your seatbelt!"
Anyone got any advice for morning sickness? My wife found out she was pregnant about 3 weeks ago and until recently things had been pretty easy going. These last couple of days and especially today though the nausea has been very strong. I made her some ginger lime syrup for something like tea this morning but was wondering if anyone had any recommendations otherwise.
Thanks I’m advance!
Steam - Synthetic Violence | XBOX Live - Cannonfuse | PSN - CastleBravo | Twitch - SoggybiscuitPA
Anyone got any advice for morning sickness? My wife found out she was pregnant about 3 weeks ago and until recently things had been pretty easy going. These last couple of days and especially today though the nausea has been very strong. I made her some ginger lime syrup for something like tea this morning but was wondering if anyone had any recommendations otherwise.
Today in "Things my kid did that are too cute not to share":
First, some background: We recently came into possession of two young cats
1 is a big orange fluffball who is perfectly well-adjusted, affectionate, and purrs very loudly
2 is a small, timid, ninja cat who bolts away at the slightest provocation, barely ever ventures close to my wife and me and hardly ever makes a sound of any kind
Ninja cat has been struggling to adapt to life within our family. In the first two months we had him, he hid in the basement. For a while, we feared that he had gotten stuck in a wall or something and died, as we never saw him. However, slowly but surely, he's gotten used to us and, in the last couple of months or so, Ninja cat has begun to make a habit of making an appearance during Mini-dead's bedtime routine.
Last night, just as I was finishing up storytime with Mini-dead, our Ninja cat decides he wants to jump up with us on her bed and see what's going on. Knowing how jumpy Ninja cat is, I counsel Mini-dead to stay as quiet as possible to see if we can keep him from bolting off, as he is wont to do.
Tentatively, Ninja cat gets within petting range. Gently, cautiously, Mini-dead gives Ninja cat some butt scratchies and head pats. Ninja cat accepts these for a bit, but, within moments, looks like he's looking over the edge of the bed for an escape route, as I expected he would.
At least, that's what I thought at first, but, as though giving it a second thought, Ninja cat instead turns back around, head-butts Mini-dead's leg, *floofs* down on her lap, and begins to purr.
Mini-dead: "Daddy! He's purring! He never purrs!" She turns to me with dewey eyes "Daddy... I have happy tears! Do you think he'll be my friend now?"
"I think he just might" I smile, kissing Mini-dead good night and taking my leave, as quietly as my big 'ol frame can muster, so as to not disrupt the cuddle sesh.
This morning, as I head to the bathroom for my daily constitutional, I spot Ninja cat leaving a still-sleeping Mini-dead's room.
I thought it might be cute to provide a follow-up to this story.
So over the last couple of months Ninja Cat (NC) has grown (slightly) less shy. For whatever reason, NC has developed a fascination with bathtime. Whenever it's time for Mini-dead's bath, NC has to supervise. If we dare close the bathroom door while Mini-dead is in there, NC will give the cutest, and yet also somehow desperate, tiny little mews, until we open the door. Then, once bathtime is done, NC will follow us to Mini-dead's room, where he will hang around as we dry her off and do the bedtime thing.
After things settle down, and mommy and daddy leave, NC will hop up onto Mini-dead's bed for some pettings. There have been several nights now where Ninja Cat will stay in the room with Mini-dead all night, curled up next to her.
Seeing their relationship grow these past months is the stuff of parenting clichés, I tell you what.
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+13
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Anyone got any advice for morning sickness? My wife found out she was pregnant about 3 weeks ago and until recently things had been pretty easy going. These last couple of days and especially today though the nausea has been very strong. I made her some ginger lime syrup for something like tea this morning but was wondering if anyone had any recommendations otherwise.
Anyone got any advice for morning sickness? My wife found out she was pregnant about 3 weeks ago and until recently things had been pretty easy going. These last couple of days and especially today though the nausea has been very strong. I made her some ginger lime syrup for something like tea this morning but was wondering if anyone had any recommendations otherwise.
Thanks I’m advance!
My wife found that physical activity helped a lot, she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and had been having some troubles with morning sickness. GD treatment starts with having you do a 15 minute walk after every meal, and she found that did wonders to address the nausea etc she had been having before the diagnosis. Although, hormone levels vary regularly throughout the pregnancy so it could have just been random.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
+1
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
My wife found basically nothing worked, iirc, and spent the better part of 6 months eating unseasoned potato products and drinking gingerale.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Anyone got any advice for morning sickness? My wife found out she was pregnant about 3 weeks ago and until recently things had been pretty easy going. These last couple of days and especially today though the nausea has been very strong. I made her some ginger lime syrup for something like tea this morning but was wondering if anyone had any recommendations otherwise.
Thanks I’m advance!
Just try different things until you find something that works is the best advice we got
My wife if she ate immediately upon waking up was fine, but if she went past like 8am without eating something she’d have terrible morning sickness for hours ... for a long time she literally had a box of Cheerios and granola bars next to the bed so she could wake up and grab some
+1
MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
Anyone got any advice for morning sickness? My wife found out she was pregnant about 3 weeks ago and until recently things had been pretty easy going. These last couple of days and especially today though the nausea has been very strong. I made her some ginger lime syrup for something like tea this morning but was wondering if anyone had any recommendations otherwise.
Thanks I’m advance!
Like Gdiguy said, just gotta try different things and see what works.
Have her keep a basic log - 'ate an entire tube of cookie dough, feel great.', or 'drank coffee, threw up twice.'
Try some of the basic neutral stuff like crackers, ginger ale/tea, etc.
Unisom and B6 are supposed help with the nausea in particular. Obviously ask her doctor before you start something OTC but they probably have a regimen that they can suggest if you ask.
Thanks all! Its been really weird. My wife has an iron stomach normally and I've watched her destroy an entire jar of pickled pepperoncinis in one sitting. One day she does that and the next day she can be so nauseous when she even smells anything pickled. I'm just extremely confused by the whole ordeal so far. Her nausea has been completely unpredictable thus far.
I guess the old tried and true of saltines, ginger ale, and pregnancy approved nausea medicine is just going to have to do from the sounds of it.
On the lighter side, I did get a good laugh when my dad told my wife and I on speaker that I was an 11 lb 4 oz baby.
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Thanks all! Its been really weird. My wife has an iron stomach normally and I've watched her destroy an entire jar of pickled pepperoncinis in one sitting. One day she does that and the next day she can be so nauseous when she even smells anything pickled. I'm just extremely confused by the whole ordeal so far. Her nausea has been completely unpredictable thus far.
I guess the old tried and true of saltines, ginger ale, and pregnancy approved nausea medicine is just going to have to do from the sounds of it.
On the lighter side, I did get a good laugh when my dad told my wife and I on speaker that I was an 11 lb 4 oz baby.
I can safely say that was not on the lighter side.
Unisom and B6 are supposed help with the nausea in particular. Obviously ask her doctor before you start something OTC but they probably have a regimen that they can suggest if you ask.
Unison and b6 helped my wife a lot, though she still threw up basically instantly if she ate anything even remotely spicy for the duration of her pregnancy. Shit's weird.
For my wife it was among other things everything minty.
Good luck finding a non-minty toothpaste that's not some homeopathic bullshit.
There's always kids' toothpaste; that comes in more flavors usually. Or something like this, which is what I use. Their Sweet Spice flavor is mostly cinnamon and cardamom, and no mint.
It doesn't have fluoride - I haven't yet been able to find a non-mint toothpaste that does, and I hate mint - but my dentist otherwise approved (albeit somewhat grudgingly) when I showed him the container.
One of the more interesting things I've been experiencing is the joys and challenges of a bi-lingual house where your language (English in my case) is the minority language both in the house and in the country. My older son kind of spoke/understood english as a young child, but we did a 2 week trip to the US at around 3 or 4 and it was like a switch went on, and he's been entirely truly bilingual since then. My younger daughter (turns 3 soon) seems to be at that precipice (she's worse at communication than my son, better at physical things), so it's interesting to compare and contrast what we did/went through the first time to the second.
More interesting has been that I have taken over schooling things this year since my wife struggled so much with home schooling last year during the pandemic, and... I do not speak the same language as the school people. Even just understanding the assignment asks for homework can be.. fun. But one fun one was a typing game that was 30% of the trimester grade, but our keyboards are from the US and don't have the ñ key. It was a timed reaction thing, so typing in alt-0241 every time was not really practical as you got into the later levels. We lucked out in getting some runs with just the standard 26 characters but I let the teacher know I was not happy. As a side note though, English class is an utter joke for my kid so far. His spoken English is better than the teachers, and I've been working with him on reading and this leads to point 3.
The fun point of teaching a kid to read is where they go from it being hard to "oh I want to read EVERY GODDAMN THING".
Lastly, are there any folks on the forum in a similar bilingual situation who have any notes to compare, advice to give? We've worked really hard to make sure that the parent with the fluency in the dominant language engages in that primarily (but very specifically NOT exclusively), but beyond that, worked with what seems natural. Oldest kid has started some code-switching in the last year or two which I think is a good sign.
One of the more interesting things I've been experiencing is the joys and challenges of a bi-lingual house where your language (English in my case) is the minority language both in the house and in the country. My older son kind of spoke/understood english as a young child, but we did a 2 week trip to the US at around 3 or 4 and it was like a switch went on, and he's been entirely truly bilingual since then. My younger daughter (turns 3 soon) seems to be at that precipice (she's worse at communication than my son, better at physical things), so it's interesting to compare and contrast what we did/went through the first time to the second.
More interesting has been that I have taken over schooling things this year since my wife struggled so much with home schooling last year during the pandemic, and... I do not speak the same language as the school people. Even just understanding the assignment asks for homework can be.. fun. But one fun one was a typing game that was 30% of the trimester grade, but our keyboards are from the US and don't have the ñ key. It was a timed reaction thing, so typing in alt-0241 every time was not really practical as you got into the later levels. We lucked out in getting some runs with just the standard 26 characters but I let the teacher know I was not happy. As a side note though, English class is an utter joke for my kid so far. His spoken English is better than the teachers, and I've been working with him on reading and this leads to point 3.
The fun point of teaching a kid to read is where they go from it being hard to "oh I want to read EVERY GODDAMN THING".
Lastly, are there any folks on the forum in a similar bilingual situation who have any notes to compare, advice to give? We've worked really hard to make sure that the parent with the fluency in the dominant language engages in that primarily (but very specifically NOT exclusively), but beyond that, worked with what seems natural. Oldest kid has started some code-switching in the last year or two which I think is a good sign.
We've been struggling with getter Mini-dead to grok French. The problem for us is that Mom is unilingual English, which means practicing French is all on me, and I've been lazy in that regard. She's picked it up somewhat, but she treats French more as a novel or "silly" language and doesn't really engage with it seriously. At least she doesn't outright hate it, which I'll take, but she isn't making a whole lot of progress either. I expect that when we start getting into verb conjugation, her attitude will shift from "what a silly language" to "ok now I actively hate this".
(French verb conjugation is notoriously silly and complex and full of pointless silent letters and all kinds of seemingly arbitrary rules)
My 6yr old son must be going through another growth spurt. He's eating a ton of food, fighting with everyone about everything, and throwing/slamming stuff when he gets upset. The last time this happened it was about 3 months straight of butting heads. I'm not sure if I'm prepared to deal with this for 3 months.
My wife is a native Mandarin speaker and I speak only English. She speaks to our kids mostly in Mandarin, but will sometimes use English or repeat something in English if she wants to make sure I understand. My in-laws only speak Mandarin so when they're here (which would be most of the time in a non-Covid year) that helps them pick up Mandarin. Honestly, before the older one started going to school his Mandarin was ahead of his English. We luckily live in a community where there are plenty of Chinese speakers, even if they're mostly Cantonese. Eventually we plan to send the kids to a Bi-lingual school which will hopefully help. What we often see around here is kids stop using Chinese at all or will stay at an elementary level. We rarely see kids who grew up here and know how to read/write well (understandable!). So, hopefully the bilingual school will help with that.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think English as a second language might work out better. There's less cultural baggage maybe? And also there's more fun things to do with it.
0
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
One of the more interesting things I've been experiencing is the joys and challenges of a bi-lingual house where your language (English in my case) is the minority language both in the house and in the country. My older son kind of spoke/understood english as a young child, but we did a 2 week trip to the US at around 3 or 4 and it was like a switch went on, and he's been entirely truly bilingual since then. My younger daughter (turns 3 soon) seems to be at that precipice (she's worse at communication than my son, better at physical things), so it's interesting to compare and contrast what we did/went through the first time to the second.
More interesting has been that I have taken over schooling things this year since my wife struggled so much with home schooling last year during the pandemic, and... I do not speak the same language as the school people. Even just understanding the assignment asks for homework can be.. fun. But one fun one was a typing game that was 30% of the trimester grade, but our keyboards are from the US and don't have the ñ key. It was a timed reaction thing, so typing in alt-0241 every time was not really practical as you got into the later levels. We lucked out in getting some runs with just the standard 26 characters but I let the teacher know I was not happy. As a side note though, English class is an utter joke for my kid so far. His spoken English is better than the teachers, and I've been working with him on reading and this leads to point 3.
The fun point of teaching a kid to read is where they go from it being hard to "oh I want to read EVERY GODDAMN THING".
Lastly, are there any folks on the forum in a similar bilingual situation who have any notes to compare, advice to give? We've worked really hard to make sure that the parent with the fluency in the dominant language engages in that primarily (but very specifically NOT exclusively), but beyond that, worked with what seems natural. Oldest kid has started some code-switching in the last year or two which I think is a good sign.
We're a bilingual house (French & English in the UK). The eldest is five and had Saturday morning French school (it's now an online half hour) to make sure her written French is good enough (spoken French and written French are fairly different as lots of conjugations sound the same but have different spellings and so on)
Also, we make sure they spend as much time as possible in France (easier pre 2020)
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
My 6yr old son must be going through another growth spurt. He's eating a ton of food, fighting with everyone about everything, and throwing/slamming stuff when he gets upset. The last time this happened it was about 3 months straight of butting heads. I'm not sure if I'm prepared to deal with this for 3 months.
It is 740am. He has been awake for 10 minutes and has already thrown and broken something. He is now screaming at his mother and mad that he lost his tablet for the day.
My 6yr old son must be going through another growth spurt. He's eating a ton of food, fighting with everyone about everything, and throwing/slamming stuff when he gets upset. The last time this happened it was about 3 months straight of butting heads. I'm not sure if I'm prepared to deal with this for 3 months.
It is 740am. He has been awake for 10 minutes and has already thrown and broken something. He is now screaming at his mother and mad that he lost his tablet for the day.
I can't do this anymore. I really can't.
As of 8 minutes ago he said he was sorry and is now completely normal again.
+12
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
My 6yr old son must be going through another growth spurt. He's eating a ton of food, fighting with everyone about everything, and throwing/slamming stuff when he gets upset. The last time this happened it was about 3 months straight of butting heads. I'm not sure if I'm prepared to deal with this for 3 months.
It is 740am. He has been awake for 10 minutes and has already thrown and broken something. He is now screaming at his mother and mad that he lost his tablet for the day.
I can't do this anymore. I really can't.
As of 8 minutes ago he said he was sorry and is now completely normal again.
"The days are long and the years are short."
Still, we're one-and-done because it's no use chasing that dragon
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
Yeah I absolutely do not judge people who are saying they don't want children. I think I was woefully unprepared (mentally) for having kids. Every time I talked to people about it they'd always have nothing but good things to say about it. But then once bad shit starts happening they're like "yeah that'll happen". Like wtf tell me that before so I can mentally prepare for the assault on my brain power haha.
For my wife it was among other things everything minty.
Good luck finding a non-minty toothpaste that's not some homeopathic bullshit.
There's always kids' toothpaste; that comes in more flavors usually. Or something like this, which is what I use. Their Sweet Spice flavor is mostly cinnamon and cardamom, and no mint.
It doesn't have fluoride - I haven't yet been able to find a non-mint toothpaste that does, and I hate mint - but my dentist otherwise approved (albeit somewhat grudgingly) when I showed him the container.
I was very briefly excited when I followed that link because I saw it came in a glass and metal jar (IE, fully recyclable) but was then very sad to see it has no fluoride. I would like more products which allow me to recycle their packaging and don't ship me water but DONT require me to use a non functional product please!
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
+1
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Yeah I absolutely do not judge people who are saying they don't want children. I think I was woefully unprepared (mentally) for having kids. Every time I talked to people about it they'd always have nothing but good things to say about it. But then once bad shit starts happening they're like "yeah that'll happen". Like wtf tell me that before so I can mentally prepare for the assault on my brain power haha.
Eh, I think its largely a function of our memory systems. You remember the good things well, and the mildly bad things less well. Unless you need to remember it so you can avoid it, if it was bad, your brain just sort of smooths it over so it doesn't disrupt your life too much.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
It's been a tough year for parents. Our part time childcare stopped when the pandemic started and we haven't really found a replacement. On the 1 hand it's extra money, but at the cost of sanity.
Toms sells a cinnamon/clove toothpaste that does have flouride but it doesn't seem particularly popular so you're stuck ordering it on like amazon for a large markup
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
0
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
It's been a tough year for parents. Our part time childcare stopped when the pandemic started and we haven't really found a replacement. On the 1 hand it's extra money, but at the cost of sanity.
Lockdowns 1 and 3 in the UK closed schools and while lockdown 3 intended to keep nurseries and childminders open the fact the staff suddenly had kids not at school meant availability dropped massively.
It has been shit. Except for one guy I know who says he's going to keep all five of his kids at home and home school them. Because he is insane.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
I wanted to stop in and say that I'll be moving into this thread soon. My wife is due with our first in about 50 days and I'm basically terrified.
ITS TERRIFYING! But also wonderful, and amazing, and scary, and exhausting, and exhilarating, and I'm running out of superlatives but still feel like I haven't used enough of them. Conratulations.
"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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I think there's a parents tab you can go to which has their reading history?
Some funny kid stuff from the past few days to brighten everyone's mood.
And finally, Link was not pleased when Abigail told him he couldn’t rescue Princess Zelda because he was sick:
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But. We have 4 weeks before we'd need to have childcare sorted out, for our five-month old. Because daycares here seemingly won't take kids before 15 months. She's heartbroken to have to hand him over to a nanny, basically, and worried about having someone new in the apartment during a pandemic, and I am, a bit, too.
I think in the long term this is the right call, but it's going to be hard, sat on the sofa fielding zoom calls, while a stranger plays with our kid a few yards away. IDK, just feeling a bit weird about it. (If anyone has experiences of having in home childcare, or a cheaper alternative, reassure me!)
ETA: We were also planning to start sleep training this weekend, because we apparently have very poor timing. If anyone wants to talk to me about that, I would also be thrilled.
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In related news, Charizard was cold tonight.
I'm in the UK, but I'm hoping my experience might be helpful... we've had a nanny for about 5 years now - first for our 6yo, then for our 3yo twins. She's been an absolute lifesaver, particularly in the pandemic. We didn't use her early on (initially we weren't allowed, then we felt it was safer not to) but now we've got her again, and we've asked her to follow the kind of rules you might in any workplace (hand sanitiser, temperature checks every day, etc - she'd wear PPE if we asked her to, but so far we haven't). We keep out of her way as much as possible - we've got the space to do that, but that might not be so easy for you?
In more normal times, I would absolutely take a nanny over a daycare/nursery (our other option here). With more than one kid it's a much more cost-effective option, and we even managed to arrange a sharing setup with our neighbours, so it became a no-brainer. She's checked by the education authorities here in the UK, so she maintains a level of pre-school education for them, though tbh I really don't care about that so long as they're safe and healthy. She takes them to play groups, museums, the park, etc - again, all great in the Before Times, but even now she's basically in the house with them she's coming up with games, roleplay activities, all sorts.
I guess a lot of it comes down to who you get and how much you feel you can trust them to follow health guidelines.
So she is at an age now where she is starting to push the limits of things. So in a lot of books/story times we emphasize the word “stop” with the usual stop hand motion. But we also are doing nursery rhymes, and often use a very similar hand motion for when the horn on the bus goes beep beep.
So now she has the two words sort of confused. Which means when she gets frustrated with us she now yells “No! beep beep!” while putting out her hand. I thought it would get old, but I crack up every time.
Charlie: "Daddy going to work?"
Me: "Yeah, baby, I gotta go. Love you!"
Charlie: "Love you! Wear your seatbelt!"
Thanks I’m advance!
Saltine crackers sometimes?
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I thought it might be cute to provide a follow-up to this story.
So over the last couple of months Ninja Cat (NC) has grown (slightly) less shy. For whatever reason, NC has developed a fascination with bathtime. Whenever it's time for Mini-dead's bath, NC has to supervise. If we dare close the bathroom door while Mini-dead is in there, NC will give the cutest, and yet also somehow desperate, tiny little mews, until we open the door. Then, once bathtime is done, NC will follow us to Mini-dead's room, where he will hang around as we dry her off and do the bedtime thing.
After things settle down, and mommy and daddy leave, NC will hop up onto Mini-dead's bed for some pettings. There have been several nights now where Ninja Cat will stay in the room with Mini-dead all night, curled up next to her.
Seeing their relationship grow these past months is the stuff of parenting clichés, I tell you what.
Goldfish are also good.
My wife found that physical activity helped a lot, she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and had been having some troubles with morning sickness. GD treatment starts with having you do a 15 minute walk after every meal, and she found that did wonders to address the nausea etc she had been having before the diagnosis. Although, hormone levels vary regularly throughout the pregnancy so it could have just been random.
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Steam: Korvalain
Just try different things until you find something that works is the best advice we got
My wife if she ate immediately upon waking up was fine, but if she went past like 8am without eating something she’d have terrible morning sickness for hours ... for a long time she literally had a box of Cheerios and granola bars next to the bed so she could wake up and grab some
Like Gdiguy said, just gotta try different things and see what works.
Have her keep a basic log - 'ate an entire tube of cookie dough, feel great.', or 'drank coffee, threw up twice.'
Try some of the basic neutral stuff like crackers, ginger ale/tea, etc.
I guess the old tried and true of saltines, ginger ale, and pregnancy approved nausea medicine is just going to have to do from the sounds of it.
On the lighter side, I did get a good laugh when my dad told my wife and I on speaker that I was an 11 lb 4 oz baby.
I can safely say that was not on the lighter side.
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Unison and b6 helped my wife a lot, though she still threw up basically instantly if she ate anything even remotely spicy for the duration of her pregnancy. Shit's weird.
Good luck finding a non-minty toothpaste that's not some homeopathic bullshit.
There's always kids' toothpaste; that comes in more flavors usually. Or something like this, which is what I use. Their Sweet Spice flavor is mostly cinnamon and cardamom, and no mint.
It doesn't have fluoride - I haven't yet been able to find a non-mint toothpaste that does, and I hate mint - but my dentist otherwise approved (albeit somewhat grudgingly) when I showed him the container.
In-home daycare is terrible because your minions try to beat down your door during meetings. No.. it's great. Though there are challenges.
More interesting has been that I have taken over schooling things this year since my wife struggled so much with home schooling last year during the pandemic, and... I do not speak the same language as the school people. Even just understanding the assignment asks for homework can be.. fun. But one fun one was a typing game that was 30% of the trimester grade, but our keyboards are from the US and don't have the ñ key. It was a timed reaction thing, so typing in alt-0241 every time was not really practical as you got into the later levels. We lucked out in getting some runs with just the standard 26 characters but I let the teacher know I was not happy. As a side note though, English class is an utter joke for my kid so far. His spoken English is better than the teachers, and I've been working with him on reading and this leads to point 3.
The fun point of teaching a kid to read is where they go from it being hard to "oh I want to read EVERY GODDAMN THING".
Lastly, are there any folks on the forum in a similar bilingual situation who have any notes to compare, advice to give? We've worked really hard to make sure that the parent with the fluency in the dominant language engages in that primarily (but very specifically NOT exclusively), but beyond that, worked with what seems natural. Oldest kid has started some code-switching in the last year or two which I think is a good sign.
We've been struggling with getter Mini-dead to grok French. The problem for us is that Mom is unilingual English, which means practicing French is all on me, and I've been lazy in that regard. She's picked it up somewhat, but she treats French more as a novel or "silly" language and doesn't really engage with it seriously. At least she doesn't outright hate it, which I'll take, but she isn't making a whole lot of progress either. I expect that when we start getting into verb conjugation, her attitude will shift from "what a silly language" to "ok now I actively hate this".
(French verb conjugation is notoriously silly and complex and full of pointless silent letters and all kinds of seemingly arbitrary rules)
Maybe I'm naive, but I think English as a second language might work out better. There's less cultural baggage maybe? And also there's more fun things to do with it.
We're a bilingual house (French & English in the UK). The eldest is five and had Saturday morning French school (it's now an online half hour) to make sure her written French is good enough (spoken French and written French are fairly different as lots of conjugations sound the same but have different spellings and so on)
Also, we make sure they spend as much time as possible in France (easier pre 2020)
It is 740am. He has been awake for 10 minutes and has already thrown and broken something. He is now screaming at his mother and mad that he lost his tablet for the day.
I can't do this anymore. I really can't.
As of 8 minutes ago he said he was sorry and is now completely normal again.
"The days are long and the years are short."
Still, we're one-and-done because it's no use chasing that dragon
I was very briefly excited when I followed that link because I saw it came in a glass and metal jar (IE, fully recyclable) but was then very sad to see it has no fluoride. I would like more products which allow me to recycle their packaging and don't ship me water but DONT require me to use a non functional product please!
Eh, I think its largely a function of our memory systems. You remember the good things well, and the mildly bad things less well. Unless you need to remember it so you can avoid it, if it was bad, your brain just sort of smooths it over so it doesn't disrupt your life too much.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Lockdowns 1 and 3 in the UK closed schools and while lockdown 3 intended to keep nurseries and childminders open the fact the staff suddenly had kids not at school meant availability dropped massively.
It has been shit. Except for one guy I know who says he's going to keep all five of his kids at home and home school them. Because he is insane.
ITS TERRIFYING! But also wonderful, and amazing, and scary, and exhausting, and exhilarating, and I'm running out of superlatives but still feel like I haven't used enough of them. Conratulations.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
100% normal and expected.