@JamieK1882 - For never seeing the original or reading the book, I was a little freaked out lol. It was definitely creepy and there were some funny parts, too! I'd say go! Enjoy your date! It will be fun
This last week or two have been ridiculous. It's made it hard to stay involved so I'm spending a good amount of time sitting here, trying to read everything and catch up.
The ultrasound and boy/girl threads were my favorite to catch up on.
@becausescience My old dentist (he was good, just retired now) had a little probe that sensed density so he could detect cavities that way. But, realistically even if they did x-rays, it's not as much radiation as you would think. I'd just ask for all the lead blankets they have in the building. Both for the protection and because I love those things. Maybe just call your midwife/OB to get their take on it.
Me: 34 DH: 38 Married: June 2011 TTC since Feb 2016 BFP#1: 7/7/16 MMC: 8/16/16 BFP#2: 5/8/17 - CP BFP#3: 6/27/17 EDD: 3/10/18
The owner of my Crossfit gym is throwing us 5 moms (yes, there are 5 of us due all around the same time lol) a baby shower in December! That just made my week
PSA: Target has a nice goody bag for those who set up a registry there (or on their website). I got a bottle, 2 pacifiers, lotion, shampoo, nursing pads, breast milk storage bags, lots of diapers and wipes, tons of coupons, and some other stuff. It was all in a pretty cute bag.
I have a dentist appointment after work today and am legit scared I have a cavity. I felt like this last pregnancy too though - my teeth just feel more sensitive during pregnancy I guess. They can still find cavities without xrays right?
I had a dental appointment too and I have had pregnancy induced gingivitis. My dentist says it's normal and due to hormones. However, I have been pregnant or nursing or both for over five years now and my mouth is super sensitive this time. She recommended sensodyne toothpaste and ACT mouthwash.
@becausescience it depends on where the cavity is. Some they can find without X-rays but some are only visibke with X-rays. Teeth can definitely be more sensitive when pregnant with all the hormone changes. Pregnancy gingivitis is real! Good luck!
Me: 30 DH: 31 Married: May 2008 DD Born: March 2018 DS Born: April 2019 Due with #3 December 2020!
Update on the dog I had to take to the shelter today situation - I was a sobbing mess and the people there were very sweet about it and pretended not to notice. The moment I brought Bella in and said we would be doing an owners release, everyone in the room said they wanted her. It's a no-kill shelter that will update us when she gets adopted, and they were very confident she wouldn't be there long.
My heart hurts, but I guess I'm glad my husband didn't have to be there for it because she was much more his dog than mine. Thank you to the ladies that gave me hugs and good juju.
My husband works for the government, and today he finds out that he has to go out of state to help train some people. His management says he has to go, no options. This happens to be when we would find out the baby's gender via the anatomy scan. After a very stressful day talking to my OB and the antenatal center, the appointment could not be moved. However, we found one of those sonogram early peak places, and funny enough, we are getting to find out next week. So alls well that ends well.
Still this has made me super anxious about trips around the time the baby is born. He has requested to stop going on work trips in December, but I'm scared his management is going to pull some last minute mandatory crap like this time.
This might be gross...but...I brushed my teeth before bed tonight for the first time in a while. This is Day 3 of no vomiting so I thought I'd risk it. So nice going to bed with clean teeth!!!!
I was talking to my work friend about painting the nursery and mentioned planning on doing cool colors (blues, greens, purples), and she got all mortified looking and told me "You can't paint a girl's room blue!"
Never mind that the entire house is done in cool tones (mostly sage/seafoam which was why I was leaning blue, my poor wife is tired of me always picking green xD), and that this was like 2 weeks ago now, but its still really annoying me.
The new room plan is an ocean theme - AKA blue, lighter blue, and cloud blue. I swear this is only a little bit spite-motivated.
It's my husband's birthday today and I'm currently standing in line at a Best Buy hoping to get my hands on the SNES classic. This better get me a wife of the year award or something.
@becausescience Yay! I got a bunch of dental work right before my IUI ... so glad I got that overwith because I wanted to avoid work and x rays in there when pregnant. I know about the lead apron thing but figured if possible best to avoid anyway. I have not-just-pregnancy gingivitis and periodontitis though so I knew to be extra careful about it before IF treatments.
@calecorvus Yeah that's very outdated and shitty... we don't even know the sexes yet and I've already had the no human form dolls conversation with my MIL. Sounds early but she's got an entire closet dedicated to barbies so really I'm kind of behind! (For pro dolls folks, to each her own, but MH and I are avoiding that stuff personally.)
Could someone help me to have either a real ticker instead of a bunch of nonsense with the word "BabyFetus" included, or none at all because I can't even figure out now how to just get rid of it. thank you!
I'm anti-doll purely because the last thing I want to see when I walk into a dark room at night/early morning is a doll in the corner. That being said, if my daughter was begging me for a doll in the store, I don't think I'd be able to say no purely for my own weird "they're creepy" reason.
@jeanbean15 Yeah that probably belonged in UO lol. It's a feminist and gender conformity issue for me. I'm saying I don't want a bunch of dolls around them when they're too little to pick them out themselves. If they chose one independently later I guess I'd be OK with that, but they'd have to come to that conclusion on their own, choose it over other toys, and we'd absolutely have a conversation about it instead of it existing in their lives with no context. There is a lot of background info I'm leaving out here about my MIL... to summarize let's just say she has said very questionable things regarding gender roles to her children when they were young and impressionable that influenced them in negative ways and gave them false expectations about marriage, relationships, etc. So MH is very on board with the doll restriction .
None of this is to say that everyone should be like us. People should go with their own values and provide or don't provide any dolls and/or context they think is appropriate. This is just something we both feel strongly about. I don't think all dolls are bad or that all parents who give dolls are bad or anything like that--this is a personal thing that we are doing, which we've talked about a lot.
@vflux33 That's interesting to me! I've definitely thought of having Barbie dolls or other dolls influence young girls to want to look a certain way, I've heard of parents disliking for them for those reasons. Similar to parents disliking Disney Princesses influencing their young girls. And as far as gender issues, are you referring to the problematic way that people believe dolls are for girls and hypermasculine "action figures" like GI Jo are for boys, as well as what those dolls represent in regards to how someone of a certain gender should be? Does that make sense? Or is there something more at play here?
Personally my daughter has 2 doll houses, a castle, a Barbie car, and a Barbie airplane lol. We have boy dolls, girl dolls, teenage dolls, baby dolls, daddy dolls, mommy dolls, African American dolls, white dolls, Mexican dolls (Dora the explorer's family lol), chubby dolls, slender dolls, dolls with freckles, dolls whose hair has been cut off and altered with markers, red heads, naked dolls, dolls in bikinis, fully clothed dolls. Plus tons of animal figurine toys. They all live together in the castles and houses and ride in the cars. At her age (2) she's more interested in setting them down to eat together at the table or take turns on their potty, than she is to describe their physical features. I think tbh the most she's ever really noticed about their bodies is the fact that the mommy dolls have boobs. So the babies nurse on the mommies lol.
I guess I just haven't really considered taking the time to wonder about the affects of toys because we haven't had any issues at this point.
@jeanbean15 Yeah the body image stuff is part of it. Also I'm personally not fond of the dolls that act like babies and put the small child in the "mom" role. The Disney princess thing definitely is an issue for us too, and Disney generally, in part because of gender conformity and in part because of teaching consumerism to kids, which is related to body image and gender conformity, but different. MH and I talk about this stuff A LOT and it is important to us to be conscious of how it influences our kids, but again, our ways are not for everyone!
Side note, I was given exactly one barbie as a child. I took off all her clothes, and her head, and threw her head and body to opposite sides of the room. No more dolls for me after that! I HATED them. But I loved toys shaped like animals. I have a 9 year old niece who has always hated dolls too. Maybe my family is just weird?
@vflux33 not weird. I was always way more into my animal toys as a kid, too. It sounds like there's so much that goes into the whole doll issue. What's the issue with mom and baby roles?
@jeanbean15 I just feel weird about little girls playing the role of mom and worried it would lead to an assumption that that's definitely gotta be their number 1 priority when they reach adulthood. Not that there's anything wrong with prioritizing being a mom (in fact I kinda wish we had started earlier-- I'm 34, H is 37, and this will be our first and second). But just would prefer not to plant those seeds that early and let her decide that on her own once she understands her options better.
Not really related but on the subject of dolls, my son has a baby doll. He's not into it much now, but when I was pregnant with kid 2, he slept with it and played with it and called it his baby. We got it for him to help try to explain what was about to happen in our house with a new baby coming, and it totally helped!
***March '18 October Siggy Challenge: Halloween Costume Fails***
@vflux33 and @jeanbean15 very interesting points you brought up! @vflux33 I hadn't thought of dolls in that way before we had our first, other than Barbies, but I did have strong feelings once we found out DD was a girl about how I didn't want all the grandparents to run out and buy her pink, frilly, princess-y frufru junk. My daughter was going to be raised neutrally and make her own choices about what she liked and didn't like.
Fast forward to now, DD is 4, DS is almost 2, and both of them went through the same baby doll loving phase around 18 months. DD had received a doll at her first birthday from a friend of the family, and she independently initiated all of her "mother-like" behaviors with the baby doll. It ended up being an awesome transition to bringing home DS when she was 26 months, too. DS has been surrounded by a variety of toys, and he plays with dolls just as much as he plays with everything else. He and DD both had a phase where they carried around babies (DS still does) and treated them like little people they needed to take care of and love. I think there is something developmentally helpful in that process, and having watched it naturally occur with both of them, I've been really fascinated by the whole thing. Granted, @vflux33 I can see your point about waiting until it's a child-selected choice rather than pushed on her.
On a related note, my ILs are very traditional, gender-stereotypical folks to the nth degree. They say things that make me cringe OFTEN, but the way we raise our kids is reflected already in how DD responds. When she had just turned three, she'd jump into a conversation with FIL about hunting or sports and say, "Papa, don't forget that girls do those things, too!" She's never appeared sad or phased by his comments, and I treat it as an ongoing lesson in helping her know who she is and how to advocate for herself and others.
Overall, it sounds like you ladies are going to raise/are currently raising good kids who will have parents who have important conversations with them often!
@bettyvonsomethingstein@LiveNLove44 I hadn't thought of using the baby doll as a transition to help a very small kid understand a new sibling. I agree that sounds like it could be a valuable tool. Probably won't be relevant to my particular situation (because we always wanted 2, and wound up with twins so not planning on TTC/going through IF treatment again after this), but for other folks that sounds super useful!
@LiveNLove44 Aw, I love your DD's response to your ILs! That's so cute and awesome. Glad to hear you relate on the IL thing. Just to give a small taste of my MIL, she told MH when he was 9 or 10 years old that men and relationships are only useful for baby-making and that this is the only point of getting married. Imagine saying that to your little boy--WTF! I mean, he eventually figured out that not all women feel that way (I take partial credit for that, of course), but that's gotta skew your perspective to hear something like that from your mom at that age. And kind of shaming in a way to hear that as a boy... (I assume she also said something similar to my SIL who has definitely got some issues in the relationship department.) Again, I don't think all doll lovers are like her in that way, but it was just one of the things that led us to our conclusion about how we want to approach dolls in our house. Though TBH I find your and @bettyvonsomethingstein's experience with using them as a tool convincing too, and if we were planning on more kids after these twins I'd definitely consider trying that despite my reservations.
@vflux33 you have such a solid grasp of what you see and in turn, what you want for your kids--they are lucky to have you (and your H)! Your MIL sounds like she'd get along really well with my ILs. Unfortunately, I think a great deal of my MIL's mental health issues all stem from being raised by parents who forced harsh, inflexible gender roles on her, and then she in turn embodies them and becomes a fraction of the person it seems like she wants to be in her family (husband and two grown sons). When we're all in the same space, I catch DH, his dad, and his brother talking over her or not validating her ideas in conversations the way they do for each other, and it serves as an ongoing conversation in our household! DH is not like that in our relationship, and he never was when we were dating, but he seems to slip into it when he's around his dad and brother to a degree that surprises me sometimes.
Despite her personal challenges and experiences with it, it's like she can't do it any other way when she talks to my kids. She desperately wants my daughter in dance and gymnastics, and she can't stop talking about how my son is "such a boy" and encourages rude and inappropriate behaviors from him but would not tolerate the same from our daughter. It's the strangest thing to me!! (and quite frustrating!)
So Homecoming was this week for the HS I teach at. And before Friday's pep rally teachers were sent an email about students possibly pulling pranks during it. The dance was threatened to be canceled if anything happened. And ALL I could think about was this scene from Mean Girls:
Me: 30 H: 30 Dx: PCOS Married: June 2013 TTC#1: January 2015 BFP #1 8/24/15 | MC 9/3/15 at 6w2d BFP #2: 12/12/15 | DD born 8/29/16 TTC#2: June 2017 BFP #3: 7/15/17 | DS born 3/20/18
@LiveNLove44 Thanks! It sounds like you and YH are very conscientious about this kind of thing too and that it's having a very positive effect on your kids already. Very interesting family dynamic you've got there. Oddly, though my MIL's mom did collect old dolls, she was honestly not nearly as pushy about the gender normative stuff as my MIL is so I'm not sure where she got that from. Your situation with your MIL encouraging certain behaviors in your son that she'd discourage in your daughter would irritate the hell out of me. I'm definitely going to watch out for that (I feel like you're reading my palms and telling me my future right now lol).
My FIL is very pushy about traditional gender stereotypes too, but they are way divorced and he has cardiovascular dementia, which he has had it for pretty much the whole time MH and I have been together, so I give him a pass on pretty much everything that he says--we're never sure when he says something awful whether it is his dementia or his personality and there's no point in parsing it out now. MH really doesn't fit in with his immediate family at all, so no old patterns to fall into. That's a whole other weird dynamic though, and a tough one to explain. All the family stuff can be so crazy to navigate sometimes! My family is nuts too, but in totally different ways. I suppose now that we're finally having kids we'll have to learn to navigate all this stuff more often...
Dear mom friends, please know that if a mom is often away from her family, she probably doesn't need to be reminded of it.
I left our neighbor's house a bit earlier today with a lie about getting a call from my mom that I had to take. It was so lame but I was utterly confounded and bothered by two of my neighbor women. It was a little girl's birthday party, so we brought our kids and there were tons of parents hanging out with little ones and chatting. Two of my neighbors are super gossipy and holier-than-thou in their conversations.
Anyway, during VB season, I work 60-80 hour weeks depending on match nights and tournaments, and I see my kids and husband so seldom that it's painful at times. Some nights I get a call from them while I'm on a noisy bus ride only to hear about DD's school day and cry that I couldn't be there to hug and cuddle them before bed. Long story short, it's hard being so absent, but it is also important for our overall income, plus I love coaching. DH and I are a great pair and work together daily on making the season work for us. These two women came up to me at the birthday party and said, "Boy, it seems like [DH] is always with your kids! How is that going for you guys?" What the actual F. Really?! It felt like, "Boy, you really aren't doing much for your family. How does your H feel about that?"
I felt so hurt and then unnecessarily guilty and deeply sad, so after gifts I made my way out before cake. I couldn't stand being there with them and I felt like a sh!tty parent. I know it didn't make it any better that I left, but I couldn't stay. TBH, how lucky are my kids? They get a lot of parent time with both of us at different times of the year (I am home in the summer), and the one-to-kids time has been great for each of our respective relationships with our children. I'm mad that I let it get to me, but my emotions run on high during the season anyway, then add pregnancy to the mix and it's a tough go to stick it out.
Re: Weekly Randoms-9/25
This last week or two have been ridiculous. It's made it hard to stay involved so I'm spending a good amount of time sitting here, trying to read everything and catch up.
The ultrasound and boy/girl threads were my favorite to catch up on.
Married: June 2011
TTC since Feb 2016
BFP#1: 7/7/16 MMC: 8/16/16
BFP#2: 5/8/17 - CP
BFP#3: 6/27/17 EDD: 3/10/18
Married: May 2008
DD Born: March 2018
DS Born: April 2019
Due with #3 December 2020!
My heart hurts, but I guess I'm glad my husband didn't have to be there for it because she was much more his dog than mine. Thank you to the ladies that gave me hugs and good juju.
Still this has made me super anxious about trips around the time the baby is born. He has requested to stop going on work trips in December, but I'm scared his management is going to pull some last minute mandatory crap like this time.
I still opted for no xray, but would have gotten one if I was having any tooth pain or major sensitivity.
Dx: PCOS
Married: June 2013
TTC#1: January 2015
BFP #1 8/24/15 | MC 9/3/15 at 6w2d
BFP #2: 12/12/15 | DD born 8/29/16
TTC#2: June 2017
BFP #3: 7/15/17 | DS born 3/20/18
Never mind that the entire house is done in cool tones (mostly sage/seafoam which was why I was leaning blue, my poor wife is tired of me always picking green xD), and that this was like 2 weeks ago now, but its still really annoying me.
The new room plan is an ocean theme - AKA blue, lighter blue, and cloud blue. I swear this is only a little bit spite-motivated.
@kalawa Clown border sounds terrifying.
Dx: PCOS
Married: June 2013
TTC#1: January 2015
BFP #1 8/24/15 | MC 9/3/15 at 6w2d
BFP #2: 12/12/15 | DD born 8/29/16
TTC#2: June 2017
BFP #3: 7/15/17 | DS born 3/20/18
Married: May 2008
DD Born: March 2018
DS Born: April 2019
Due with #3 December 2020!
Me to man I don't recognize but dressed in familiar uniform: Happy Friday! Let's get this day over with, amiright?!
Man: :: turns head toward me, blink blink blink, stare, turns head away ::
Me to security camera after man exits the elevator: What the hell, man?! EXPLETIVE.
@calecorvus Yeah that's very outdated and shitty... we don't even know the sexes yet and I've already had the no human form dolls conversation with my MIL. Sounds early but she's got an entire closet dedicated to barbies so really I'm kind of behind! (For pro dolls folks, to each her own, but MH and I are avoiding that stuff personally.)
Whatever we put in here, boys, girls, whatever...The house will remain a calm, airy blue.
Your coworker sounds like they enjoy saying odd things. Maybe they can get a head start by shaming you for how you choose to feed the baby.
None of this is to say that everyone should be like us. People should go with their own values and provide or don't provide any dolls and/or context they think is appropriate. This is just something we both feel strongly about. I don't think all dolls are bad or that all parents who give dolls are bad or anything like that--this is a personal thing that we are doing, which we've talked about a lot.
Does that make sense? Or is there something more at play here?
Personally my daughter has 2 doll houses, a castle, a Barbie car, and a Barbie airplane lol.
We have boy dolls, girl dolls, teenage dolls, baby dolls, daddy dolls, mommy dolls, African American dolls, white dolls, Mexican dolls (Dora the explorer's family lol), chubby dolls, slender dolls, dolls with freckles, dolls whose hair has been cut off and altered with markers, red heads, naked dolls, dolls in bikinis, fully clothed dolls. Plus tons of animal figurine toys. They all live together in the castles and houses and ride in the cars. At her age (2) she's more interested in setting them down to eat together at the table or take turns on their potty, than she is to describe their physical features. I think tbh the most she's ever really noticed about their bodies is the fact that the mommy dolls have boobs. So the babies nurse on the mommies lol.
I guess I just haven't really considered taking the time to wonder about the affects of toys because we haven't had any issues at this point.
Side note, I was given exactly one barbie as a child. I took off all her clothes, and her head, and threw her head and body to opposite sides of the room. No more dolls for me after that! I HATED them. But I loved toys shaped like animals. I have a 9 year old niece who has always hated dolls too. Maybe my family is just weird?
It sounds like there's so much that goes into the whole doll issue. What's the issue with mom and baby roles?
Fast forward to now, DD is 4, DS is almost 2, and both of them went through the same baby doll loving phase around 18 months. DD had received a doll at her first birthday from a friend of the family, and she independently initiated all of her "mother-like" behaviors with the baby doll. It ended up being an awesome transition to bringing home DS when she was 26 months, too. DS has been surrounded by a variety of toys, and he plays with dolls just as much as he plays with everything else. He and DD both had a phase where they carried around babies (DS still does) and treated them like little people they needed to take care of and love. I think there is something developmentally helpful in that process, and having watched it naturally occur with both of them, I've been really fascinated by the whole thing. Granted, @vflux33 I can see your point about waiting until it's a child-selected choice rather than pushed on her.
On a related note, my ILs are very traditional, gender-stereotypical folks to the nth degree. They say things that make me cringe OFTEN, but the way we raise our kids is reflected already in how DD responds. When she had just turned three, she'd jump into a conversation with FIL about hunting or sports and say, "Papa, don't forget that girls do those things, too!" She's never appeared sad or phased by his comments, and I treat it as an ongoing lesson in helping her know who she is and how to advocate for herself and others.
Overall, it sounds like you ladies are going to raise/are currently raising good kids who will have parents who have important conversations with them often!
ETA typo probs
@LiveNLove44 Aw, I love your DD's response to your ILs! That's so cute and awesome. Glad to hear you relate on the IL thing. Just to give a small taste of my MIL, she told MH when he was 9 or 10 years old that men and relationships are only useful for baby-making and that this is the only point of getting married. Imagine saying that to your little boy--WTF! I mean, he eventually figured out that not all women feel that way (I take partial credit for that, of course), but that's gotta skew your perspective to hear something like that from your mom at that age. And kind of shaming in a way to hear that as a boy... (I assume she also said something similar to my SIL who has definitely got some issues in the relationship department.) Again, I don't think all doll lovers are like her in that way, but it was just one of the things that led us to our conclusion about how we want to approach dolls in our house. Though TBH I find your and @bettyvonsomethingstein's experience with using them as a tool convincing too, and if we were planning on more kids after these twins I'd definitely consider trying that despite my reservations.
Despite her personal challenges and experiences with it, it's like she can't do it any other way when she talks to my kids. She desperately wants my daughter in dance and gymnastics, and she can't stop talking about how my son is "such a boy" and encourages rude and inappropriate behaviors from him but would not tolerate the same from our daughter. It's the strangest thing to me!! (and quite frustrating!)
Dx: PCOS
Married: June 2013
TTC#1: January 2015
BFP #1 8/24/15 | MC 9/3/15 at 6w2d
BFP #2: 12/12/15 | DD born 8/29/16
TTC#2: June 2017
BFP #3: 7/15/17 | DS born 3/20/18
My FIL is very pushy about traditional gender stereotypes too, but they are way divorced and he has cardiovascular dementia, which he has had it for pretty much the whole time MH and I have been together, so I give him a pass on pretty much everything that he says--we're never sure when he says something awful whether it is his dementia or his personality and there's no point in parsing it out now. MH really doesn't fit in with his immediate family at all, so no old patterns to fall into. That's a whole other weird dynamic though, and a tough one to explain. All the family stuff can be so crazy to navigate sometimes! My family is nuts too, but in totally different ways. I suppose now that we're finally having kids we'll have to learn to navigate all this stuff more often...
I left our neighbor's house a bit earlier today with a lie about getting a call from my mom that I had to take. It was so lame but I was utterly confounded and bothered by two of my neighbor women. It was a little girl's birthday party, so we brought our kids and there were tons of parents hanging out with little ones and chatting. Two of my neighbors are super gossipy and holier-than-thou in their conversations.
Anyway, during VB season, I work 60-80 hour weeks depending on match nights and tournaments, and I see my kids and husband so seldom that it's painful at times. Some nights I get a call from them while I'm on a noisy bus ride only to hear about DD's school day and cry that I couldn't be there to hug and cuddle them before bed. Long story short, it's hard being so absent, but it is also important for our overall income, plus I love coaching. DH and I are a great pair and work together daily on making the season work for us. These two women came up to me at the birthday party and said, "Boy, it seems like [DH] is always with your kids! How is that going for you guys?" What the actual F. Really?! It felt like, "Boy, you really aren't doing much for your family. How does your H feel about that?"
I felt so hurt and then unnecessarily guilty and deeply sad, so after gifts I made my way out before cake. I couldn't stand being there with them and I felt like a sh!tty parent. I know it didn't make it any better that I left, but I couldn't stay. TBH, how lucky are my kids? They get a lot of parent time with both of us at different times of the year (I am home in the summer), and the one-to-kids time has been great for each of our respective relationships with our children. I'm mad that I let it get to me, but my emotions run on high during the season anyway, then add pregnancy to the mix and it's a tough go to stick it out.