@spaceburger have you listened to My Favorite Murder? It's technically labeled as a true crime comedy podcast, but it's great. Basically two girlfriends talking about murders and shit. Some of the episodes are just nuts. But it's also funny. Not super fact based. They talk about Last Podcast on the Left as well, but I've never listened.
check out the last podcast on the left! they are pretty funny as well!
I wanted to take the boys to the park after school today, but it is already getting darker at 4. By the time I get the Lo from daycare and get to the park it will be too dark. It’s our first day without rain in ages!
@wishiwaspreggo omg. Whoa. That is insanity and for a party who says they love America so much, pretty anti-American! I'm a minority and my name clearly marks me as one but I'm registered independent. I'm also in a very liberal state so I don't think this would happen to me but WOW. Well, now I just read that thing about Brooklyn so who even knows?!
My morning started off rough today. The girls were in full form arguing and got into a fight and kicked each other in the shins. Jeez! Just be nice to each other. Then my oldest knocked my iced coffee over and it went all over the floor. Sobs!
This is what I'm afraid of with multiple kids.
@wishiwaspreggo I've heard stories like these but I'm legit shocked to actually (internet) know someone this happened to!
I feel like I was super naive going into this home buying junk and I'm really nervous we're getting in over our heads. So many fees keep popping up and I'm afraid it'll get to be too much. And our monthly payments are significantly higher than our rent (but not higher than it would be if we rented a house). I'm just getting overwhelmed. I'm sure it'll be fine.
@SpaceBurger I’m listening to happy face right now, it’s pretty interesting and on the journalistic storytelling level. My norms are true crime garage and sword and scale (warning, that one can be really dark and disturbing). Used to listen to MFM but it got too long and useless rants.
Another journalistic type I loved was S-town. Not really true crime, but so so so good! Serial is a classic also, if you haven’t already listened to that.
@eatinwatermelonseeds Don't forget that you get to write off your mortgage interest and property taxes, so in the end it will save you money. It is a pain in the butt to buy a house and scary as hell, but it is so worth it.
Do you ladies have any tips on how to get my daughter to STOP TAKING OFF HER DIAPER?! She started this last week and it's just getting worse. I came home from work during her naptime today and found her sleeping with her diaper wide open. Google mentions putting on her pj's backwards and to cut the feet off them if they have any. Im not ruining perfectly good cute pj's! Plus, having the zipper in the back sounds uncomfortable. I haven't tried duct tape yet, husband needs to go pick some up. Any input would be greatly appreciated!
@expandcontract omg that's going to be my daughter. She's only 13 months and already tries to play with it. Please tell me your solution when you find it. Otherwise, I may have to invest in duct tape
Also, knottie and the peeling girl each have four kids at different ages (based on their previous comments on posts). Weird that they used the same words but aren't the same person? Also maybe weird that I did that research...
@expandcontract I wish I had advice. My son did it for MONTHS. He also enjoyed painting with his poop as an extracurricular activity. I tried everything. I did the backwards PJs (I bought footless onesie pajamas), he learned to take them off without unzipping them. No duct tape. Backwards diaper was a suggestion I tried. But he dug into it the side instead. Short of putting him in a straight jacket, I never found an answer. This time I'm getting a video monitor.
@expandcontract Thankfully I haven't had to try it so far, but I've heard people say putting the diaper on backwards (tabs in the back) helps. I also think it might help if you put a diaper cover over top of the diaper, like, maybe snaps would be harder to undo? Or backward snaps?
@wishiwaspreggo That is absolutely insane! I cannot believe that shit really happened to you, and I am outraged on behalf of the democratic process. Good for you for sticking to your guns and not taking "no" for an answer.
Okay, so I love my in laws. I enjoy spending holidays with them. However, we really only see them AT holidays and then we go the entire year without seeing them (we saw them at Christmas last year, then my graduation in August, and will see them at Thanksgiving and Christmas again... Usually we don't get an August visit they just come for DS birthday). My sil and her boyfriend we don't even see except only at Christmas. And then we have to buy gifts for everybody. And it's frustrating. We've lived here 5 years and I have yet to figure out how to get out of celebrating with them lol. I like Christmas with them, but we're buying a house this year (and every other year we were students and broke). We end up having to get them crappy gifts and it's honestly embarrassing. This year I feel like we'll have more money than usual but I just really wish we could just spend Christmas with our son in our new forever home. And I really don't want them to come here. Last year I spent DAYS scrubbing my house top to bottom with very little help and my mil still was nitpicking EVERYTHING and telling me to clean xyz before my sil got here. In my own home. That was clean. So no. Not this year. Okay.. End rant.
Husband took his mom for some blood work at the hospital and Im alone with DD trying to get her to sleep. She doesn't listen to me when I tell her to stop playing with her diaper but she'll listen to husband. I literally do not have enough energy to fight with her so I put packing tape on her diaper. She's still trying to get it off but it's not so easy. I hope they come home soon.
@expandcontract I second the idea of a diaper cover, put on backwards if necessary. We cloth diapered and I found the snaps tough even for myself to undo sometimes.
@mcewen3 and everyone else, thank you! I will look into diaper covers tomorrow. Thankfully, she finally fell asleep. @eatinwatermelonseeds poop painting is my nightmare!!!!!
@eatinwatermelonseeds we used to have to get gifts for like 15 people at Xmas. We proposed the white elephant gift exchange and its a hit! We buy two gifts around $40 each and that's it! I love it
@kbeers13 I’m trying to convince DHs family out of one of their “traditions”. They always do a $5 gift exchange. Everyone spends $5 ona gift and everyone gets a random one. It always ends up being a contest on who can get the most expensive item, the cheapest they can or you get food. Two years ina row I’ve literally gotten $5 worth of food; last year was Mac and cheese, the year before was square marshmallows and marshmallow roasting sticks. I’d rather do secret Santa and spend a decent amount and buy one nice gift.
@mrskoz428 I do agree, five dollars seems really low to me. If you're just doing 1 gift, might as well raise the limit on it so people can actually look forward to their gift.
@expandcontract right? Apparently I’m the only one that feels this way. My MIL always ends up find gifts that were $40-$50 that she got on sale, cheaper withthis discount or another, then brags in front of everyone but how much she saved to get it to be $5. I never really look forward to it. It’s just stressful and awkward.
@mrskoz428 ya that just sounds like more of a competition to see who got the best deal rather than getting a quality gift. I can't believe you're the only one who feels this way. Is there any way you can get out of participating this year?
@expandcontract we’ve put a limit on how many christmases we are going to this year per family. I refuse to travel on Christmas Day when LO arrives so we are only doing one Christmas on each side this year. I’m ready to start my own family traditions and to stop visiting 3-4 different Christmases on each side of our family. I know MIL is not thrilled with my decision but it’s exhausting and costly. I can’t do it anymore.
@expandcontract we had an honest conversation with my family about gifts maybe 6-7 years ago. Funny enough everyone felt the same and we just stopped doing them. Now when we get together over the holidays it’s just about spending time together and the boys getting to play with their cousins. Suggesting a secret Santa might be a good way of easing into the conversation. We also don’t live near family and have to drive 5 hours for the holidays. After ds2 came I finally said we wouldn’t travel until Boxing Day (26th), hard to wake up with kids in someone else’s house Christmas morning. I love waking up in our house now even though I miss seeing my family Christmas Day. We always spend a few days with my siblings afterwards so it works.
@expandcontract@mrskoz428 I've been wondering when we start our own family traditions vs. tagging along with parents/extended family. I also refuse to travel with DD on Christmas morning. She deserves to wake up in her own house and open gifts/spend time with us without being carted around to multiple houses. My dad is not going to be happy, but oh well
@expandcontract Can't remember if I saw this mentioned, but what if you tried a pull-up? Maybe without the tabs she'll be less likely to get out of it? Probably similar to the diaper cover suggestion. Good luck...I am not ready for that phase!!
My family stopped giving gifts about 10 years ago since we don’t get together on Xmas. My parents moved to Florida about 15 years ago and refuse to come back to Midwest when it’s cold. It makes it easier because we just have DHs family and they are local. Before we got married, they used to all buy each other gifts and it was so expensive. Only my ILs could really afford- definitely not the siblings and cousins. And DH was cheap and bought everyone $10 gifts when they all bought us $50+ gifts. It was so awkward because it’s HIS family and I didn’t think I should have to be buying gifts for people I barely knew, but I could tell people thought I was cheap. Anyway, we switched to a gift exchange with ILs feeling free to buy us all gifts and it’s worked out soooo much better. DD is the first baby in the family, so everyone bought her a ton of presents last year. I bet it will be the same this year.
Unfortunately, this year we’ve agreed to take over hosting Xmas Day- which is bad timing all around. DHs aunt typically hosts, but she has a chronic illness that keeps her pretty limited and so his uncle ends up doing everything. We went into the discussion trying to move Xmas eve to our house so we didn’t have to travel with DD late at night the night before Xmas and somehow ended up with Xmas. We have the space, but this year we are cash strapped bc I’m not getting my usual $3500 bonus and DH hasn’t sold a house in the last 2 months. We also have about $7000 worth of home projects we want to get done before the baby comes (this winter while DH is slower) and I have no idea where we are going to come up with all the money to do this all. We bought our house last January and depletes basically our whole non-401k savings and have been slowly building it back up and I HATE the idea of depleting it for the holidays. Ugh he need to sell a house before Xmas!!
@chloe97 oh man! Can the family help with cooking//bringing dishes/buying alcohol and whatnot? Another thought is maybe the idea of Christmas brunch instead of dinner? So glad you guys moved to a gift exchange though. We were in a similar boat and it was getting out of control with everyone spending $100+ on each person with multiple siblings and spouses. When the first grandchild was born, we moved to a secret santa and it has been such a game changer.
Me: 33 DH: 34 Married: Oct 2015 TTC #1: Sept 2016 BFP: 10/19/16 ~ blighted ovum ~ D&C 11/23/16 BFP: 3/24/17 DD1 born 12/2/17 TTC #2: July 2018 BFP: 8/26/18 DD2 born 5/16/19
We set boundaries around Christmas right from the year we were married. I always knew that I wanted Christmas day to just our family, so that's what we did, right from our first Christmas. We had it kind of easy though because DH and I are both the youngest. On DH's side, his brothers always went to their wives' families for Christmas, so there was no expectation there. And my parents have always been really good about letting their children go and develop traditions of our own. I feel for those of you who are struggling with families who aren't quite ready to let go. Easier said than done, but setting boundaries for the sake of your own little growing families is so important!
Random in my world this morning: I brought boiled eggs for my second breakfast today, but there have been people in my library all morning and I don't feel right about cracking them until they go.
DD1: June 2014 - VBM4lyfe DD2: October 2016 DC3: coming May 2019
I didn't expect my venting to get so many responses I don't know where to start 😂 thank you everyone for sharing. It's usually only 4 people, but my mil and fil are both nurses who have a lot of money. My sil and her boyfriend I don't even know what they do but somehow have money (now I'm coming up with conspiracy theories in my head 😂 but they do gamble a LOT). No one in his family has kids but us so we can't just make it about the kids without it being weird 😂. I am ready to start our own traditions though. I do love spending the holidays with them but every year gets to be a bit much. They're two hours away so it includes a sleep over. Either them here (only once though) or us there. I don't know how to approach the gift thing without sounding cheap. But if everyone bought like 2 $20 gifts and we played some kind of game it would be easier. But I cannot explain HOW anal my mil is about holidays. I don't think I could win that. She mentioned one year that the following year she just wanted all of us to go off and make our own traditions... And then the next year she ended up at our house bossing me around. I'm not sure how that happened. 😂
@secicc12 That’s exactly why I’m putting my foot down this year. We will have a small child this time next year and I refuse to travel on Christmas Day. If they want to see us, they will have to come to us. We are spending one day on each side of our family this year, even though it may be Christmas Day this year. My mom completely understands our not wanting to travel on Christmas. We did it one year when I was about 6 and she hated every minute of it. We never did it again! Hopefully MIL will understand, although it’s unlikely.
Christmas sounds really stressful. We don't celebrate it. H's dad does but H doesn't care or like to put any kind of effort in so we don't do anything. The gift stuff sounds stressful and in some cases like it's overtaking what Christmas is really about if people are seeing others as cheap if they can't afford to but everyone a really nice gift. I'm sure the actual holiday in it's entirety is lovely but I'm sad there's stress involved for some of you. We have a holiday we're trying to start our own traditions with. There are two: one we've agreed to go see my parents for, the other we're trying to set boundaries around it being at our home, just our immediate family. We did it this year for the first time with DS and it was so low stress and lovely. We went to the morning service, then out to brunch, took DS to Build a Bear, and then home to open gifts and hang out. Everything else is open on our holidays so it makes it easy to go out and do fun things after! It was weird not being with my family, but it was also nice not to have to see 100 different relatives and have awkward interactions with some of them. Doing that once a year is plenty for me.
@DuchessOfCambridge it can definitely cause unnecessary stress. Frankly I can't understand the point of buying grown adults gifts. Especially grown adults with more than enough means to buy whatever they want. When we were in Colorado, DH and I celebrated alone (we had no family there) and I really really miss that. Being able to focus on each other. I feel like I may be able to approach my mil about this in regards to just spending it alone, but DH doesn't get to see his parents except for the holidays (they make no effort to visit without purpose and typically don't answer our calls most of the year) so I don't think he wants to not go at all because he'll miss them. I don't effing know.
I absolutely love Christmas but don't care for the gift giving traditions when they cause stress. People get so wrapped up in what doesn't matter. I agree that adult gifts gets silly. My husbands family is crazy about gifts and it is all about the money.
I refuse to make Christmas stressful for my kids. When they're grown, my wife and I are gonna book a cruise the week of Christmas and celebrate on the beach. Kids and their families are welcome to join if they want. If they want to stay at their own homes and celebrate Christmas as their own nuclear families - FABULOUS. They won't have to feel an ounce of guilt while I enjoy my served Christmas dinner and champagne in luxury.
I am so sick of the guilt from our families over the holidays. It's so annoying. My brothers are eternal bachelors (though one finally, finally, FINALLY found a girlfriend and I keep praying they marry and have kids) so being the only married w/kids child has made things awkward. No one seems to get that we just want to celebrate Christmas at our house, together. My grandparents have always insisted on having us over for Christmas Eve and for a while we were the only ones with a family among my brothers and cousins so again, no one wanted to alter plans to make our lives easier. But now one of my cousins is blessedly pregnant (she's having IVF twins, too) so I'm hoping things will change. It's been super tough though. I won't hold anything against my adult children and we'll celebrate the holidays when it's convenient for them and their children. If one never marries and wants to do Christmas with us forever, there will be a seat at our table on the cruise ship just for them.
@wishiwaspreggo that is excellent. My mom would likely force every holiday if we lived close. But my in laws live too far just for a Christmas Eve visit or something. Which sucks. We'd totally just do that.
So random. But DS had to bring home the "class pet" a stuffed llama. Then he had to draw a picture of what he did with llama and I wrote a narrative. The other two entries were "slept with the cat" and "watched the iPad together and then snuggled to sleep." This is Colin's 😂ETA: in case it's hard to read "Colin and llama had Pokemon battles with Pikachu and Squirtle. They threw Pokeballs and Pikachu defeated llama. He was a gracious loser " 😂
@eatinwatermelonseeds - The issue for us is that we live 1.5 hours away from everyone else. So doing Christmas Eve up there, rushing back home at night so we can wake up on Christmas morning with our kid, and then rushing back up on Christmas day to do an afternoon/evening thing with my parents is a huge strain. I just wish my parents and grandparents would say "You have kids now and we release you from all obligations related to the holidays. Let us know what's easiest for you." But hell no, that will never fly. Everyone has to be there at the exact same time just like when we were kids even though I'm hurtling towards middle age and will soon be a mother of 3.
We are planning to move up to Indianapolis next year (where all our family lives) so things should be easier after the next year or two depending on when we can sell our house.
@wishiwaspreggo we live 2 hours from everyone and traffic through Seattle is a freaking nightmare so sometimes it's 3+ hours. We typically just stay the night for a few nights during the holidays. I'm really wanting to create our own traditions without my mil cleaning up the cookies we left out for Santa 😒 or having to wait for my sil to get to the house at 2pm before DS can open presents.
This will sound biased but my family is as cool as anything when it comes to our big holidays - Thanksgiving, Christmas Easter. It's okay if someone can't make it, it's okay if we start late. Comfy clothes and drinking and eating lots of really amazing food is encouraged. As far as gifts go, it's laid back and fun - not stressful and painful. It's very awesome.
My ILs on the other hand are a different story. Each year it changes with what day we're getting together, what time of day we're doing it, where we're going, etc. And everyone's schedules are messed up because of this and it takes forever to land on something. There is always drama leading up to and day of. Things must be perfect, everyone must show up on time or too bad, we're eating without you. No one has fun lol. Even my H dreads it. Lucky he married into a cool fam.
Me: 33 DH: 34 Married: Oct 2015 TTC #1: Sept 2016 BFP: 10/19/16 ~ blighted ovum ~ D&C 11/23/16 BFP: 3/24/17 DD1 born 12/2/17 TTC #2: July 2018 BFP: 8/26/18 DD2 born 5/16/19
Re: Weekly Randoms 11/5
@wishiwaspreggo I've heard stories like these but I'm legit shocked to actually (internet) know someone this happened to!
Another journalistic type I loved was S-town. Not really true crime, but so so so good! Serial is a classic also, if you haven’t already listened to that.
I love podcasts lol.
She started this last week and it's just getting worse. I came home from work during her naptime today and found her sleeping with her diaper wide open. Google mentions putting on her pj's backwards and to cut the feet off them if they have any. Im not ruining perfectly good cute pj's! Plus, having the zipper in the back sounds uncomfortable. I haven't tried duct tape yet, husband needs to go pick some up. Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Also, knottie and the peeling girl each have four kids at different ages (based on their previous comments on posts). Weird that they used the same words but aren't the same person? Also maybe weird that I did that research...
DS1 is 7. DD is 1. DS2 is coming in late April.
@wishiwaspreggo That is absolutely insane! I cannot believe that shit really happened to you, and I am outraged on behalf of the democratic process. Good for you for sticking to your guns and not taking "no" for an answer.
@eatinwatermelonseeds poop painting is my nightmare!!!!!
@expandcontract Can't remember if I saw this mentioned, but what if you tried a pull-up? Maybe without the tabs she'll be less likely to get out of it? Probably similar to the diaper cover suggestion. Good luck...I am not ready for that phase!!
Unfortunately, this year we’ve agreed to take over hosting Xmas Day- which is bad timing all around. DHs aunt typically hosts, but she has a chronic illness that keeps her pretty limited and so his uncle ends up doing everything. We went into the discussion trying to move Xmas eve to our house so we didn’t have to travel with DD late at night the night before Xmas and somehow ended up with Xmas. We have the space, but this year we are cash strapped bc I’m not getting my usual $3500 bonus and DH hasn’t sold a house in the last 2 months. We also have about $7000 worth of home projects we want to get done before the baby comes (this winter while DH is slower) and I have no idea where we are going to come up with all the money to do this all. We bought our house last January and depletes basically our whole non-401k savings and have been slowly building it back up and I HATE the idea of depleting it for the holidays. Ugh he need to sell a house before Xmas!!
Married: Oct 2015
TTC #1: Sept 2016
BFP: 10/19/16 ~ blighted ovum ~ D&C 11/23/16
BFP: 3/24/17
TTC #2: July 2018
BFP: 8/26/18
We set boundaries around Christmas right from the year we were married. I always knew that I wanted Christmas day to just our family, so that's what we did, right from our first Christmas. We had it kind of easy though because DH and I are both the youngest. On DH's side, his brothers always went to their wives' families for Christmas, so there was no expectation there. And my parents have always been really good about letting their children go and develop traditions of our own. I feel for those of you who are struggling with families who aren't quite ready to let go. Easier said than done, but setting boundaries for the sake of your own little growing families is so important!
Random in my world this morning: I brought boiled eggs for my second breakfast today, but there have been people in my library all morning and I don't feel right about cracking them until they go.
DD1: June 2014 - VBM4lyfe
DD2: October 2016
DC3: coming May 2019
I love the Sheldon Cooper logic:
My ILs on the other hand are a different story. Each year it changes with what day we're getting together, what time of day we're doing it, where we're going, etc. And everyone's schedules are messed up because of this and it takes forever to land on something. There is always drama leading up to and day of. Things must be perfect, everyone must show up on time or too bad, we're eating without you. No one has fun lol. Even my H dreads it. Lucky he married into a cool fam.
Married: Oct 2015
TTC #1: Sept 2016
BFP: 10/19/16 ~ blighted ovum ~ D&C 11/23/16
BFP: 3/24/17
TTC #2: July 2018
BFP: 8/26/18