Also I hope we don't have any antivaxxers on this BMB, but if there are any, I hope they are smart enough to not admit it (ever) because they will get flamed to crisp.
My confession: we just got grocery delivery tonight, and within an hour I had consumed an entire pint of ice cream. Whoops. DH is out tonight so I think no one will know about this....
Regarding the sancti-mommy conversation, I feel like I must weigh in because of the in person parenting insult that I got last weekend that affected me more than I'd have liked. This is how I see it -- you can comment in person to friends or strangers about vaccines and perhaps a few other cut-and-dry safety issues such as car seats (though even with car seats there can be some wiggle room -- just how non-puffy must a coat/layer be before you can have it in the seat? Can you put your 23 mo forward facing if she gets motion sickness rear-facing? etc). You can say more to friends who have asked for advice, but just shut up when it comes to strangers. That means don't publicly judge people who give their disgusting kids junk food, who let their kids use screens all of the time including when out to eat, who have overly loud children, who allow their young girls to wear bikinis or other ridiculously slutty clothes, who yell at their kids as discipline (unless it appears to be abuse), etc. You can privately judge all you want (and YES, I would!) But there is no need to make comments to these people directly. The parent could be giving the junk food / screen as a last resort after a terrible/traumatic day/week. Relatedly, NEVER photograph/video an incident and post to social media with a judgment. Likewise, don't share that shit, no matter how funny it is. Imagine if someone posted photos of your skimpily clad daughter all over the internet saying, "can you believe her parents let her out like this?!"
I want to specifically emphasize the point that if a child is acting up or acting out of control or acting far younger than his/her age--whether or not it seems as though the parent is responding "appropriately,"--this is NOT the time to make a comment to the parent. Special needs kids act out of control a lot, and often need a different kind of response than what your typical advice might entail. Parents of kids like this know a lot about their kid and situations like this, and whatever your advice is would probably fall far short and would just end up being hurtful. That said, you can certainly try to help. Like if the parent is carrying a bunch of stuff, offer to carry some of it so s/he can deal with his/her child. Or if you are a baby/child charmer, you can try to say something to the kid, especially if it's positive / humorous (tread with caution, but at least this is not judging, so it might be welcome by the parent--I usually find this welcome and it usually helps my kids, including the special needs one.)
@emilyalso that they used to participate some but they haven't logged in for some time. I've deleted quite a few that haven't been on since sept or early oct, or just added themselves without even a hi. Nov and later, I give them some time in case they got caught up with life etc. Can you tell I have too much time on my hand? Bored sahm with a lot of activities on hold for the month of Dec.
I'm so glad that you keep tabs on this. It seems like those people reappear during certain pregnancy milestones and then disappear again. With my previous bmb we had a bunch of these people that reappeared when we got close to delivering and wanted to participate in getting/being labor buddies. Some were allowed but then didn't do their part and their buddy got left by themselves, which was pretty unfair to our regs.
Me: 38 DH: 36 Married 8/27/2011 BFP #1 9/28/2011 DS born 5/22/2012 BFP #2 4/24/2013 m/c 4/25/2013 at 4w BFP #3 1/31/2014 DD born 10/14/2014 BFP #4 1/20/2016 m/c 2/12/2014 at 7w2d BFP #5 8/19/2016 DS2 born 4/29/2017 BFP #6 3/7/2018 EDD 11/18/2018
@rkstro2 I eat breakfast at a respectable 8am and I'm ready for second breakfast by 10:30! A second lunch is not unusual either....
DH, after 4 1/2 years in our apartment, still puts dishes away in weird (read: wrong) places. Seriously, how hard is it to remember where the small pot goes?
vrj0522, what does being a bump labor buddy entail?
I just had a stressful image pop into my head of people picking buddies like prom dates. "Ohhh, I already have a buddy, sorry. I would have been yours, really..."
vrj0522, what does being a bump labor buddy entail?
I just had a stressful image pop into my head of people picking buddies like prom dates. "Ohhh, I already have a buddy, sorry. I would have been yours, really..."
That's why someone went through and assigned them all randomly, so that no one would end up feeling like the last kid picked. But also why it was somewhat unfair that active people ended up with crappy buddies.
@kns1988 - A labor buddy is the person you report to as you are progressing through labor until you give birth, since it can be hard to update the group on here and it could be a few days before some people come back to share their birth story. Your buddy keeps the group updated and lets us know once you've given birth.
Me: 38 DH: 36 Married 8/27/2011 BFP #1 9/28/2011 DS born 5/22/2012 BFP #2 4/24/2013 m/c 4/25/2013 at 4w BFP #3 1/31/2014 DD born 10/14/2014 BFP #4 1/20/2016 m/c 2/12/2014 at 7w2d BFP #5 8/19/2016 DS2 born 4/29/2017 BFP #6 3/7/2018 EDD 11/18/2018
@vrj0522 it is by choice due to situation. The younger sister has marfans so she was always on the fence about having kids. She's also a virgin waiting for marriage but living with her boyfriend, who is a pill popper with no money. The older sister wanted kids when she was younger but her husband has MS so she looks at it as she would have to do all the lifting/carrying/etc so she'd physically be a single parent.
I too hate sancti-mommying. And yet.... I do it all the time! I think so long as you aren't judging the things that are totally safe (style of clothes, when & what you feed your child, whether you use time out or don't, etc.) you're in the clear. It's a weird thing to be a parent, research and choose what's best for your kid, and then see someone do the opposite for different reasons. That said, judge away on car seat safety & (lack of) vaccination. Also, I might make fun of certain styles of kid clothes in the comfort of my own home. You do you, but those overly ruffly pants/shirts? Oy.
Lurking from Dec2015
to the bolded: My best friend was asking me what kind of clothes I wanted for my daughter as a baby shower gift, and sent me a picture of one of those god-awful outfits. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was hideous, so I was very glad when, 15 minutes later, she commented, "Oh, dang, they only have a 3 month and it'll still be too cold for her to wear it at that age!" Instead, she bought me five personalized onesies that actually ended up being the only things that fit my teeny tiny baby until she was like 4 months old and I was perfectly happy, lol.
@notaplaya-justcrushalot and @aulrey92 those ruffly outfits are terrible!... especially on an older child.. my MIL loves that Matilda Jane stuff and dresses her daughter who is like 9 in it at all major family gatherings. Looks ridiculous on an older kid, many of us family members secretly laugh about it. Funny it got brought up because we were just talking about this 2 days ago at a family Christmas.
@lrwardrop That poor kid! And Matilda Jane is expensive. Don't they make mommy/daughter matching sets?Ugh. My MIL went to a MJ trunk show and in her words, "You would never dress (DD) in that stuff, so I didn't want to spend all that money."
I have one toddler dress from Matilda Jane, and it is my absolute favorite of older daughter's dresses!! It was a hand me down gift from a friend who has two girls. But, I'm thinking from your comments it isn't the same style as most of their stuff? (Photo found online, not my daughter. And the apron they have on in this photo looks a little weird with the dress to me.)
It is really hard to find dresses that have things like cars on them! As daughter said today "Daddy likes big trucks. I like school busses and cars and trains and big trucks too!"
clown clothes is a good description. There's like patches, mis matched fabrics and ruffles on most things. That solid car dress without the apron @squirtgun showed was cute and I am surprised its matilda jane
I have also never heard of Matilda Jane until now and all I can say is Yikes!! Who would be that stuff?!! (Only commenting of the matching clown outfits with ruffle bell bottoms).
Re: FFFC
Regarding the sancti-mommy conversation, I feel like I must weigh in because of the in person parenting insult that I got last weekend that affected me more than I'd have liked. This is how I see it -- you can comment in person to friends or strangers about vaccines and perhaps a few other cut-and-dry safety issues such as car seats (though even with car seats there can be some wiggle room -- just how non-puffy must a coat/layer be before you can have it in the seat? Can you put your 23 mo forward facing if she gets motion sickness rear-facing? etc). You can say more to friends who have asked for advice, but just shut up when it comes to strangers. That means don't publicly judge people who give their disgusting kids junk food, who let their kids use screens all of the time including when out to eat, who have overly loud children, who allow their young girls to wear bikinis or other ridiculously slutty clothes, who yell at their kids as discipline (unless it appears to be abuse), etc. You can privately judge all you want (and YES, I would!) But there is no need to make comments to these people directly. The parent could be giving the junk food / screen as a last resort after a terrible/traumatic day/week. Relatedly, NEVER photograph/video an incident and post to social media with a judgment. Likewise, don't share that shit, no matter how funny it is. Imagine if someone posted photos of your skimpily clad daughter all over the internet saying, "can you believe her parents let her out like this?!"
I want to specifically emphasize the point that if a child is acting up or acting out of control or acting far younger than his/her age--whether or not it seems as though the parent is responding "appropriately,"--this is NOT the time to make a comment to the parent. Special needs kids act out of control a lot, and often need a different kind of response than what your typical advice might entail. Parents of kids like this know a lot about their kid and situations like this, and whatever your advice is would probably fall far short and would just end up being hurtful. That said, you can certainly try to help. Like if the parent is carrying a bunch of stuff, offer to carry some of it so s/he can deal with his/her child. Or if you are a baby/child charmer, you can try to say something to the kid, especially if it's positive / humorous (tread with caution, but at least this is not judging, so it might be welcome by the parent--I usually find this welcome and it usually helps my kids, including the special needs one.)
Married 8/27/2011
BFP #1 9/28/2011 DS born 5/22/2012
BFP #2 4/24/2013 m/c 4/25/2013 at 4w
BFP #3 1/31/2014 DD born 10/14/2014
BFP #4 1/20/2016 m/c 2/12/2014 at 7w2d
BFP #5 8/19/2016 DS2 born 4/29/2017
BFP #6 3/7/2018 EDD 11/18/2018
DH, after 4 1/2 years in our apartment, still puts dishes away in weird (read: wrong) places. Seriously, how hard is it to remember where the small pot goes?
Married: October 2014
Began TTC: April 2015
BFP #1: 9/18/15. EDD 5/18/16. MC 10/26/15. (9w)
BFP #2: 2/27/16. EDD 11/7/16. MC/D&E 4/20/16 (11w)
BFP #3: 9/22/16. EDD 5/29/17. DS born 4/24/17
BFP #4: 5/20/18. EDD 1/23/19.
I just had a stressful image pop into my head of people picking buddies like prom dates. "Ohhh, I already have a buddy, sorry. I would have been yours, really..."
@kns1988 - A labor buddy is the person you report to as you are progressing through labor until you give birth, since it can be hard to update the group on here and it could be a few days before some people come back to share their birth story. Your buddy keeps the group updated and lets us know once you've given birth.
Married 8/27/2011
BFP #1 9/28/2011 DS born 5/22/2012
BFP #2 4/24/2013 m/c 4/25/2013 at 4w
BFP #3 1/31/2014 DD born 10/14/2014
BFP #4 1/20/2016 m/c 2/12/2014 at 7w2d
BFP #5 8/19/2016 DS2 born 4/29/2017
BFP #6 3/7/2018 EDD 11/18/2018
to the bolded: My best friend was asking me what kind of clothes I wanted for my daughter as a baby shower gift, and sent me a picture of one of those god-awful outfits. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was hideous, so I was very glad when, 15 minutes later, she commented, "Oh, dang, they only have a 3 month and it'll still be too cold for her to wear it at that age!" Instead, she bought me five personalized onesies that actually ended up being the only things that fit my teeny tiny baby until she was like 4 months old and I was perfectly happy, lol.
May17 Siggy Challenge
Labor
It is really hard to find dresses that have things like cars on them! As daughter said today "Daddy likes big trucks. I like school busses and cars and trains and big trucks too!"
DS1 7/24/15
DS2 5/7/17
May17 Siggy Challenge
Labor
DS1 7/24/15
DS2 5/7/17