We have one daughter who is 3. I have an iud and he got a vasectomy so we are pretty firmly one and done. Financial reasons and attention reasons. We get to enjoy everything as a family together and also split duties so neither adult is feeling too overwhelmed. But we were always interested in being parents. It’s great to have this little person with her own personality and likes and dislikes that we get to watch grow and turn into whatever she wants to be. We each see a little of ourselves in her and we get to share things we love while also letting her discover her own interests. We get to share in her triumphs when she does something really hard (recently, reading books on her own or standing up when falling down on ice skates). There’s so much love there. She’s a cool little human.

Mandated reporters are people that are legally required to report abuse or suspected abuse. Teachers, social workers, physicians, etc.

I started on literature.cafe. I used it for awhile but there was an outage so I switched to lemm.ee. After they folded I joined lemmy.zip. I still use my account on literature.cafe, mostly at work because lemmy.zip is blocked for some reason. But literature.cafe doesn’t, or at least didn’t, federate with piefed and some of my communities I follow are there.

I’m able to get up quickly and stumble through my routine. I do the same thing every morning so I’m less likely to skip anything. I’m awake and fine after a few minutes and about 100% after a shower (twenty minutes or so). Sometimes in the shower I have to rethink my sleep because I’m likely to have super realistic dreams and I have to separate fiction and reality.

I handle problems by shutting down so if I’m upset or mad or you’re upset at me I’m not going to have a discussion about it in the moment. I need time and space. I will go silent. Eventually I’ll work through it and we can talk but it’s going to take a day or so.

I’m very organized and financially literate so there’s nothing being paid late and there’s a savings that will allow for trips and other treats, on top of the emergency fund.

I’m pretty good at gift-giving. I don’t do all the holidays but I can find something to get you that you didn’t think you wanted or needed.

I don’t have a lot of friends. So my partner is all I have.

I’m borderline asexual I think and I will not initiate. It’s not that I have a bad time with sex I just never want to.

I have really good work-life balance (especially for a teacher) so I’m not always working late or working at home.

My family is kinda fucked up (:

I’m super sentimental with stuff like this. I collect magnets from places so I try to grab a few on a vacation from different places we visit. I get a postcard that I put in a photo album with the dates and a short blurb. I get something for my daughter’s scrapbook/smash book. Each year I have a page with her picture and notes from her teachers, then a page of memories. There’s stickers, patches, tickets, wristbands, keychains, and medals in there. I like things that are small but meaningful

Which we do. But it’s not our first choice

Right. They could basically name their price. We want to do stuff the “right” way. There’s just no way.

Our struggle has been the enshittifcation of streaming the games. We don’t live in the market of our hockey team we like to watch. In order to actually get (legally) 95% of the games we would need to subscribe to about 5 different services and still be blacked out for the games against the “local” team, which is 4 hours away from us, unless we also pay for cable/satellite television as well. We used to legitimately pay for the service that the NHL offered where we could get just our team, or all of the games, for one season price. Then they split everything to all the different networks so now we’d need sling, TNT, espn+ (and the highest tier of it), nhl network, prime, Apple TV +, and a cable subscription

I’ve known several kids in upper elementary school who have a diagnosis but their parents won’t tell them or get them school accommodations or services. It’s just setting them up for failure.

Not to mention taxes, which go up every year, insurance, which goes up every year, and home maintenance.

A little different, but I used to hate roller coasters. Not sure when my turning point was but now I’ve ridden over 200 unique coasters at parks all over the US (even plan my vacations around them) and have shared this love with my three-year-old who was ridden a dozen unique coasters herself in the past year.

I can’t stand bananas. Taste or texture. I can do artificial banana flavor but anything with real bananas is gross. I wish I liked them because they’re inexpensive and generally nutritious.

When our child was potty training she snuck into our room in the middle of the night and whispered “mommy, I pooped”. I never got out of bed so fast before.

Another time she was in the backyard playing and suddenly she screamed at the top of her lungs like she was dying. I ran outside in my socks and scooped her up only to find that she was freaking out over the shell of a cicada on her foot.

We had an allergy kit with mix-ins for our baby. We mixed a little of powdered egg, peanuts, almonds, soy, etc. into her baby food when she started solids. Only introduced like one a week and a little at a time for a few days.

I loved it and was totally on board until the last season. As soon as it stopped being “science” it lost the appeal

The 100

When the child throws a tantrum for the toy and you try the strategies and they don’t work, the solution is not to buy the toy. That shows the child that if they tantrum, they get their way. When your child throws a combination lock at you that’s not a “don’t do it again” moment. That’s a hard stop. Sometimes it’s best to just completely remove the situation. Leave the store. Leave the pool. Get emotions settled, then discuss. My three year old doesn’t get “time-outs” but if her behavior is unacceptable because she’s unable to manage her emotions she goes to her bed for a reset. She stays as long as she needs to and then she comes out to talk when she’s ready. Sometimes when kids are too hungry or tired or something else is off the strategies are not going to work. Because they literally can’t function on that level without their other needs being met. It doesn’t mean your approach is failing. Nothing a parent does is going to work 100% of the time.

There was a spin-off show called Sam and Kat (Cat?) with these two characters. But it was right around when Ariana Grande’s music took off I think so it didn’t last long

Anxiety. I can’t get out of my head. Thoughts spiral. And when I’m lying in bed with everything quiet it’s hard to shut it all up. Sometimes I can’t fall asleep. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. I’ll try to thirty minutes to an hour before giving up. Then I’ll sit on my phone or go downstairs and watch tv. Eventually if I get tired enough I’ll go back to sleep. Otherwise I’ll wait until it’s time to get ready for the day.