General Parenting Thread of Triumphs and Tribulations

Heh for me it’s “I can’t wait till my wife comes home from her office so I can have some adult interaction.”

Sadly thats always just before dinnertime which is about the most horribly hectic bits of a day. Kids hingry and cranky. Me burned to a stump from the long day of fulfilling wants and needs and her with her head still full of office stuff that is about as interesting to the kids and me as the specifics of AIM-47 missiles are to her.

So true interaction only happens after the little monsters are off to bed. But we also need our alone time. So there are days where the only adults I truly exchange adult thoughts are you lot.

Keep me sane you fuckers.

Compare and contrast the various models of AIM missile.

Look at this cool little cook. She was making “stamppot”.

Yesterday I took her brother to Lego Movie 2. His first ever cinema visit! He was scared at the beginning, and watched the whole thing curled up like a cat in my lap. He did enjoy it tho, and afterwards ran to his own legos right away building this:


It’s a space police firefighter superracer bus. If that wasn’t obvious.

Adorable! I’m so looking forward to Emmy getting to the age where she can, you know, do stuff.

This is genius. We need more of these roaming the galaxy.

image

That character is me when I was like 7 or so. And it looks like the son is following the fathers footsteps :D

That is so cute!

Gah. Woke up this morning, pulled the kids out of bed only to find the boy being sick. I was busy finding him pants when he called for a pail to puke in. I fetched one just in time for him to retch some slime into it. No school for him I guess. FML.

I just found out my kid doesn’t have school tomorrow because Cesar Chavez Day. So there go my plans for Monday!

“You didn’t know that?” my kid asked, laughing. “I think that’s hilarious!”

I don’t. And now I need to find a place where he can show me his new skateboarding moves. I am happy he is keen to show me his new moves.

I was all annoyed until I saw @schurem’s post. So I’m counting my blessings instead.

-xtien

Heh, at least yours like outdoors stuff. My boy only likes legos and playing games on the tablet (which is severely rationed). Everything else he rates lower or actively dislikes.

Anyway, he’s asleep now. Managed to hold down some food. Poor thing.

Mines a little younger than yours, and his favorite things are Legos and bike rides. Though he also has a top strong affinity for tablet time as well.

Which is hard to curb because my wife watches too god damn much TV. It’s always on if she is in the house. It’s pretty hard to tell them no more shows/ games when she spends all day watching her shows. Whenever she watches TV they want to watch shows on their Leapfrog tablet. Amazingly when I turn the TV off the issue goes away.

Oh my god, the neverending fights over watching TV and tablet time. I’m so over it.

Incidentally, the PBS Kids app has a whole bunch of really solid preschool/young-kid games that totally qualify as wholesome edutainment. Highly recommend it if anyone has a 4-? year old and a tablet. Ellie really appreciates having a safe-space sandbox where she’s allowed to download and try out a ton of different stuff on her own without someone standing over her shoulder.

Also, Amazon does a ton of dumb shit, but an $80 tablet with really solid parental controls? Good stuff.

This is why during no-screen time I turn off my computer and pick up a book. I might have work to do, but I figure I have to do that for that demand to be in any way credible.

-xtien

Yeah, this is good stuff. There’s another thread of toddler-games somewhere, but my kids tablets are basically: Sago Mini, Toca Boca, PBS Kids, and some of their favorite Disney movies that I’ve ripped for long plane / car trips. The 5-year old’s favorite is PBS Kids App because “there’s lots of different kinds of things”. She gets excited when there’s new games released.

We’re lucky though, as she isn’t particularly interested in Youtube so far.

I am hugely lucky in that my Samsung tablet came with a quite solid “kids mode” that allows me to lock out all kinds of shit. Its great, and also does the timing. It even warns the little fucker that time is almost up. Hes gotten so used to it that there are zero tantrums whe it comes to the end of tablet time.

He refused to eat the very sweet macaroni bolognese i cooked just now. Sent him back up without a meal then.

Hoping your kid feels better, @schurem. What other twists are there to the modern dealing-with-sick-kids scenario? I suppose wheeling the family television into the sick kid’s room is somewhat old fashioned.

We have a Leapfrog Epic, and the PBS app is on there. We also have a bunch of Leapfrog games and educational shows, like Letter Factory. My kids love those too. I don’t mind those.

It’s when he wants to sit and watch some stupid show I get annoyed. Super Wings being one such dumb show he’s watch all day.

Thats when you impose a time limit. Go play. Draw a nice picture of your dumb show. Kids need to be bored, its healthy. Keeps em creative and active.

I just plunked em into bed. Mom is off on some work related thing. Been a long fucking day! The little one screamed bloody murder from playtime ends till tucking in without pause. Yay earplugs.

I would love this idea, but I if I pick up a book, I will ignore all other responsibilities till the book is done.
I have very little will power, and books screw up everything.