I do. The problem is my wife. If I don’t enforce it, she won’t deal with it. After work all she wants to do is sit and watch TV. As soon as she gets home the TV goes on. And when the kids are whiny or want to watch a show, she lets them so she can watch hers.
It’s a problem, one that could be corrected if my wife would be willing to turn the TV off. But that’s an issue orthogonal to parenting, and one that has existed for years.
Y’all should work on that because that sounds three ways shitty.
Cant she watch it on a more private screen, such as a tablet or even a vr headset? Cant she wait until after the kids are asleep? She’s an adult and a parent right? Geez.
My wife is mainly into reality shows, and if she has the kids with her she will find one on Animal Planet that she considers educational, like the vet show with Dr Pol. Which isn’t bad, per se, I just don’t like watching when he’s up to his elbow up some horse’s ass checking for problems. My kids seem to like it though, for some reason.
I believe in this. Sometimes I feel guilty when my kid says he’s bored, but mainly that’s because of the weird divorce/joint-custody competition thing that you get into. That’s really just on me, but is there nonetheless. They do more activities. I tend to lay back more.
So I pretty much respond to “I’m bored” with the phrase, “Figure it out.”
-xtien
My daughter is now on her second runthrough of watching I Am Mia on Netflix. She is obsessed with it. It’s not awful as far as dumb kids shows go - the good guys do a lot more helping the bad guys be less bad than “beating” them or whatever, which I appreciate. She’s mostly into it because sparkles and unicorns, I’m pretty sure. Which, y’know, whatevs.
Doesn’t look any worse than watching Tinkerbell and the Pirate Fairy for the 17th time. Or even, like, Elena of Avalor.
It’s amazing how long a day can be, with kids. Even after doing multiple activities in and out of the house, some TV time by the time dinner is being made is kind of inevitable.
I always make helpful suggestions like “You could lay on the carpet and watch the way the sun shifts over the next hour or so” or “You could sit on the couch and stare at a blank TV screen imagining what could be on it.” They start to get the hint when I start assigning chores.
Emphasis mine. Some tv is fine, we all need them to zone the fuck out at 16:30 to 17:15 lol. Thats not TV on all the time.
@Matt_W my man! Lol those are excellent.
Oh my god my 3 year old was obsessed with this show. I was about to do a Mia ban because she would have a little break down whenever we turned it off. Thankfully she finished the series before I had to drop the ban hammer. Now whenever she wants to watch it “but you finished it sweetheart, it’s done”
The animated part of the show was…fine… but the live action shit was unbearable.
I prefer the pirate fairy for the 300th time.
Oh the sweet joys of being a dad.
Last night, I awoke to the alarmed screams of the little one. zero-dark thirty. I jumped out of bed, this did not sound like a bit of a nightmare or a lost plushie.
Turned out she had puked and was rolling around in it. I scooped her up, cleaned her, comforted her, put her in clean clothes and sleeping bag and put her to bed in the cot.
Luckily we still have the cot. She’s transitioning to a big-kid bed in her brothers’ room but during her afternoon nappies still uses the cot so the kids’ room is still available for play by the boy and his buddies.
Anyway. She went back to sleep. Time to take care of the mess.
I grabbed a dirty towel and scooped up the puke. It had this godawful acrid stench. Not fresh puke this. Threw it in the bathroom sink. (bad idea!) and went about wrapping up the bedding. Luckily the plushies and blanked had escaped a fate worse than death.
Then I found the sink had clogged. The big ball of partway digested lunch (yes I could identify it, and it was her lunch, not her dinner!) had clogged up the drain and it was stinking up the place something fierce. I have a fair tolerance to filthy shit. I don’t mind dirty diapers or the odd pile of cat-, kid- or dogpuke. But this… Gah.
Now my wife, she has not nearly the tolerance to filth that I have. I did not want the first thing that greeted her in the morning as she’d made ready for another joyous day in the office to be a bathroom sink full of utterly gross puke.
So first I tried helping it down the drain with an old brush. No joy.
Then I set about finding the plunger. Not in the bathroom. Not in the toilet. (remember it’s deep night!) ah! le voila! in the kitchen cubpoard beneath the sink. But of course!.
And I started plopping and trying to get the filth to go down. It refused. I dispaired and looked at the problem. I gritted my teeth, put a pail beneath the blasted thing and set about carefully taking the drain apart.
The bulgy part that is supposed to take the clogs came off. I expected it to sploosh all over my arms at that time, but it didn’t. Oh fuck me. I took off the pipe but that goes up to the sink itself. That’s when it drained.
The pipe had clogged with puke and shit but mostly hair. Long thick black hair. My wifes’ hair. I had to pry the long filthy knots from the bits of drainage until they were open enough for water (and future bits of puke) to freely flow again. At 02:45! I carefully reassembled the thing. Cleaned the tools. Cleaned myself. Put the tools away. Went back to bed.
And at 07:30 daughter-dear cheerfully announced her wish for play! and food! and drink! yay!
I feel both shitty from not having slept well and having had to do a filthy and difficult job at night and I feel fucking awesome for being a superbad dad who just took care of shit.
Tell me I’m awesome.
You are awesome.
There is a special feeling that comes with dealing with shit like that. With just gritting your teeth taking care of it in the middle of the night. Not running about and alerting the rest of the household, but just doing it.
It’s amazing how they bounce back, too. They’re like dogs in that regard. My dog will throw up and then be all, “Hey! I’m ready for a meal RIGHT NOW!”
I’m sorry your daughter got so sick, but good on ya.
-xtien
That they are. Filthy happy lovely dumb-yet-smart and very cute. And capable of hurling the most disgusting balls of puke in the universe. I ever tell that story about the blonde lab we had when I was a kid? It’s a gross story so you might want to pass :D
Total agree! Feel awesome.
Now I know who to call if that happens here. You are awesome!
Man, I’ve been there. Not as bad as that, but having a bed full of chunky spew and not knowing what the heck to do with it, whoa yeah. Way to get the job done!
Been awhile since I had to clean up child stuff evacuated out of either orifice, but 5-6 years ago when we had two dogs we made the mistake of putting something called, I believe, “Bitter Yuck” into the water in the Christmas tree stand. The hope was it would keep the dogs from drinking that water.
Instead they lapped it all up and then got violently sick and puked multiple times in two different rooms and the hallway. It was a pukopolaypse. There must have been 5-6 spots of yuckiness in the room with the tree alone. That was a night.
I’m imagining how things went at the Asher household that Christmas:
“Ah holy shit Spot, come taste this stuff! It’s awful!”
“OK, let’s see. Slurp, slurp. Ack, Jesus Christ, Bingo what is this?”
“I dunno! Lemme take another taste. Slurp, slurp. Oh god, still awful!”
“Tell me about it! Let me try that again! Slurp, slurp. Woo boy! Hey Bingo - you don’t look so good.”
“Oh yeah? Feel fine though! Hang on - YACK - oh man, that’s the stuff. Hey what are you doing Spot?”
“I seem to have the shits all of a sudden. I wonder why? Hey you want to drink some more of that nasty stuff?”
“You know I do pal! Let’s go.”
Get some draino! It disolves hair easily.
Ha ha. I love my dog to pieces, but they can be incredibly disgusting creatures. They will eat vomit and poop. I mean, it doesn’t get much worse than that. That tongue of hers goes to places I would never go. Ew.
I take my dog to the neighbors yard for a play date with their dog from time to time. They are besties and chase each other, etc. The neighbor’s cool with it. If my dog poops over there the other dog immediately starts to chow down on it. I can’t bear to watch it so I call my dog and leave. So disgusting.