Accessory Tuesday: Cypress Sienna Necklace

Tips on compartmentalizing when you have stress in multiple areas of your life so you can perform under pressure? I am about to get laid off from my toxic job with no prospects for finding another job in my field (entire field has collapsed since 2024, you can guess why), parenting is challenging, and I have a high-adrenaline hobby that is usually a big source of confidence and an escape from real life. Right now I am doing a Thing in Hobby that is a huge stretch for me skill-wise and I don’t feel like I’m rising to the occasion, but I can’t back out because other people are counting on me and it’s too late to replace me. Last night at Hobby I completely melted down from the accumulated stress and dissolved into tears in front of the rest of the group. It was absolutely humiliating and I wanted to just walk out and say I was done, but it would create a huge problem for the group and I’d never be asked back. Then as we were winding down at the end of the night I pulled out my phone and saw a text about the parenting issue and started crying again. I need to be able to hold it together through the rest of this commitment for Hobby (three more weeks), and I also need to be able to hold it together at work while I still have a job.

What are your best strategies for compartmentalizing and holding it together when your life is falling apart? Not interested in therapy or drugs, just practical coping mechanisms. Spouse is supportive, does not contribute to the stress, and cannot really do anything else to help beyond what he’s already doing.

Teacher threw two objects at my first-grade child while he was alone in a hallway. *Something* triggering happened in the classroom, but I don’t have full visibility into that (there are cameras in the hall). Child left classroom to calm himself in the hall. Teacher comes into hall and throws objects at child. Teacher removed for 1.5-week investigation. Even with cameras, teacher was reinstated and allowed back in the classroom. Child switched to a different teacher. We are pushing HARD with school district as I suspect this was their decision, not the schools (think VERY large school district).

When do we involve police/lawyer? Now? I do not want this teacher with kids.

Hi – throwing an art bday party for my 6 (!) yo next month. The place will help the kids facilitate an activity in groups, but need some easy craft ideas for while some kids wait. Thinking temp tattoos as well.

Any ideas on the craft? I’m thinking one thing they can color (tablecloth?) and one thing they can make/take home. No beading/looming, and the group will be mostly boys and some girls.

Resources on toddler nutrition/ feeding toddlers? I have a couple of baby/toddler cookbooks and while they’re great, I’m realizing they’re a little crunchy for our lifestyle. We’ve been good at introducing a wide variety of homemade foods. He didn’t eat anything from a package before he was 1. But he’s mobile now, and he’s snacking a lot, and that makes feeding him more challenging. He resists sitting down for meals and prefers drive-by munching* while playing, which is fine but limits what I can give him (due to mess/him screaming when I wipe his hands so he doesn’t spread curry all over the house). Often he doesn’t eat much, or he’ll eat only the meat portion of his meal and will ignore the veggies and grains.

I need to know what nutrients are absolutely critical for him to have on what schedule. Like, iron daily, vitamin c every other day, that sort of thing. If he eats one thing today make sure it’s X. Practical not aspirational. We asked the pediatrician but she said we’re doing great because he’s a big guy (???). Does anyone have any resources to share?

*why aren’t we using a high chair? Daycare stopped using high chairs so now he refuses. He throws himself all over the place and screams and cries when we put him in the chair. We have a toddler sized table and chairs that we try to feed him at, but he can and does get up from it.

This is a general question based off of some trends I see in a hobby/sport community I’m part of (it’s surfing, if it matters). If you have one parent who is more dedicated to surfing than the other and they bring one or more of the kids with them for hours at a time on the weekends, having a blast by any measure, do you think that is equivalent work to staying home and doing the grunt work of running a household? In our community, that’s a pretty common dynamic and it’s mostly but not exclusively the fathers. While they are certainly having fun doing something that they love, they are also responsible for young kids for hours at a time out there, so it’s not the same as checking out of parenting every weekend (especially because surfing does carry safety risks and requires you to be “on”).

Something about the dynamic bugs me and I can’t quite put my finger on what seems unfair about it. Maybe it’s the fun parent dynamic or something? Or that by being gone for so long surfing (usually 2-6 hours), they’re inherently missing so much of the work that is quietly getting done at home and not even realizing it? Sure, the parent staying home, especially if solo, probably gets some free time too, but still. In one couple I’m thinking of, I know for a fact that the mom staying home with the baby wants more time to surf herself, but her older son has had so much time surfing with dad that that’s all that he wants to do. Seems great, right, that he has such a bond with his dad, but is she getting the chance to just have that kind of fun as well? Anyway, curious for your thoughts – is being on parenting duty with the “fun task” almost every weekend fair? Not to make this overlong, but one other consideration is that sometimes the parent who stays home more ends up not wanting to go out as much (habit or inertia), so even when given the chance to swap roles, they might be out of the habit and out of shape so say no.