Accessory Tuesday: Gold Bar Necklace

I just wanted to share how thankful I am to have this page to pop over to once in a while. I know we’ve all been under incredible stress, but even so, this page’s version of being testy with one another is nothing compared to the rest of the internet.

I will spare the “wow look what we did this year moms!” because we all feel like we did 1,000 things and none of them well. Instead, I encourage everyone to take a moment (ha!) to jot down some of their thoughts and experiences over the past year. I would love to read something like that from my mother or grandmother if it existed and, with any luck, this will all be a fuzzy and distant memory in a few months.

It’s the kids’ last day of school before the holiday break. Fingers crossed that we make it through intact. I usually look forward to the break — it gets me through the slog of December, knowing that I have it to look forward to — but after 10 months of being at home? Not so much. Everybody in my house is bickering and crabby. Mama truly wants a silent night, is all I can say.

I have a shoe tying question. My son is 6.5. Long story, but a few years ago I bought a bunch of athletic shoes for him in increasingly bigger sizes because I had the opportunity to get some really good ones at a good deal. The “older” ones had shoe laces which I didn’t really give too much thought to at the time, because in my mind I guess I thought of course that will be appropriate when he gets to these. Now, we have been in the shoe lace ones for a bit (months) but he hates them and just can’t seem to get the hang of tying them on his own. To be fair, we could probably work with him more/have him practice more when we’re not in a rush to go somewhere but, we do sometimes…and….life….but even then, I just get the sense he doesn’t have the dexterity or something. I want to give up and buy him non-lace athletic shoes for the time being. My husband is very against that, with the argument that this is something he needs to learn to do, yadda yadda yadda. Meanwhile, every time we do something athletic where he needs to wear them, it is a whole thing.

What says you? When did everyone’s kids start tying their shoes? I kind of feel like this is one of those things where we could put it off for a year or two and then when we try again maybe he’ll just magically be able to do it easily because he will be older, rather than this miserable slog. But maybe I am just trying to take the easy way and it’s embarrassing that our 6.5 year old can’t tie shoes. ?

I have 3 kids under 7 with my husband – we both work full time jobs.  Mine is much more demanding and he’s a very involved, loving dad.  Our 18 month old still wakes up through the night and he takes all of the responsibility for night feedings – I’ve been very grateful. He smokes pot over the weekend, after the kids go to bed. I’ve told him i was completely okay with it given it’s just the weekend – moderation!  He’s been trustworth generally but there were a couple times over the week where I asked if he was high and he said he wasn’t – and then broke down and said he was.  He apologized last time and said he wouldn’t do so again, and said he lied because he was embarrassed.  I got that and totally let it go – i appreciated his making amends. That was about 2 months back.

Last night I found him smoking – on a Monday.  He’s already been smoking Fridays through Sundays.  I shouldn’t have said this but I said if he persisted with this, to the point that he’s smoking not just on weekends, we’d have to divorce. If kids were grown – fine.  But this scares me.  I don’t want my very small children growing up with a dad who smokes pot every day.  Since he was stoned, he didn’t say too much, except he thought I was overreacting. 
This morning he was furious.  He said my reaction was completely unreasonable and he’s angry with me.  He said it’s legal, he doesn’t drink, he never smokes around the kids (this is all true) and it’s after they go to bed.  He genuinely wants to know what the harm is. Please tell me – is my response unreasonable?  

Our nanny (of five years) just told us she is pregnant. Her kids are grown and she is in her mid-40s so this was very unexpected for her and we can tell she’s upset. Trying to be supportive obviously but also looking towards the future. How have others handled nanny pregnancies? How much maternity leave? Did she bring baby when she returned to work? To make matters more complicated we’ve been TTC so conceivably we’d have two newborns in the house. She’s been an amazing reliable employee. I just have no idea how to handle any of this! Our kids are 1, 4 and 5. Usually she’s watching the 1 (will be 2) year old but sometimes watches all three.

Can someone remind me when to start small pieces of soft table foods? We’ve been doing puree with my son since 5.5 months. He just turned 8 months old and is eating thicker/chunkier purees but hasn’t tried any real food yet. This is my second kid and I swear I forgot everything about this phase of feeding babies since I disliked it so much the first time. I’m generally a relaxed mom about a lot of things but choking is my biggest source of mom anxiety.

I don’t know if anyone is reading but I’ll ask anyway… My daughter is 3 next month. We’ve made half-hearted attempts to potty train since the summer but tried in earnest over the holiday weekend. She’s excited about wearing underwear and sitting on the potty and seems physically ready because she can hold her pee for hours, but she’s unable to release anything when she’s sitting on the toilet. It doesn’t matter how frequently or how long we sit her on the toilet, she will inevitably tell us she can’t get anything out. The most we got out of her all weekend was a little dribble in the potty and then she stood up, pulled her pants back up and peed all over herself (and burst into tears- she definitely understands she’s supposed to stay clean and go in the potty). I googled and found suggestions about running water, blowing bubbles, tummy massages etc while on the potty to help get the pee out and we tried all that with no success.

What do we do? Do we just go back to diapers? I hate to give up because she seems completely ready physically and is telling us she wants to be potty-trained and wear underwear, but I don’t see how we can send her to school in underwear if she’s basically never using the potty. On the other hand, she can hold it so long that the accidents aren’t actually that frequent (she’s still in a diaper at naptime and nighttime and mostly dry in between) so maybe we just keep trying?