Family Friday: Classic Tree Blocks

I need some hope! My son turned 4 in July and will not go #2 in a toilet. It is just maddening. We’ve tried everything, and I think he’s just old enough now that he’s got to just decide he’s ready to do it and go for it. I’m not really looking for suggestions on what to try (we’ve tried it all at this point) – I’m just looking for positive stories of late bloomers who got it eventually…..

I’m sure this has been asked, but I would love hotel recommendations for New York City over spring break. We will likely see a Broadway show and do pretty touristy things as this will be the first trip for our two elementary age kids. We would really love a suite or a hotel room that has at least two queens. We don’t sleep well sharing full beds! Any recommendations? Would love to stay around $500 or 600 a night.

What are real life reading expectations for kindergarten? My kid is in the “gifted” kindergarten. According to the teacher at our conference – She knows all her letters and missed one sound. She mixes up b and d sometimes (writes them backwards). We have done no work with her at home. The teacher told us twice that some kids are already reading. And our kid is “middle of the pack”. She said not to worry of course and is perhaps low balling so there can be tremendous progress (due to the teacher of course) at the next conference.

Fwiw I wrote out a short sentence – the cat is red. And she did read it and sound out. So maybe she is closer than we think?

We live in an affluent competitive area and seem to have less flexible jobs than the other parents. Based on some questions submitted to the teacher in a group setting I now feel all of them have been doing work at home with the kids. I feel guilty and we are going to spend some time working with kid on the weekends. She loves typing words into my computer and playing games around words but you have to catch her in a mood to learn. It’s more work for us for sure.

My sister thinks this is all crazy and it’s kindergarten for Pete’s sake. Am I being too tiger mom about this ?

If you moved to a new city with kids, how long did it take you to make friends? We moved a few years ago and I’m really struggling with loneliness. First year was a wash, with a new baby and COVID still in the mix. Second year we moved within our new city and changed schools, which involved a friend reset. Now we’re in year three and finally feeling settled. In some ways I feel like I shouldn’t complain, because we finally have a modest little social life. We had friends to go trick-or-treating with, I text with some neighbor moms, I have a couple of people I’ve met for coffee, there’s one couple we’ve double-dated with, etc. But it’s all still new, I feel exhausted just constantly putting myself out there, and I don’t have any relationships that I would describe as confide in/ rely on/ commiserate over drinks with friendships. Basically we’ve met some very nice people but I don’t feel like I have *my* people. For a while I was so relieved to know anyone at all that it didn’t really bother me. But the longer we’re here, the more I really miss having real friends nearby. Anyone else been in this situation? Any advice? I’m just tired.

For those with elementary school kids, do they play Minecraft? I’ve heard of it, but don’t know much about it. My 7 year old is asking to play, likely because a lot of his friends play. Is this a social game like Roblox, where we have to worry about controls? Do you treat playtime like screen time, i.e. what he’d normally get in TV time, he can do in video game time, or is this separate? As you can tell, we don’t really do much gaming now – screen time is reserved for TV. FWIW, this is my more sensitive, high energy, high emotion kid (possible ADHD, we’re looking into lots of things) – I don’t want to get too frustrated, but also want him to be able to relate to his friends.

My soon to be 8 year old really wants a pedometer. I don’t really know why she needs one but I’m not opposed to getting her a digital watch that counts steps. I would like it to not have games etc. though and we are big on privacy (to the extent possible) so nothing that tracks her or listens. Any recommendations?