Weekend & Family Friday: Dinosaur Racetrack Toy Set

Favorite nursing hoodie/ sweatshirt?
I ordered the Gap one – I like the weight and material, but it doesn’t have pockets. Bummer. Looking for something heavier, with cotton content, for fall days with zipper access as opposed to lift up access.
Thanks!

Does anyone take their kids to the grocery store these days? My preschooler LOVES the grocery store an absurd amount, like if we gave her the choice between the playground and the grocery store I’m pretty sure she’d pick the grocery store, so I’d love to take her. It seems low risk to me since we would be both wearing masks the whole time and not in the store for very long (this would be a supplement to curbside pick-ups to get some things we have trouble getting through the curbside service). But I’m wondering if people think it’s really irresponsible to take a kid inside when you don’t have to.

For Boston Legal Eagle re: post about behavior, perfectionism and overreacting yesterday. My four year old sounds like yours – wants to do things perfectly the first time and then completely loses it when his performance isn’t up to his standards. I found the tactics in “The Yes Brain” by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson to be very helpful. We (my son and I) have an ongoing about what it is like to be in “the green zone” and how to pause and observe ourselves when we are in “the red zone”. We talk about how “red zone reactions” are automatic, not something we choose and perfectly normal. He has volunteered that it doesn’t feel good to be in the red zone, so we have worked on breathing techniques, taking a pause, and other tactics recommended in the book for taking back control. Once he’s back in semi-rational territory, he usually gives himself a pat on the back for calming down and is buoyed enough to try again. That said, he’s still four and far from managing his emotions every time. We are all a work in progress :)

TL;DR – I highly recommend “The Yes Brain” for dealing with this issue.

Does anyone know where I can just buy those little plastic things that come on masks for kids to make the ear bits tighter? My favorite masks for my kids all come with these little plastic bits but they get lost easily and I’d like to buy more to have extras but can’t even figure what to search for.

I don’t usually post on the moms site because I don’t have kids, but my best friend just had a baby and her experience with trying to exclusively breastfeed so far has made me reconsider a few things myself. I think I drank the Kool-Aid on “breast is best” and never bothered to look into it, but now that I’m watching my friend stress out about her milk not coming in and using the SNS system to supplement, I’ve done a little bit of research and have been surprised to learn that the evidence for exclusive breastfeeding in high-income countries is much weaker than I’d been led to believe. This is kind of a gamechanger for my own thinking about having kids because the thought of sacrificing my body and time to breastfeeding in a way that my partner cannot share equally was really unappealing. The idea that I could combo feed or formula feed without basically condemning my baby to a life of suffering is so much more appealing – I actually think that I could handle having kids now. This is probably totally old news to most of you but I wanted to share this thought with Internet strangers instead of my friend :) FWIW, she has adapted and is being so much less rigid about supplementing with formula than she expected – I think it helps to see the immediate impact on your baby who was losing too much weight and never sleeping well before.

My kids are in elementary school. Last year, as school got harder, they started doing worse and worse in school (particularly for one, where an organized teacher went out on leave and there were just a series of subs after that, until lockdown started). I have a sibling with a learning disability and he had to go to a special school for that (it’s like dyslexia, but not quite that — something with auditory processing) before going back to regular high school and college with probably much better work habits than I had after lots of 1:1 attention. We had the kids tested (outside of school; school didn’t think that going from easy As to barely passing was a problem).

It turns out, there isn’t a specific learning problem, but ADD (no hyperactivity) and some ASD-1 (so kiddo doesn’t look at teachers, which you kind of need to do if they are showing you math, which is more visual). They were also very smart (not sure that is the right word) on the WIPSI kiddie IQ test (which was reassuring that they are capable of doing the work, but it is also really concerning how that is apparently wildly insufficient for doing third grade work).
Now we know that, but with lockdown this spring and now remote learning, it’s just a mess. I am having to watch their classes (which the teachers don’t like; I don’t blame them) and ask for clarification on what they are supposed to be doing and what assignments are due and then re-teaching at least all the math and helping with what I think is called “executive functioning” but is really just keeping on top of things (like air-traffic control but for school).

I think if private school were in the budget, that is what we should be doing instead, for smaller class sizes, more structure (I imagine parents writing checks to school would revolt if their kid didn’t have a dedicated teacher for the better part of a year), etc. Plus, private schools in our city are in-person and b/c of that now have massive wait lists, so this year just seems to be a dud for us.

In the meantime, other than re-teaching and monitoring and trying to have consistent and good work habits, is there anything else I can to help them in the short run? I hate that they are not getting what they need (and I work FT from home now, so I am struggling myself).