Maternity Monday: Laina Jersey Maternity/Nursing Pajamas

Does anyone have recommendations for an easy to clean dining room rug? We don’t have a separate dining room per se so it’s really just for under our table in the eating area of the kitchen. With toddlers graduating to the dining room table our current rug isn’t cutting it and is now filthy. I also hate cleaning it and we do have a mat under her chair but the food tends to go beyond the mat. I’m sort of considering getting an indoor outdoor rug but not sure if that’s too strange.

Yesterday we booked a Disney trip for Thurs-Sat this week. I’m an uber planner and this is the opposite of everything my Type A self typically does (but it’s also a little refreshing?). I’m in Orlando for work through Thurs, and #yolo plus credit card points got the best of us so DH and 4.5 year old DD will fly in to meet me Wednesday night.

We used a travel agent so we’ve locked down park hopper passes, a few good meal reservations (will do the rest on the fly) and a resort hotel. I haven’t been to Disney since I was 10 in the 90s so idk what else I’m missing. Do we need the genie+ pass, which I understand to enable you to “fast lane” it to the front of some rides? She’s little so I don’t see us doing Tower of Terror, Space Mountain or anything as a group, fwiw.

Also, talk to me about attire for me specifically. My DH, who lived in FL for a bit in his 20s, says legitimately anything goes. It’ll be 80s on Thursday then dropping to 60s by Saturday. Gym shorts on Thursday and leggings/joggers with sneakers on Friday and Saturday? Maybe jeans one day with sneakers? Trying to not overthink it but also want to look decent enough. Any words of advice or other wisdom to share? I was going to take a cross body and DH would wear his backpack when we’re in the park for souvenirs, waterbottles, etc.

I fly out at 5am tomorrow so any advice you have would be most appreciated as this is now a mad, self-inflicted scramble. thank you!

Help with girls eighth birthday present ideas? It’s hard getting presents right after Christmas! She’s getting an experience gift but I’d like something she can unwrap!

What is the best way, or most considerate gracious way to handle when your child (in my case, 3.5 boy) has some ability and your friend’s child/children do not have that skill/ability? Skill/ability may not be the right term. Basically, the situation that has come up is that a family we are really good friends with (have know. The parents since College, so like 15 plus years) has kids the same age as our son. Our son eats basically everything except for fresh fruit (which I recognize is unusual) and super spicy food. We went to a very casual dinner at a diner with this family over the weekend. My child ate a lamb gyro, French fries and part of my salad and then asked the server for steamed asparagus, and got a little upset when the didn’t have it (which did not surprise us at all that they didn’t have it, it’s a diner!! but my son insists on ordering himself in restaurants). DH and I haven’t done anything to specifically encourage our son to eat these foods, he just has wanted to try them when he sees us eating them and then proceeds to eat them. Our friends that we were with; their kids only wanted to eat a few French fries and that was it. I felt so awkward about it- I know that they struggle with getting their kids to eat anything, but they just don’t want to (and the kids are in the 90%+ percentile, so no concerns about them growing at all). I just feel… embarrassed? bad? that my child eats so well and so easily when it is such a struggle for other families. I don’t draw attention to it, but our server made a comment that he’s never seen a family order for a kid where they didn’t have to make substitutions to the dish ordered and our friends made a comment that they we’re impressed with how our son eats. We have some struggles in other areas, it’s just not with eating. Is there a best practices way to handle this?

Regular poster but anon for this.

A teenager in our family ended their life on Friday. They were bright, thinking about the future, and had so much ahead of them. Please hug your kids and loved ones extra tightly today in their memory.

The parents have asked for space and are taking this time on their own terms, which is the least they can ask for. We are on standby for travel/support, but if anyone has any other tips/resources they can share (outside of sending meals, flowers, etc.), please do.

Okay, big monday energy for you all. My second grader’s teacher expressed strong concerns about how slow she is to complete her work to us last week at our conference. She gets the questions right, she’s incredibly thorough, she answers everything, but she turns in her work much later than the other students or, for example, on a spelling test sometimes has to go up to the desk and get some of the words repeated to her so she can fill it in.

We talked about whether she has attention issues. She’s incredibly focused, so the teacher would say no, but I suspect so. But beyond that, we’re not looking to medicate her or anything like that. If I verbally ask her all the spell test words she will rattle them right back to me, so one thing I’m wondering if she just needs to get quicker putting pen to paper and getting her answers down. She’s a very neat writer, and she cares about that. Any thoughts from you all’s experience?
I also get the sense the teacher gets exasperated and does not love her, which is an unfortunate other realization – DD is super sweet and conscientious and a hard worker and that just feels unfortunate that she’s got an energetic young teacher who does not love having to move her along. I’m posting that not for advice but just to vent I guess because I’d never even say that out loud. Teacher told me her sister was considering DD’s name for a baby and her BIL tends to do things really slowly and it drives them nuts so she warned her about DD’s personality and whether it went with the name! It was as a joke, but still!

For adhd moms- do you have any specific coping skills, or potential therapy types to recommend to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?

My 7 y/o May or may not technically have adhd (no impact to learning) but she has *raging* attention issues. It has gotten worse in the past year or so but it’s always been a thing. She will now fidget with anything she can touch and it drinks me bonkers at home- and her teacher has mentioned it in passing more than once. She gets a “fidget” at school; i honestly think it does more harm than good but I’m not the teacher! They don’t work at home. When I watch her in her activities, she manages too get things done but in any kind of downtime she’s unbelievably distractible. The one sport she’s not like that is swimming, which I firmly believe is because she’s busy not drowning ;).

I don’t know where to start- her ped asked if we wanted to pursue a diagnosis, but I’m not sure what the benefit would be. In talking to her teacher, we know she wouldn’t qualify now since she’s a super bright kid that is doing really well in school. I don’t want to spend the time
and money to get her a diagnosis when we don’t actually need accommodations, but I would like her to start building some coping skills.

Is this a therapy thing? In my research I’m finding therapists who work with kids that have a diagnosis, but would they also just work with kids that have adhd like behaviors? Are there resources you could recommend with strategies we can start using at home?

We have read up on parenting adhd kids and found a lot of the advice very useful to manage some of her behaviors.

Someone here or on the main board recommended Journeys International recently and ever since I’ve been daydreaming about taking my family to the Galapagos. You know, after we win the lottery. Highly rated company, from what I can tell. Lots of amazing stuff to consider.