Maternity Monday: Maternity Bump Support Leggings

Play date etiquette? I have a 4 year old, with a 5 year old bestie. They play really nicely together so we don’t generally intervene – I work in the dining room, my husband works upstairs so we’re in earshot wherever they are but are mostly here to provide lunch and snacks. They were playing a game where one of the robots said “Shut up, shut up!” It’s not something we say in this house so I asked him to say “be quiet, be quiet” instead. I do also prompt please and thank yous, but am I a mean mom?

Please help me with my strong willed (though probably totally developmentally normal) 5.5 year old. We’ve always had issues with her listening when we ask her to do something, though mostly in the past it’s been more of an issue of her being distracted or engrossed in something else so it was more a case of needing to get her attention. Now she is deliberately not listening when we ask her to do something and the old tactics are just not working (getting down on her level, touching her shoulder, and yes, yelling or losing our tempers). This seems to not be an issue at school, she is regularly praised as being a “first time listener” by her teachers, so we’re thankful for that. At this point we just need new strategies so we aren’t always losing our tempers or things don’t end up in total meltdowns. And we are thinking about the long term, too. How do we address this now so it doesn’t get worse? Thanks for any advice!

Has anyone here thrown a 50th anniversary party for their parents? My parents’ 50th is in two years, so I’m starting to think about it. I guess I’m just curious about a general overview of the party. Time of day, kind of food, number of people, etc. Thanks!

My 2.5-year-old is obsessed with spitting. He spits out food, he spits out water, he spits just to spit. It happens in our house, outside, at the store, and I’m guessing at school, too (if he’s wearing a mask, he helpfully takes it off first). We’ve talked about it, we’ve done time outs, etc etc. Given the pandemic, it gets awkward really fast if we’re around other people. What else can we try?? I’m sure he’ll grow out of it at some point, but I would like to hurry this along!

I’ve worked really hard to preserve my childfree friendships. But some of my friends are just… they’re real jerks about kids. And it’s hard and it stinks. I feel like I hear a lot about people who pressure others into having kids but somehow my one circle is… the polar opposite.

And I feel like somehow in one circle of friends in particular, there’s one person in particular who goes out of their way to make us feel like we’ve done something absolutely horrible by having kids. And honestly? It’s become really unpleasant to hang out with that person. They’ve made it SUPER clear that they don’t want to come to my house or do anything where kids could come, so I’m having to get a sitter… and then I’m not available for last minute plans which makes them roll their eyes and say, ‘Ugh. It’s like you let your kids rule your life.’ Which… I mean, there are a lot of aspects to my life, of which my children are an important one.

This weekend, I was hanging out with some neighbors who have kids the same age. And it was… awesome. Totally not stressful, really enjoyable. Our kids played. The house we were in was childproofed. At one point, kids were roaring like a dinosaur and all the adults just kept chatting and periodically redirecting the kids. And like… It was so nice. I actually had fun. We mostly talked about other things, but if we mentioned our kids, it was fine. I didn’t have to censor myself.

So. I’m anonymously venting online because… I always thought, ‘How awful!’ when people ditched their childfree friends after having kids. But sometimes… Maybe sometimes. The person is kind of just being a jerk.

I’m in a rut. What are you having for dinner tonight?