Family Friday: Secret Socks

Give me a sock trick, please! The worst part of my day is trying to find matching socks for the kids.

We tried to go to buying all white socks, but of course they’re not all exactly the same, and even more damning to my 5 and 3 year olds, they get dingy at different rates. They can’t possibly wear two socks that are different levels of black on the bottom.

We tried buying sets of colored socks so it’s easier to match, but finding the exact right pattern is even tougher. And oh the meltdowns when we we’ve lost the other green penguin!

We’ve tried matching the socks straight out of the dryer, but my DH does laundry and he will let those socks sit for weeks in a pile before he matches them because he hates it so much.

My mom suggested safety pinning the socks together when you take them off, before you throw them in the laundry. While I like the idea, we haven’t tried it yet, mainly because the idea of keeping safety pins in the kids room kind of freaks me out. (And also because the 5 year old can dress herself but can’t be trusted with a safety pin, and I don’t want to have to micromanage her socks, if there’s any other way.)

Help?!?!

Ugh. I got home late from work last night and in my grumpy, sleepy haze, accidentally left 15 ounces of breast milk out on the counter all night long. Waahh!

Help from all those tired moms out there. Any tricks or tips?

I am really struggling with my personal daily “low point” in my circadian rhythm coinciding with my evening driving commute. I’m a night owl, and at this point am getting about 6 hours of sleep a night during the week. I’m actively working on getting to better sleep habits so that I’ll have more like 7 hours a night. That said, no matter what, my “low point” in the day, even on the weekends, is usually between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

This means that I’m super tired (even when I get more sleep) on my 50-minute drive home, which is mostly on long stretches of divided highway with few traffic lights and (thankfully) not that much traffic in the middle part. I’m not falling asleep at the wheel, but it’s a struggle to feel as awake and alert as I think I should be for driving–it’s the low point in my energy and a bit of highway hypnosis.

Sometimes I can talk to a friend or family member for the whole drive home and that helps, but I can’t do that everyday. Sometimes, but not always, pumped up music helps. Caffeine? Water? Something else that I’m missing? Just wondering if anyone else has a little routine that I haven’t thought of that seems to help in this area.

Any advice on floatation devices for a 24 pound 23 month old? (Average height, just very skinny). Puddle jumpers seem to be the norm for toddlers but they say they start at 30 pounds. We’ll be with her at all times, just want to make being in the water a bit more fun.

I’m only an occasional poster here, but I’m going anonymous for this for obvious reasons.

I recently found out that my sister’s boyfriend (“Ed”) molested my now-four-year-old niece (“Alice”) a couple of years ago. There’s no doubt it happened; my sister walked in on him doing it. He convinced her didn’t know he was doing it because he was on pain medication or something, and she not only went back to him but moved in with him (along with Alice) about a year ago. This is coming out now because Alice recently mentioned something about Mommy and “Daddy” being the only ones who could touch her private parts, which made my sister think Ed had been molesting her again. I highly doubt my sister is pressing charges, but I do know that she finally reported the molestation to CPS because there was a lengthy interview during which a social worker informed my sister that Alice would be removed from her care if she allowed Ed to be around her again. My sister and Alice have moved out of Ed’s apartment and are apparently not having any contact with him anymore. My sister appears to want to pretend nothing really happened and refuses to have a real conversation with me about it.

I have spoken to my parents multiple times and to my sister once, and they have all assured me that Alice is totally fine. I am trying hard to believe that there won’t be any long-term harm to her.

But I am having a really hard time forgiving my sister. Ed had already caused a rift between my sister and me because my husband and I did not like or trust him from the moment we met him. Obviously we didn’t actually think he was a pedophile (well, my husband had his suspicions, but frankly I just thought he was being paranoid), but he absolutely came off to both of us as a creep. And now I know that, for the last two years, my sister knew we were right not to trust him and certainly not to want him around our own kids (now three years old and ten months). I feel betrayed that she not only hid from us that Ed had molested Alice but also continued to bring Ed around our parents’ house when our children were there.

A highly complicating factor is that my sister (who is 40+ years old, by the way) has bipolar disorder. She has a psychiatrist and is on medication. On multiple occasions, when her life has gotten extremely stressful and/or she has stopped taking her medications, she has had psychotic breaks and been hospitalized for days or even weeks at a time. So it’s not as if I can heap guilt on her about this even if that would temporarily make me feel better.

I am asking for advice here because we will be visiting my parents in just a couple of weeks and I am going to have to interact with my sister. Please help or at least tell me things will eventually be OK and I’ll be able to stand being in the same room with her.

A little happy news for a Friday afternoon: my 3yo did a peanut allergy food challenge at the hospital this morning and…is officially peanut-allergy-free! (And has already eaten a peanut butter cup as a celebratory treat.)

He had some mild reactions after we gave him peanut butter as a baby and tested positive at 1 during a skin test at the pediatrician’s, so for two years we carried an epi-pen and Benadryl around everywhere (my sister has a fairly severe peanut allergy and gave us lots of good advice on managing it). Then his last skin test and 3-year blood test came back negative, so the allergist referred us for a food challenge. Apparently a small percentage of kids do grow out of it!!