Make My Life Easier Thursday: UltraBrite Motion-Activated LED Night-Light

Book series recommendations for second grade boys? My go-to birthday party gift is the first few books of whatever series my kids are in to plus a card game or consumable art supplies, depending on the birthday kid. We have already gifted Dog Man and Dragon Masters to a soon-to-be birthday boy and need new ideas!

One of my 23 month old twins gets sick once a month where he has fever for 24 hours but no other symptoms. No one else in my house gets sick and he’s better the next day. He sees a pulmonologist and an ENT, in addition to his pediatrician. They all just say “he’s susceptible to viruses” but I’m wondering if any of you have experience with this? It seems like something is off with him but everyone keeps telling me it’s in my head and I don’t know how to advocate for him better. He also has a lot of trouble sleeping so I have him scheduled for adenoid removal. Hopefully that helps…

Just catching up on the post from yesterday on online safety, and wanted to share my thoughts on conversations to have with kids starting at a young age.

My 10 year old and 7 year old have my old work phones (without phone lines – basically small iPads). They charge in our living room overnight and are never allowed in bedrooms. The 7 year old has to use hers only next to me or DH so we can still help monitor. The 10 year old is just starting to be able to be in another room, but after several years of discussions on safe behavior and how to deal with inappropriate things. (Basically our rule is freeze and come tell an adult).

We’ve had several talks about the dangers of being online. We have a standing rule that they can ask us or show us anything and they won’t get in trouble, unless they continue to do it once we’ve talked about it. Friends at school bring up topics at recess and we talk through them (like moaning and eggplant emojis and searching for fanfic on Chromebooks) and I think that’s helped them understand that there are weird undertones to a lot of things that they wouldn’t think of on their own. My DH is really good at photoshop, so he doctored a picture of them to look like they were on a beach drinking alcohol, and we talked about how if he posted that online, everyone would believe it and it would never go away. We showed them how we can find the address, job, and how much the house cost or how much the rent is, for all of their friends’ parents just by knowing their name and city. We searched my college aged family member and found inappropriate pictures, and talked about how he’d probably be mortified to know his aunt and uncle had seen those photos, but we could save them and put them on our Christmas cards, and he’d never know the whole family had gotten them in the mail. We’ve talked about the downsides of fame and looked up the scary threats made against their favorite singers. And we’ve talked about s*x since they were in preschool, first just the body parts and working our way up to mechanics and videos online and things like 69 (since a kid at school heard that from an older sibling and they were all guessing at what it was).

It’s scary and hard to have these conversations at such young ages, but it’s out there already. As someone else mentioned, their friends are doing all sorts of stuff unmonitored and they’re hearing about it anyway. You want to be the person they can go to for a real answer, and the person they ask if they are unsure.

I know there have been threads about this in the past but hoping for a mega thread here – Hit me with your best all inclusives in the Caribbean for families with toddler through say 3-5 grade kids! Thanks.

[Sorry if this comment posts more than once, having issues with the s*te today]

[Re-posting from main board at a commenter’s suggestion – thanks for all the responses yesterday].

TIA for your thoughts!

(Fully recognizing this is a privileged position to be in) I am experiencing what I can only describe as paralysis related to making travel plans. Some backstory: I am married with two young kids (who will be approx. 2 and 4.5 this coming spring/summer/fall). Prior to having kids, I traveled a good amount (both as a child, with my single mom, as well as during my school years, college, and post-college). Nothing crazy but I am decently well traveled in Europe, Latin America, Canada, and South Asia. For a few years while dating/engaged, my husband and I did a good amount of travel, but much of it was domestic because for a while we were attending like 8-10 weddings a year, and I was a big law associate for 7 years and therefore never wanted to take more than a long weekend of vacation time. We did do two 1-2 week trips in Europe over the course of those 7 years, plus a couple of 3 or 4 day Caribbean trips. Then we got married, had kids, and COVID hit. I am desperate to start traveling again but I feel totally unable to commit to a location or start booking plane tix/hotels, despite the fact that (a) we have plenty of money to travel and (b) I now have an in-house job with 4 weeks vacation that I can actually take and not have to work during. I have also been told that these years before kindergarten start are a good time to travel because we don’t have to travel during peak season or pull kids out of school.

As an example, last fall we decided to do a Jan/Feb/March (flexible) Caribbean trip this year but never got around to actually planning it, and now it feels too late. I think part of the reason is that I have felt “travel starved” (again, I recognize how privileged and entitled that sounds, believe me!) and so I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself for the trip to be perfect. The other reason is that this will be the first time I am undertaking significant, international travel with two kids (or any kids at all) and I’m worried it won’t be anything like what travel used to be. Ok, I KNOW it won’t. But I can’t seem to get over this. I’m worried we’ll spend a boatload of money and have a miserable time, even though I intellectually know that we are likely going to spend a lot of money, and have some very good memories and some annoying times, but overall will not regret going.

My mom’s 70th bday is coming up (I actually posted about this here a few weeks back) and she wants to go to Spain, so we’ve settled on that. I do like Spain, but again there’s this nagging thing in my brain going “but you love France! And Italy!” and “what will you and the kids [all vegetarian] eat in Spain!” even though I know it’ll all work out.

Any tips for getting over myself?

And, now that we’ve decided on Spain as a destination, please recommend your best itinerary for 7 full days (9 including travel) for 3 adults and 2 young kids, aiming for 2 cities (maaaybe 3 if one of the cities/towns is within a short train/drive from other city). Budget up to $1k per night (not including flights but must include accommodations that will allow my mom to have her own bed, and at least one twin bed for the kids) but would be delighted to spend less. My mom and I have been to Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante and Valencia, but more than open to revisiting one of Madrid or Barcelona. My mom is intrigued by Basque country but it seems hard to get to – I don’t want to spend a ton of time schlepping kids around on connecting flights, long train rides, etc. Travel month is flexible but March, June, or September/October would be ideal.

TIA again for reading this self-absorbed novel!

This is kind of embarrassing so staying anon but do any of your kids have weird/kinda gross habits?
My kid (2.5) will find my hair on the floor or sofa or wherever and put it in his mouth. Sometimes going as far to pull a piece off my head. It’s gross and obviously pulling my hair really hurts. Is this something I need to talk to the ped about?
He’s otherwise “normal” and doesn’t seem to have any other sensory type habits.