Everyone Thursday: ‘Valli’ Waterproof Bootie

I’m right there with you. I don’t have to host, but then I also have to spend close to $2K that we really don’t have right now to get us to see my father in law in a place that you otherwise couldn’t pay me to visit. He’s not really able (definitely not willing) to travel anymore, and has no local family, so its not really negotiable, but I hate how all our vacation time and vacation money gets used up on trips of highly dubious “fun” value. We’re also doing a separate 6 hr each way driving trip to see my family, but that should hopefully be slightly more fun and less expensive. As usual I will need a vacation from my vacation when we return. (And of course I am lucky to have living family to visit and am generally an ungrateful wretch.)

Can anyone point me to non-extremist (in either direction) information about alcohol consumption and breastfeeding? I have lots of information floating around in my head but can’t recall the sources and would like to refresh my memory.

Ugh, woman in the health care system vent. I have been complaining of a very uncomfortable health condition for 4 years. I have seen 4 different doctors (3 in the same practice). I have been in to this practice’s office 5 times since April of this year. The last doctor I saw “diagnosed” me with stress and suggested I take a vacation. The one before that suggested I wasn’t adhering closely enough to a treatment program a different doctor had prescribed, which that doctor described at the time as “probably not very helpful” (which was accurate).

Well….the latest doctor listened, did a thorough inspection, and determined that it’s a chronic condition that usually doesn’t cause permanent damage, but has been going on so long that it has caused permanent damage in my case. It has nothing to do with stress, or adherence to the “not very helpful” treatment program. It would have been easy to treat early on, and would have saved me several days of awful pain over the last couple years. Now I’m going to live with low-level pain for the rest of my life, and at least a year of aggressive, often irritating treatments and frequent doctor’s visits. I will always be at a higher risk of infection because of the permanent damage.

I’m so ticked. 2016 can go to h*ll.

Another nap question. At what age did your babies transition to 1 nap per day? Our daycare has two infant rooms, one for non-movers and one for movers. My 8 month old may be moved to the older room soon, where they say there’s typically 1 longer (2-3 hr) nap per day instead of the 2 that he does now. They’re ok with still doing 2 if we insist the babies need it. I’m guessing 8-9 months is too soon to transition to 1 nap but I’m wondering if the longer length of 1 nap would make up for it? He typically does 2 long naps on the weekends now, with about 3 hours of awake time in between each sleep session. He’s in the 90th percentile for height/weight if it matters.

(Name too edgy? Taken from SNL skit.)

As people of the Hebrew faith, we have decided to take the long weekend to toilet-train our daughter, who is a little over two. She is horrible during diaper changes, and she is exhibiting enough signs that we think she is ready. If she is not a quick learner, we will take a pause and let daycare handle it in six months when she moves up to the next class. We’ve (=I’ve) read Oh Crap!, and we’re planning to use more or less than approach for awake times (and still diaper during naps and overnight), plus a star chart. Any tips or things to beware of? I am getting surprisingly anxious about this endeavor.

Help – our 5.5 month old has suddenly started fighting naps during the day, and he is MISERABLE as a result. He is still sleeping fine/normally at night. The four month sleep regression meant a few weeks of waking up every 1-2 hours at night, but he’s been past that for a few weeks now. Right now he’ll be rubbing his eyes, acting suuuuuper tired, but he just won’t sleep. I’ve really seen it this week since I had to be home with him two mornings this week due to child care issues. We’ve noticed on the weekends, too, he’s doing this catnap thing and not taking longer naps. But this week he has barely been sleeping at all and it means he basically fusses and is angry until bedtime. Normal? Not normal? He doesn’t seem sick…maybe teething but we haven’t seen any changes. He’s always drooled a lot and has been sticking things in his mouth for a while. No fever.

Y’all. My husband had to burn PTO before the end of this year, so he’s staying home all week. He’s been running errands (grocery store, Costco, Target, etc), picking up the kids from daycare every day, and being at home for all the contractors/repair guys that we scheduled this week. And it has been AMAZING because I’ve been able to focus on my job during a very crazy week.

Is this what men with SAHW felt like all those years? It’s going to be hard to go back to normal (and my husband traveling 75% of the time) in January.