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Alterian posted:We'll be dealing with it in a couple years and I'm not certain what I'm going to do. I think its ridiculous to give a Kindergartner a half hour of homework every night. I also don't want my child to get in trouble and suffer bad grades because of any form of protest I take against it. The smartass side of me would want to do it for him. Every district is different, and if you're not in a high pressure private school or something, this may be a non issue. When Tim was in kindergarten, we got the "homework calendar" for the month, with lots of blank and lined paper attached and we were to pick 4/5 of the things for the week, and turn in the packet at the end of the month. They included things like, reciting the alphabet for a grown up, going for a nature walk with your family, drawing a self portrait, writing your numbers from 1-n, etc... So, pretty appropriate things, half of which weren't even written. We maybe spent an hour a week doing written things. In first grade, he had a spelling test every other week (10 words), and a simple worksheet 2-3 nights a week. I too had read articles about so much homework for little kids, and was concerned, but for us it just turned out not to be an issue. The kids' [public] school is very reasonable (and was a 2014 Blue Ribbon school too). They don't get "grades" until 3rd grade. Up till then, it's a number scale of either effort given, like for art, or a number scale according to what is developmentally expected ("meets/exceeds expectations," "still working on it", or "needs extra help" in which case you would have already been conferenced about what's going on or any supplemental things your kid is doing or whatever.) I figure for every one school that's kind of gone crazy, there are at least a dozen more that are just fine.
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Aug 12, 2015 22:00
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Any thoughts on umbilical hernia's IE: outies? Pro's con's to getting them corrected? What age to do it at?
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Aug 13, 2015 21:26
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Alterian posted:We'll be dealing with it in a couple years and I'm not certain what I'm going to do. I think its ridiculous to give a Kindergartner a half hour of homework every night. I also don't want my child to get in trouble and suffer bad grades because of any form of protest I take against it. The smartass side of me would want to do it for him.
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Aug 13, 2015 21:32
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Our elementary school hours here are 9:05 to 3:35. Where starts at 7:30 D:
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Aug 13, 2015 21:51
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This is my second week of stay-at-home-dadhood and so far the only really super frustrating thing I've found is getting him to eat stuff. He loves anything small and round. Berries, olives, peas. The main thing is making meals for the whole family that we can all enjoy. He won't eat tortillas, he wont eat noodles. I had almost given up hope that I could find anything that he would like that I could feed all of us, and then I made these and he ate the poo poo out of them. Does anyone else have any recipes that were tasty, but their toddler also ended up really liking?
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Aug 13, 2015 22:02
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sheri posted:Our elementary school hours here are 9:05 to 3:35. Where starts at 7:30 In San Diego, my kid goes from 7:45 to 2:10 4 days a week. On Wednesdays they have "minimum day" (i.e. the minimum federally required instructional minutes) as a budget saving measure, he goes from 7:45 to 12:05. They open the school gates at 7:30 for the kids who eat breakfast.
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Aug 13, 2015 22:18
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Reason posted:This is my second week of stay-at-home-dadhood and so far the only really super frustrating thing I've found is getting him to eat stuff. He loves anything small and round. Berries, olives, peas. The main thing is making meals for the whole family that we can all enjoy. He won't eat tortillas, he wont eat noodles. I had almost given up hope that I could find anything that he would like that I could feed all of us, and then I made these and he ate the poo poo out of them. Does anyone else have any recipes that were tasty, but their toddler also ended up really liking? Our wildcard for our son to eat, which is also great in a hurry, was, and is, egg omelette with ham, veggies and cheese. Frozen veggies (peas, corn, carrots, green beans) in an oiled pan with some ham, put that inside an egg omelette along with some cheese. Ready. Disclaimer, my son loves eggs, even harboiled ones, not sure that this is a common thing though.
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Aug 13, 2015 22:30
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Hdip posted:Any thoughts on umbilical hernia's IE: outies? Pro's con's to getting them corrected? What age to do it at? My daughter had one as an infant and it seemed to get larger until she was around 4 months. It was maybe an inch or a little more in diameter, hard to remember now. The doctor had me wait to see about getting it repaired until closer to a year and said as long as I was able to push it back in and it wasn't hard or swollen or hurting her to not worry. It eventually went away on its own and her belly button is now a completely normal innie.
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Aug 13, 2015 23:45
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Hdip posted:Any thoughts on umbilical hernia's IE: outies? Pro's con's to getting them corrected? What age to do it at? We were told it should fix by 5. If at that time it was still an issue we would pursue treatment. Assuming no complications of course.
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Aug 13, 2015 23:51
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sheri posted:Our elementary school hours here are 9:05 to 3:35. Where starts at 7:30 Our elementary school goes from 7:40-2:25, which is pretty standard for our area. The bus hits our neighborhood at 6:45.
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Aug 14, 2015 00:39
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At orientation today for my son's Transitional Kindergarten class, we learned the following things: Class starts at 8am They have a snack around 9:20am Lunch is at 11am Minimum days on Thursday get out about half hour early Most days are 8am-1:30pm I was just discussing this with my husband. Say our kid gets up at 7am, eats breakfast at 7:30ish and leaves for school at 7:45am. He is snacking less than 2 hours later, and having lunch less than 4 hours after his breakfast. Right now we keep a gap of 6 hours between breakfast and lunch (with a snack about 3 hours after breakfast), so I have no idea how he will adjust. That also means between his 11am "lunch" and dinner which is usually 7pm, he will have 8 hours between meals. Which means he will get hungry and want a snack after school, which is fine except if he eats too much he won't be hungry for dinner. This whole thing is throwing us off, but we will adjust. I'll probably just pack him a small lunch and give him a second lunch after school, like he's a Hobbit. Is this a wonky eating schedule to anyone else? I'm a Fatty Magoo and I am so paranoid about my kids developing terrible eating habits that maybe I am overthinking this.
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Aug 14, 2015 01:46
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If you make their extra lunches/snacks healthy options like carrot/celery/cucumber/pepper sticks with hummus and fruit, they might develop a liking for those, which could help them further in life. Better to fall for a bag of celery sticks when hungry than a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
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Aug 14, 2015 02:16
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Fionnoula posted:In San Diego, my kid goes from 7:45 to 2:10 4 days a week. On Wednesdays they have "minimum day" (i.e. the minimum federally required instructional minutes) as a budget saving measure, he goes from 7:45 to 12:05. They open the school gates at 7:30 for the kids who eat breakfast. Reason posted:This is my second week of stay-at-home-dadhood and so far the only really super frustrating thing I've found is getting him to eat stuff. He loves anything small and round. Berries, olives, peas. The main thing is making meals for the whole family that we can all enjoy. He won't eat tortillas, he wont eat noodles. I had almost given up hope that I could find anything that he would like that I could feed all of us, and then I made these and he ate the poo poo out of them. Does anyone else have any recipes that were tasty, but their toddler also ended up really liking? Also, stay-at-home-dadding is the best thing in the world. VorpalBunny posted:Is this a wonky eating schedule to anyone else? I'm a Fatty Magoo and I am so paranoid about my kids developing terrible eating habits that maybe I am overthinking this. photomikey fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 02:45
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photomikey posted:Hi fellow San Diegan! These are exactly the hours I was thinking of when I wrote the last post! What school? He goes to Foster Elementary (in Allied Gardens, across the freeway from SDSU).
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Aug 14, 2015 03:33
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photomikey posted:Multiple small meals is supposed to be better for you than fewer big ones. In theory, maybe, but people who snack more end up consuming more calories than people who don't. It's valid for an overweight parent to worry that their kid is going to develop a "permasnacking" mindset that is a huge part of why the US is so obese. Kids in countries with lower obesity rates like France tend to eat one snack after school and that's it. Adults don't usually snack. Eating every two hours is some bullshit. Definitely keep it to fruits and vegetables if you have to let them snack that often. It is so easy to send Goldfish one day, granola another, etc. Pretty soon your kid is an overweight Dorito and chocolate bar guzzling American like the rest of US.
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Aug 14, 2015 05:00
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Mathematics posted:In theory, maybe, but people who snack more end up consuming more calories than people who don't. It's valid for an overweight parent to worry that their kid is going to develop a "permasnacking" mindset that is a huge part of why the US is so obese. Kids in countries with lower obesity rates like France tend to eat one snack after school and that's it. Adults don't usually snack. Eating every two hours is some bullshit. Yeah, that's what I was getting at. We don't leave food out all the time for the kids, and when they get a snack it's usually something easy and healthy like grapes or apples or cheese sticks or something. I'm just worried that he'll get used to eating all the time and since I can't control what he eats when he's not home then he'll start developing a taste for the junk other kids bring to school. He is skinny as a rail and I keep him very active, and when he does eat he consumes a lot of calories, but it's more the habit of snacking that I'm worried about. I guess I can't do a damned thing about it but work extra hard to make sure there's less crap in the house and a continuous flow of healthy goods available to him. As a tangent, my husband and I were talking about how much work it is to keep fresh fruit in the house and make healthy meals and make sure our kids get tons of exercise. And we can do this because we can afford for me to be a stay-at-home-mom so I am spending a lot of my time making sure things are still chugging down the healthy path. If both of us had to work, I have no idea if we'd be able to keep up this kind of commitment. It would be a lot more packaged foods, less physical activities together, and I honestly might not know what they ate that day. And then we imagined if we were poor, and that kind of put an end to the conversation.
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Aug 14, 2015 05:31
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Fionnoula posted:He goes to Foster Elementary (in Allied Gardens, across the freeway from SDSU). No, Hearst Elementary is across the freeway from SDSU. That's where we go. ;-)
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Aug 14, 2015 07:35
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Hdip posted:Any thoughts on umbilical hernia's IE: outies? Pro's con's to getting them corrected? What age to do it at? I've read ages 3-4, if it's not an innie by the, surgery should be considered.
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Aug 14, 2015 08:15
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photomikey posted:No, Hearst Elementary is across the freeway from SDSU. That's where we go. ;-) Ok fine, it's at the Waring Rd exit off the 8, but no one who isn't from Allied Gardens knows where the hell it is and SDSU is the closest point of reference. Also hahaha, you live like within a mile or two of us. Our kids are going to go to middle and high school together. In San Diego goon kid news, here's my kid with his Special Olympics Gymnastics team tonight on the field at halftime during the Chargers-Cowboys game. (he's the little one plugging his ears because apparently 70,000 people make a bit of a racket.) 
Fionnoula fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 08:31
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king of the bongo fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Aug 15, 2015 |
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Aug 15, 2015 05:04
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpHVw_jQOq8 She thinks she's jumping 
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Aug 16, 2015 14:10
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I thought having a kid was exhausting... That was only because I hadn't had a kids birthday party before. Thank god for mimosas and wine.
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Aug 16, 2015 17:41
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BonoMan posted:I thought having a kid was exhausting... That was only because I hadn't had a kids birthday party before.
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Aug 17, 2015 16:10
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pjhalifax posted:We just had my son's first birthday party. It wasn't even that much of a production and we were still sitting around shellshocked afterwards. Look at the balloon! Balloon! Balloon! Bubbles bubbles bubbles cake cake cake no that's not your toy oh my god make it stop. Ha, yeah it was our daughters first birthday. No other kids, and like only about 8 adults total but good grief there was just stuff to do all day (gotta get the cake, balloons, grill out oops we don't have charcoal why aren't there balloons on the mailbox you did remember to actually wrap your presents right why is your mom being passive aggressive to me jesus you didn't invite so and so well now they're gonna be pissed) it's just so mentally exhausting.
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Aug 17, 2015 16:59
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My wife and I just took our daughter to the park for her first birthday. Bought some potato salad and one of those large sub sandwiches, and basically just sat at a picnic table and relaxed while our daughter ran around.
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Aug 17, 2015 17:08
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For our daughters birthday we went to an indoor play place, and paid £13 per child for the centre to provide snacks, juice and do all the clean-up. We've had friends do parties like that at village halls, but once you factor in the hire and all the  setting it up, making food, and tidying up. I'd rather pay someone else to do it.
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Aug 17, 2015 18:33
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1st birthdays aren't supposed to be cake and balloons, etc. It isn't for the kid, it is a "congratulations to the parents for not accidentally killing or maiming your child for 1 year" party. Beer/wine and a nice meal. Grand parents only, no presents required.
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Aug 18, 2015 15:23
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Molybdenum posted:1st birthdays aren't supposed to be cake and balloons, etc. It isn't for the kid, it is a "congratulations to the parents for not accidentally killing or maiming your child for 1 year" party. Beer/wine and a nice meal. Grand parents only, no presents required. That's exactly what we said before we had the party. Just never ends up that way!
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Aug 18, 2015 15:29
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Molybdenum posted:1st birthdays aren't supposed to be cake and balloons, etc. It isn't for the kid, it is a "congratulations to the parents for not accidentally killing or maiming your child for 1 year" party. Beer/wine and a nice meal. Grand parents only, no presents required. For us, the first birthday was the "invite all the extended family over that's been clamoring to see him but we're too busy to actually have over / we wouldn't want to spend an afternoon alone with them anyways because our extended family is crazy."
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Aug 18, 2015 16:05
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Our neighbors across the hall have a kid two months older than ours. I'm kinda considering asking if they want to come with us to a playspace on my daughter's first birthday, and literally only them. I don't know if I even want my parents to be anything other than uninvited. They have been so absent from my daughter's life that they don't even have a key to our new bigger apartment we've been in for months, now. Actual question: Do a lot of you parents have your own parents are just focused selfishly on themselves? My wife's parents love being grandparents and help out all the time, but mine are just checked out into retirement/vacation/spending land.
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Aug 18, 2015 23:01
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It can be hard. Don't be bitter. Let your parents be grandparents at their own pace. My mother in law drives me loving insane, but for me, the most important thing is my daughter having a good relationship with her Grandma. Even though they live two miles from us and haven't ever been to our house. It's the glee in my daughter's face when grandma feeds her cake for breakfast.
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Aug 18, 2015 23:14
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I'm going through something that may be similar... I can't quite figure it out. My mom has been nothing short of an exceptional mom all of her life and mine. Totally involved, supportive (mentally and financially), sympathetic, tough ... everything you could ask for. My entire 36 years so far. Then I had my kid (her second grandchild by blood - there's a third already grown grandchild from my brother's second marriage) and while she was there for the birth... she left two days later and has seen my kid exactly twice since then. Once at 6 months and once at 12 months. She has never called (not once) to check in on her. Occasionally if I'm talking to her about other stuff she asks after her. Now, she's 67 and is dating a new awesome dude (after her fiance/boyfriend of 13 years dumped her on the day after Christmas). He's really cool and runs a lot of music fests and they're basically gallivanting around doing tons of awesome stuff. And I'm happy for her, she absolutely deserves it. I can't figure out if she's doing it on purpose or just preoccupied with what she might feel is her last chance to really go out and live life before she hits her 70s and things could start to slide. Of course I wouldn't blame her for that. I definitely wouldn't want to make someone feel chained to me in their golden years. At the same time I remember a moment where, the day after we got home, with baby Nora and my wife asleep, I crawled into my mom's arms while she lay in bed and just sort started crying and saying "I don't know what to do!" I was so filled with anxiety. She, in a very loving way that may not come across on text, just said "yes you do... and if you don't you'll figure it out." And then her 1 year card to my baby girl was written to her (not us) and recanted that same story and said how it was her favorite moment as a parent ever. Which is a lot to say with five kids and nearly 70 years of life! So, in the end, I think she is intentionally staying away for a bit so that I'll learn by diving right in.
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Aug 19, 2015 00:07
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My in-laws are alcoholics. Our kid is their only grand-kid and they won't stay sober enough to come visit. You can't force people to be family. It can be a downer. I didn't have a relationship with my mom's parents and I wasn't allowed to see my dad's family after I turned 13 so I fully understand that it sucks. I do get sad sometimes that my kid really isn't going to have a lot of blood relations in his life. I pretty much grew up without an extended family and I turned out alright I think.
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Aug 19, 2015 02:39
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My son turned one on Saturday, first grandchild on both sides. Haven't heard a peep from my husband's mother.  At this point, I just tell myself it's better that she's not trying to be a bigger part of his life. What a clusterfuck that'd be.On the bright side, the grandparents he has in the area are fantastic. In thanks, I let my mom go nuts and do whatever she wanted for his birthday party so she invited a bunch of family to show him off. More fuss than I would have preferred, but it made my parents really happy!
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Aug 19, 2015 03:49
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notwithoutmyanus posted:Actual question: Do a lot of you parents have your own parents are just focused selfishly on themselves? My wife's parents love being grandparents and help out all the time, but mine are just checked out into retirement/vacation/spending land. My fiances parents / extended relatives are like this. Unemployed too. The grandfather prefers to sit at home and ring his gong while chanting something about buddha (born again, except into buddhism). Then wonders why the kids cry and cry when they see him. It's because they don't know you. They live about 2 miles away from us and could come visit whenever but they don't. Even my fiance has concluded they are lazy and weird people. Fortunately my own parents are super-human hard workers (in their 60s and in better physical condition than me) who really really enjoys being grandparents and the kids just run towards them when they come visit and they stayed their first night and never cried once. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 04:45
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My parents are great grandparents but live about a 12 hour drive away My husband's parents never visit and live 4 hours away. If my parents lived that close we'd probably be seeing them once a month. Its funny how that works out. We've been thinking about moving closer to my parents in the near future. I am sure if we did his parents would freak out 
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Aug 19, 2015 11:39
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You gotta cut your parents some slack, they finally got you out of the house, out of school, and married off, they just want to relax. They're catching up on 20+ years of lost time.
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Aug 19, 2015 13:34
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Yeah, we've got four sets of grandparents for our kids, and two of them are pretty great. Her dad upsets me because he always talks about wanting to see the baby (and his daughter) but refuses to actually do anything to make it happen, putting a lot of pressure on us to make sure he gets to see his grandson. I mean, we visit the other grandparents too, but they also come and visit us sometimes, and volunteer to babysit, and help clean up a bit one in a while. I guess we can't complain too much. Also, I decided last night that something my child needs is a proper narrative metaphor that clarifies our values as a family in ways that demonstrate you don't always have to be perfect, but you should still keep trying, through lots of different but inter-related stories. I honestly am not a big fan of most of the stories I've seen for once he starts getting older beyond the ones that encourage basic practical children's skills, and of course if I don't like what I see the proper course of action is to do it myself. I'm currently about 4k words into it my own custom mythology. When I'm done, I should have about 20 stories that range from happy to sad to heroic to inspiring. I figure it will be a fun to try and write and remember all of them so I can tell them on demand (if he ever demands them, which he might not). But beyond that, I think it's important for a kid to see themselves as part of an ongoing living story, and maybe have a little ritual in their life. We're very much an areligious family, and I guess this is my attempt to at least put up something that isn't consumerist garbage designed solely to sell toys, which are the stories most kids seem to end up internalizing nowadays. This is probably the stupidest and geekiest thing, and if he doesn't end up liking them I'll live. But my wife seemed to enjoy the first one that I read her last night, and she hates lots of things I read her and is usually pretty honest about it, so there's hope! (Yes, I read my wife bedtime stories, don't hate)
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Aug 19, 2015 16:30
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GlyphGryph posted:Yeah, we've got four sets of grandparents for our kids, and two of them are pretty great. Her dad upsets me because he always talks about wanting to see the baby (and his daughter) but refuses to actually do anything to make it happen, putting a lot of pressure on us to make sure he gets to see his grandson. I mean, we visit the other grandparents too, but they also come and visit us sometimes, and volunteer to babysit, and help clean up a bit one in a while. That actually seems pretty cool. My grandma used to tell me stories from Greek mythology (totally not kid safe, but w/e, it didn't impact me, I think) and I remember them fondly, if inaccurately. Now, off to poke out the eyes of the barbarians that offended me.
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Aug 19, 2015 16:40
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My dad died when I was in college, my mom is just a terrible mother, and I was an only child, so my side of the family is very thinly represented in our life. It's basically my mom and that's it. Our extended family are either estranged or uninterested in maintaining family relationships. My husband's family is pretty strong but scattered all over the country. We do visits with his mom several times a year (she lives in Utah, we live in CA) but his dad and step-mom are local and completely disinterested in being grandparents. When the kids are older, like pre-teens, they will be interested in spending time with them but they just don't know how to interact with toddlers and young kids and don't make an effort to hide it. The irony is, when my kids are pre-teens I doubt my father-in-law or his wife will have the energy to keep up with them - they'll be in their 70s! I wish I could get them to understand that as my kids age, so do they. As a result, my husband and I are kind of drifting free doing our own thing with almost no family support. No free babysitting, random family dinners every few months, no traditions being created. It kind of bums me out, since I had such a lovely childhood, but I figured we'd make the effort to create traditions ourselves and make our own little family a priority over everyone else.
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Aug 19, 2015 16:49
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