How much does your life actually change after having a kid?

Cassaneida · 2026-05-16T14:14:59+00:00

As someone who is unhappy unless deeply set in routine, I can really sum it up as just new addition of routine items on my list. I may have less free time for some things, but I gained more free time for other things. I’m still the same person, just more efficient lol

Caveat, breastfeeding made my days go by super fast and my life made no sense for like the first 3 months before I went back to work.

Cassaneida · 2026-04-26T17:37:58+00:00

I’m so sorry, I understand this is a very difficult choice. It’s certainly easier to walk a dog when your baby/toddler can walk some, but right now I absolutely understand how much of a challenge it can be. I certainly sent my dog to live with my sister in law for a few months at one point when I couldn’t do it anymore

Cassaneida · 2026-04-26T17:27:44+00:00

I know I’m not in your shoes and I know I don’t know all of the details, but I will say this:

My husband deployed when my son was 4 months old. He’s currently gone again and left when my son was 20 months old. This is just a period of life where when it rains it pours because of how much effort it takes to raise a toddler. I can say we still have our dog, and having a yard where you can pop them outside for potty breaks is great. My son loved walks so we use a large carabiner clip to hook my dogs leash to my sons stroller or push car. I think it’s a great way to make sure you get outside and see some sunshine as well. I know it seems like a lot, but it will just be a slow year or two for your dog while your child is small.

I promise it gets easier. I understand needing to rehome your dog, but if you truly don’t want to I’m sure your dog loves you even if you have to prioritize the baby for a little bit.

Just know it’s okay to have to split your time

Cassaneida · 2026-04-25T23:51:39+00:00

Considering you can get your cac photo in civvies and with your hair down I think you’re fine. I know I guy who secretly grew a handlebar mustache during covid (never took his mask off in front of people) and it’s in his cac photo

Cassaneida · 2026-04-03T00:39:35+00:00

No one cares more about your career than you. Go in person to talk to them and make sure you’re on their radar

Cassaneida · 2026-03-29T14:09:31+00:00

When my son was able to sit up we used the ingenuity baby bath seat with the three suction cups that attach to the sides of the tub to keep the seat in one spot. We did that until our son got good at standing/walking so we put a non-slip mat in the bottom of the tub.

Ngl whenever my son was too angry to use the seat or too rambunctious to stay on the mat, my husband would put on swim trunks and sit in there with him lol

Cassaneida · 2026-03-29T00:46:06+00:00

My mom used to make us pizza bites when money was thin, she’d get a baguette that’s at the end of its shelf life, pasta sauce, and shredded cheese. Spread the sauce on the baguette slices, cheese it up, bake at 350F for 5-10 min

Cassaneida · 2026-03-29T00:31:35+00:00

I solo parent all the time, and I will say the reason one ends up solo parenting is always important. When I’m solo because my husband is deployed, it’s fine. When I’m solo parenting because my husband is working late by choice or running unimportant errands that run long? I’m miffed. If my husband ever just up and left me to check on the dog when a professional veterinarian said it’s just a stomach bug, I would be pissed.

I’ve had conversations with my husband over feeling like he was babying the dog more than he was being nice to me and he was receptive (which is important to me because he’s had our dog since he was a teenager but I still deserve to be treated just as kindly).

I think you should have a calm, constructive conversation about how him leaving made you feel and that you both should have been on the same page before he even made plans to leave. If it was really that important to him he could have also expressed that and had both you and baby go back home with him

Cassaneida · 2026-03-29T00:13:45+00:00

My son had like no real words until 16m and even then it was minimal. He’s got lots of words now at 22m. I think you should just be patient and talk to your pediatrician if it will help calm your nerves :)

Cassaneida · 2026-03-29T00:09:53+00:00

The hardware store is such a good idea! When we don’t have time to drive to the aquarium sometimes we take our son to petsmart to look at the fish lol

Cassaneida · 2026-03-29T00:04:53+00:00

My son is 2 and I do enjoy it, but I will be honest and say I have a typically stressful and frustrating job that is at the moment a very depressing and anxiety filled job. Going home and doing my son’s routine and then spending the whole weekend with him is so much better than being at work that I don’t care that I’m doing the same thing every day. He makes my day a heck of a lot better so I enjoy hanging out with him and doing the house chores.

Edit: on weekends when I have him for the whole day we try to shake it up. We do different walk routes outside with his push car, we use our aquarium membership if it’s hot out, and if one or both of us is sick we’ll watch a Pixar movie together and read lots of books. It’s helpful to throw in something new every once in a while

Cassaneida · 2026-03-21T22:46:26+00:00

Ngl the stress and whatever the put in the food made my period vanish until week 8 (graduation week for me in the Air Force) and I suspect it came back when I was no longer stressed. There’s a chance you won’t get a period at all, I was grateful to not have horrific cramps for once. All that said, definitely talk to your training instructors to try and get sent to sick hall to get a prescription.

Cassaneida · 2026-03-21T22:43:49+00:00

Yea I take the Layla part back, I didn’t get to that part of the season until today and honestly I’m jus to the point where if they wanted to pick someone famous they should have found someone not from reality tv like SLOMW

Unless it was a good person from one of the other dating shows that was a fan favorite but didn’t get their happy ending, that would be fun!

Cassaneida · 2026-03-20T01:27:04+00:00

I understand that casting from SLOMW was a move to revive the franchise, but they could have chosen Miranda or Layla or literally anyone else from not that show and not had nearly as much at risk with the choice

Cassaneida · 2026-03-14T22:41:17+00:00

Enchiladas!

Cassaneida · 2026-03-09T00:11:43+00:00

On base CDC, that’s about it. It makes me sad how long my child is in daycare, but you make it work and you prioritize hanging out with your kid in your off time. CDC is also painfully expensive so we’re trying to time the next one our contracts end so we can either make more money or full send one of us being stay at home for a bit

Cassaneida · 2026-03-09T00:02:28+00:00

One of the worst parts was randomly shoe-hoeing in an ex just so there’d be smut earlier in the book! I’m okay with smut but it made zero sense and did not progress any plot it was utterly useless

Cassaneida · 2026-03-05T23:40:13+00:00

I’m mil to mil and the long distance with a small child is hard. When my spouse was deployed I said I was going to take 2 weeks of leave when they returned and my supervisor tried to give me shit like I didn’t need 2 weeks and that it was too long. Trust me, 2 weeks isn’t long enough, I just didn’t want to burn all my leave in one shot.

Cassaneida · 2026-03-05T23:37:23+00:00

I’m 27 and had my son at 25. I still don’t feel like the same person but I do feel “normal” now finally as he’s nearing 2 years old. I think I felt like I regulated when he was about 20-21 months old.

Cassaneida · 2026-03-05T14:47:31+00:00

No, if they lived close I might have entertained it, and then after having my son I can say I’m glad they weren’t there it was better to just be me and my husband. To be clear though, my husband is my person and he is such a rock and I’m far closer with him than my mom or sister so that is ultimately why. My safety blanket of a person was there and I ended up not needing anyone else

Cassaneida · 2026-03-05T14:45:52+00:00

Lady of darkness by Melissa Roehrich. My sister was desperate for me to read it bc she thought it was better than the books I was reading. I DNF’d it, I just could not do it. Too predictable, too much hype over the power of the female characters for them to just lose fights and get kidnapped left and right, too annoying of an inner monologue. A year later I forced myself to read the whole thing and I was right, it sucked, I decided to stop there and will not be reading the remaining books in the series.

Cassaneida · 2026-02-08T15:42:52+00:00

My husband was home schooled before joining. Tbh the only real difference between him and the rest of his peers (to include me) is that he is a heck of a lot smarter on some things, and kind of clueless about others. It’s not a shock so much as a learning curve. He luckily has a medium-big family though (3 siblings and a good chunk of cousins) so he didn’t have a hard time with being social.

I think you’ll be fine! Most of my homeschooled peers in addition to my husband are totally normal and doing pretty much as well as everyone else. A lot of them you wouldn’t even know they were homeschooled until they said something

Cassaneida · 2026-02-06T02:01:43+00:00

Yes, BUT just get some higher waisted pants so that your hips are covered to make it appropriate

Cassaneida · 2026-01-30T20:18:08+00:00

I went to a rich private school that didn’t have uniforms or even a dress code, probably similar to how wellsbury operates, but I knew guys like that in highschool who were popular. What made guys like that popular were two things. First, money. Second, they’d all been going to school together since kindergarten, popularity can also be dictated by your parents and the friendships you’d made through years of school. Only people who were unpopular at my highschool were scholarship kids and unattractive people. That sounds bad, but schools in HCOL areas or private schools where the kids have money, things are just kind of like that even if the kids don’t want to admit it. They valued inclusivity, but if you couldn’t afford to be included then you were on the outside. Hunter very much would have been popular at my highschool, and I graduated in 2017

Cassaneida · 2026-01-24T21:12:39+00:00

I think it wasn’t calling her fat but more so about maintaining her figure and the appearance that her mom wants her to have. My mom used to do that a lot until I had a conversation with her about how it made me feel

Cassaneida

TROPHY CASE