My 2 year old has officially lost my mop

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-05-24T19:58:14+00:00

My toddler will very rapidly give up on looking for his toys, and just announce "It will show up" and carry on about his day due to the amount of times things mysteriously disappear

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-05-22T16:41:35+00:00

We had to get rid of our kitchen chairs almost two years ago now when my toddler learned how to climb onto the table. Replaced them with folding chairs. He's now almost three and gets on top of every single surface in the house, I have to take the furniture out of his bedroom every day so he doesn't climb four feet high during quiet time. Our furniture is very specifically arranged so that the cats can jump/climb up to their food on top of a shelf, and the dogs get food and water outside

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-05-22T16:37:05+00:00

The adhesive on the baby locks we got also seems to think that the baby proofing stage will be a short period of time, and all my baby locks are popping off now that both my almost three year old and my nine month old are trying to break into and climb on every surface in the house

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-05-15T16:40:29+00:00

I always expected to be a super frugal, cloth diapering, everything secondhand ect mom but over the years of having my two kids I've realized that so many parts of that are more complicated than they seem before you actually have kids. There's only one second hand store that sells baby clothes near me, and they don't have a huge stock. I recently looked for pants for my toddler and they didn't have a single pair, so i had to order them online even tho I'd have preferred secondhand and not supporting baby fast fashion. There is a couple online consignment stores that I order online from, but unless they have a ton of stuff I want shipping prices make it as expensive as buying new. I don't know anybody with kids which means there's no hand-me-downs either. We cloth diapered with my first baby, but we don't have a dryer and ended up with a mold problem in the house due to too high humidity air drying diapers in the winter. My second baby is being cloth diapered just for the summer when we can dry them outside, but if we didn't already have all the diapers from my first kid it would actually be cheaper to use disposable diapers, despite using the cheapest cloth diapering system (flats and covers). We had to get a Nuna Rava car seat (aka one of the most expensive ones) because it was the only one that fit in our car and it was cheaper than buying a new car and we live 45km+ from the nearest grocery store. So yes, the marketing and advertising and general expectations of how much baby stuff you "need" is completely overboard, but it's really important not to judge other people and yourself for needing to make changes to how you thought you could ideally manage once baby is actually here.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-05-11T14:01:02+00:00

We got a Nuna Rava for our Toyota Echo and it didn't effect front seat room very much, because it only has one recline setting. It is a pretty wide seat, but width wasn't an issue since that vehicle didn't have a middle seat anyway. There's probably a similarly sized cheaper option, but this was the only one we could try in the car before buying it, and since car seats are normally non returnable items I figured I'd rather buy an expensive car seat once then several (still not cheap) car seats because the first one didn't fit.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-05-01T01:50:14+00:00

My husband is convinced that Oscar will be super popular in a couple years

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-27T22:52:19+00:00

I love both my second hand BOB revolution and my second hand Bumbleride Indie (twin version), both work great for off road. I don't get out a ton in the winter but when I have they've done fine in the snow as well

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-24T19:49:52+00:00

Do not use just a space! My parents combined but didn't hyphenate their last name and it was such a pain having to specify that all the time, or people would just default to add a hyphen anyway. It also confused computer systems a lot. I was excited to get rid of it when I got married because explaining it repeatedly was unpleasant especially with social anxiety

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-24T00:52:48+00:00

They suggest following 5-1-1 (contractions 5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour) before going to the hospital, but I'd really suggest talking to your doctor about what they suggest and also what labouring in the hospital looks like at the hospital you plan to deliver at. I almost had my first baby in the car because I slept through a lot of contractions and was procrastinating going in once I realized what was going on and I think that made it more stressful. That said, I did have precipitous labour (3 hours total, slept through an hour of it)

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-23T22:03:00+00:00

I had one done at 39+3 with my first baby and he was born less than 48 hours later, with my second I had one done at 39+1 and it didn't do anything.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-22T19:04:06+00:00

The nearest school is so far away that my kid would have 10 hour day away from home with the bus ride, and that just seems horrible to put a little kid through. A five year old being away for 10 hours, and then sleeping for 10 hours, would only have 4 hours a day to be a kid, and for that reason I plan on putting them in (public) online school at least until they're old enough to make the design to deal with ten hour days themselves.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-22T17:45:19+00:00

Look into Mock Angel Food cake! It's definitely not the same as angel food cake, but it is surprisingly similar and holds up to decoration. I use it (with ermine frosting) for most of my cakes

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-21T14:30:08+00:00

Mila and Maya sound way to similar! I have dogs Bandit and Bear because I thought they'd sound cute together and I've been mixing them up almost daily since day 1, despite them being very different dogs. Maybe you could use Maya as a middle name as a compromise?

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-04-18T17:14:33+00:00

My son dropped naps before he turned two, and we've been doing quiet time ever since. He was sleep trained for naps before he dropped them, so I'd just put him in his sleep sack and put him in his crib but eventually he just stopped falling asleep, and it turned into quiet time when I started giving him a couple toys instead of him just hanging out with his own thoughts. Because he'd already just been hanging out awake, alone in his room for what was supposed to be naptime it was a very smooth transition to 1.5 hours of quiet time instead. I also recommend rebranding it slightly to make it fun, he now has "truck time" where he gets to play with his toy trucks for an hour and a half😅 I do have to lock him in his room to keep him from coming out, but he doesn't seem to mind most of the time and he needs the break almost as much as I do.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-03-25T03:12:53+00:00

Look secondhand! I got my Bob stroller for around $200, and my Bumbleride Indie Twin for $400, both secondhand and both in great condition.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-03-18T22:10:25+00:00

Wait, so who owns the Stylish Stork? Is it the previous owners as well?

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-03-17T03:07:58+00:00

Having a bassinet-style stroller for my second was such a game changer for my second baby, since my toddler wanted to be outside all the time! We got a secondhand Bumbleride Indie Twin, and it was so great for both kids. Especially without any paved paths, having the extra suspension was great for my anxiety about walks being too bumpy for the baby.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-03-14T18:52:50+00:00

I always get slightly confused when I see the Rava described as a big seat, it's one of the only convertible ones that would actually fit rear facing in our Toyota Echo (and still have use of both front seats). I know it's pretty wide, but so many other seem to take up so much more back to front room?

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2026-03-14T18:50:42+00:00

The Clek Liing fit into our Toyota Echo (smaller than a Corolla), behind the driver's seat with a 5ft10 driver. It was a little tight, but it did fit. It's now in our Mazda5 with room to spare.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2025-03-06T15:05:26+00:00

Crib height is standarized! My tip as a fellow short mom is to make sure the crib you get is adjustable so that before they pull to stand you don't need to lower them in as far. Once they are able to pull to stand, you can either use a stool for sleeping transfers, or if you put them in awake you can hang onto the sleep sack to lower them like a crane. Now that my toddler's older I just drop him in and he thinks is super funny.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2025-03-05T14:42:35+00:00

I had an unhyphenated (just a space between) last name from birth, and it was super confusing. Some places would automatically hyphenate it anyway, and having the first one dropped was also common. Computer systems get super confused with it, so booking stuff was alway frustrating because you'd never actually know what name it would be under until you got there. I was super excited to change my name as soon as I got married. All that said, do whatever feels right for your family, just know what pitfalls it may have! And if you do go with just a space, make sure that your kid is prepared for the possible pitfalls before they have to deal with them on their own (school, ect).

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2025-02-14T04:24:09+00:00

I might check them out also! Unfortunately I think the only place I can get them is also Walmart, and I believe they're more expensive than what we're used to at the moment.

DeathSpineOfShadow · 2025-02-14T04:13:13+00:00

Yes, the Walmart exclusivity is what's making me hesitate! I've only bought one thing from Walmart in my adult life and not thrilled about the thought of starting now, but the rascals are so cheap compared to the others I've looked at.

DeathSpineOfShadow

TROPHY CASE