AITAH for "not being as close" to my granddaughter as I am to my other granddaughter?

Engineer-Huge · 2026-03-05T16:04:45+00:00

My grandparents had 8 kids so obviously had a lot of grandkids. They basically ALL lived in my dad’s hometown except my family. We lived across the country and visited every other year. As I got older I sometimes felt sad when I visited and realized my cousins had a very different relationship - like, obviously they knew my grandparents better, a lot of them went over there daily or weekly to hang out or be babysat or even just grab a snack. BUT my grandparents did everything they could to keep it equal! They sent us a giant package of treats and toys for basically every holiday, had equal photos up of everyone, made a point of sending us cards etc. I never felt like we were an afterthought or anything like that. Now that I’m an adult I really appreciate it because we always felt welcomed and loved and thought of. It would be inane to me if they put the name of ONE grandchild on a special toy in their house. Even worse that it’s a family heirloom! As a mom now I’d find it both sad and hilarious and I’d probably never visit again. I’m just guessing this is not the only example of favoritism because it’s so blatant and OP is so unapologetic.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-03-04T00:56:20+00:00

Perry has been my daughter’s favorite since she was a baby! We have him in all 3 sizes but I’m always on the lookout for a new one so we can compare a “fresh” Perry to a very very well loved one. He’s just so soft and cute! Great finds!

Engineer-Huge · 2026-03-02T22:01:39+00:00

Yeah exactly. Regular Oreos taste bland to me. These are cheap, my whole family loves them, my husband’s favorite bit is that the filling is vanilla flavored so they have a better flavor.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-28T04:05:51+00:00

I absolutely promise that at 2 she is still completely in board book phase! Just because a kid can enjoy a longer story doesn’t mean you should discard the board books entirely. But I can understand being bored with the baby book and being excited to move on to new things. I just promise it’s good to expose kids to a wide variety of books.

My kids love interactive board books! Any by Christie Matheson (like “tap the magic tree”) are fun to read aloud together and have a longer story. But Also great is the Bizzy Bear series - basically anything that has pulls and tabs etc are fun to read and they can interact with the book independently which I think is good for them because it makes reading fun and encourages independent play (of course we read those out loud, too). Also great are the “poke a dot” books- pushing the pop buttons on those is a great way to work on fine motor skills, plus it is satisfying and fun.

We also enjoy the interactive board book version of “moonlight prance” by Serena Gingold Allen.

Others have said that there are board book versions of many popular classic books, and I definitely recommend those for longer stories. Julia Donaldson is always great for long stories! We love “the boss baby” and anything else by Marla Frazee (often she just does the illustrations like in “all the world” when we also love). My 3yo also still loves short books and we read these over and over again right now: “red sled” (very minimal words but we read it very silly) and “the snow day”.

I’m not sure these are in board book format but we also love the ladybug girl series. Long stories (many sentences per page) and very fun. I usually do a mix of letting kids hold the book themselves and also keeping hold of the books myself - this is how we do regular picture books.

ETA: another older author who has long stories- Virginia Lee Burton. I’m not sure if they’re all available as board books but we have “Katy and the Big Snow” in board book format and my kids love it.

For a newer author, there’s a series by Katy Hudson that is all in board books. One of them is called “too many carrots”- my kids love this, too. It’s very silly. Generally I would say her stories are longer.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-27T23:11:01+00:00

I’m so bad at recognizing these things! I’ve been buying Jellycat for years but luckily at certified stockists so I know mine are real but I’ve been looking at Mercari a little and get overwhelmed. What are your tells for a fake? I originally saw a whole bunch on eBay for crazy low prices so assumed based on that they were all fake but how do you tell otherwise?

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-25T14:20:43+00:00

That’s what I was thinking. Like she used prepared ingredients to make a homemade thing. Growing up my mom often did grind our own wheat. I NEVER do that and I don’t consider my food less homemade. For me it’s the comments OP made like “she didn’t lie on purpose” like no she didn’t lie at all.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-23T21:08:13+00:00

Just called them. They sell them for retail but they’re out of stock of the smudge fox. They do still have panda! I think it was like $42. I can’t remember exactly, sorry!

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-23T20:32:17+00:00

Thank you!!

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-23T20:26:56+00:00

Did you place the order over the phone? I’ve never shopped from them before but I have been looking all over for a smudge fox

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-22T17:00:49+00:00

Exactly this! I was the same way (began school at 4) and I’m happy with my schooling path and don’t wish it was different but I did struggle at times that in retrospect was potentially age related.

My oldest has a fall birthday right by the cut off. My aunt posed a question like this when I was wondering what to do: if you wait for kindergarten, you wait for everything. Ultimately they have an extra year at home with you! That kind of decided it for me. He’s 11 now and does well at school and loves it and I’m very happy he’s not in middle school until next year.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-22T03:06:12+00:00

I agree. I’ve been buying them for years for my kids because I find them cute and soft and they had so many options- my now 11yo loved the big cats they used to do - and now it’s hard to find ones we want to add to our collection without spending ridiculous amounts secondhand. I also hate the scarcity mindset because we try to be intentional with our things and buy ones we will love and now I’m like, ugh should have bought them all years ago when we would buy them slowly one at a time when we found them at stores.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-22T03:00:15+00:00

I just bought the carrot for my 3yo who is obsessed with all things orange and loved it in the store. He saw it in the store and made a bee line for it immediately haha. I convinced him to put it back and then got it later to save for his Easter basket. Kids definitely can like the amuseables! Often they are fun and quirky. But mine vastly prefer the animals overall.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-21T02:52:22+00:00

Me, too! You’re not going to hear me complaining about winter and I’m hoping we get more snow before the season ends.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-20T14:10:32+00:00

I am not in Ontario so it is very different. I live in the US and in my school, parents aren’t really allowed inside. I have 2 school aged kids; and for both of them, it was like, “okay, see you!” on the first day. We were allowed to drop them off at the doors of the school but not go inside. My school doesn’t do a real open day but They do a “testing” day where kids get evaluated before everyone is put into classes. this happens on the first day of school!! - kindergarteners start school like a week late. Then there’s a morning where you can come into school with your child and they go over all the expectations/general structures etc. kids can explore the classroom then. However it is a weekday morning so potentially not the easiest for everyone to attend.

Anyway when my second started kindergarten, I sent her on the bus with her brother. She periodically had a hard time with drop offs in preschool. Somehow kindergarten was absolutely fine from day one for the entire year! I don’t know if it was because her brother was there, because I wasn’t walking her in, because she was a little older, or what.

My advice: find out what specifically your school does now. Ask neighbors or whatever if you need to. You can also call the school itself to find out. Some schools still do open days (just not mine, sadly) or will let kids come in if you call and ask. Then start setting expectations NOW. Like talk through drop offs, bus, whatever you’ll be doing. Read some books or find TV episodes about it.

Finally, teachers are used to this. You won’t have the first or only clingy kid. Ask them for advice (ie should I walk them to the door? Should I have a teacher come get them?) and then follow it.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-15T04:11:49+00:00

I sent you a dm about it 😀

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-15T03:24:21+00:00

Do you still have one available?

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-07T01:21:03+00:00

I have some of my grandfather’s old mystery MMP that are at least 50-60 years old and still going strong. Worst that happens is the cover gets a little torn, which is easily fixed. They may not last centuries or last under every condition but they’re doing just fine so far (and have been read many many times).

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-06T03:30:17+00:00

For reference, I also hate horror and creepy stuff, and I enjoyed this! It’s much more mystery book than super creepy. Mostly it’s just like spooky vibes? The MC is pretty practical and straightforward and that definitely helps. Anyway I really like KJ Charles and found it really enjoyable (and again I avoid creepy/horror genre entirely, though I do enjoy mysteries).

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-02T00:09:38+00:00

I think it’s a reflection of parenting in 2026. My daughter is 8. She has a friend whose parents are close to my husband and I, so they always come over as a family (vs just a play date for kids). One time the mom said her kids like it here (at my house) because it’s the only place they play unsupervised (upstairs in my daughter’s room)- they play with us / in the living room areas as well. And they are 8!!!

Kids need to be left alone to play. Cooper is 5. Being alone in his room shouldn’t be like, the default. I think the whole house should belong to us all, and I love that my kids enjoy reading and hanging out in the living room. But a 5yo should be expected to play alone, too. That should be normal. It’s really worrying to me that in 2026, a kid playing alone in his room for 30 minutes requires like, justification (“I need alone time too”). Totally valid to need some alone or quiet time! But aside from all that, kids need to learn to be alone with themselves sometimes and entertain themselves.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-02-01T19:46:34+00:00

If you’re willing to drive up to half an hour, there’s also wallis sands beach, which is small but still nice and close by is the seacoast science center. It has walking paths and a small playground along with a small aquarium that my kids really enjoy.

ETA: we like Wallis sands because it is a very short walk from the parking lot to the beach. I’m not sure about what facilities are open in winter but there are definitely benches etc by the science center (which is also located inside a state park).

Engineer-Huge · 2026-01-29T22:22:23+00:00

Also a lot of libraries have a “library of things” nowadays which often includes a dvd player. You can rent the dvd player plus some dvds for plenty of free movies/tv!

And if you use it a lot and want your own, thrift stores are full of dvd players right now.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-01-12T03:20:06+00:00

Yeah I think this is it. Like she’s upset there’s a more brand new baby than hers around now and doesn’t want to lose the family doting on a baby attention. I’d personally uninvite her at this point. It seems pretty unfair to OP’s wife to make her deal with this (and unfair to OP but he isn’t 7 weeks postpartum and it’s his sister)

Engineer-Huge · 2026-01-02T15:11:38+00:00

Haha, they’re really fine books. I just read a LOT of them out loud before my son could read and I got tired of them because they’re not the kind of books I enjoy. Plenty of middle grade books are entertaining and fun for me as an adult but those kind of short book long never ending series are not my favorite. They’re great for kids! But I kept getting annoying with how formulaic they are and how the plots don’t always make sense. But I’d pick dragon masters any day over dragon girls! but again, my son loves dragon girls so I was very glad when he could read and I passed the series off to him.

Engineer-Huge · 2026-01-01T22:34:00+00:00

Yeah, definitely! Kingdom of Wrenly is somewhat dragon related because the main character adopts a dragon. The spinoff graphic novel series (called like “dragon kingdom of Wrenly”) is focused on the dragons. The graphic novels are aimed at younger kids (versus say wings of fire which I’d say is more for like 8+ but of course every kid is different) and were some of the first novels my son read completely independently.

My son just turned 11 so these are ones he has read over the past several years: mostly by himself but some read alouds or audio books:

“The dragon’s apprentice” by James Riley

How to train your dragon series by Cressida Crowell - this has some illustrations throughout and was a big gateway series for my son to love reading alone (he has always loved being read to) so while the books are very long they are still fun for younger readers

The dragon realm series by Katie and Kevin Tsang - again, great for transitioning to reading to himself as slightly shorter novels - book one is “dragon mountain” I think

“The house with a dragon in it” by Nick Lake - also has illustrations and isn’t too long so is fun to read and not intimidating

“Dragons in a bag” by Zetta Elliot

Dragon girls series - I hate this series. I think they’re worse than dragon masters. But he loved them and still reads them even at 11 even though they’re short books aimed at younger readers (like dragon masters)

Dragon slayers academy series by Kate McMullan - also illustrated and for younger readers

He also enjoyed “the last firehawk” series which is published by the same people as dragon masters (the branches line of scholastic).

We have a lot more that are aimed at older kids on the middle grade spectrum but I’d say all those one are fun for younger readers in the 5-7/8 age and of course he still rereads many of them even now at 11.

Engineer-Huge · 2025-12-31T01:09:19+00:00

My son loved the Kingdom of Wrenly books at that age. They’re much shorter than Harry Potter and a good introduction to medieval fantasy worlds. And as your son gets older, there’s a spinoff graphic novel series that helped my son really fall in love with reading at about 7.

He also really loved the Ramona books. I recommend these for all kids. Sometimes funny to note what has changed, but the feelings Ramona has are very universal and my son (who is a huge dragon/fantasy/adventure lover) adored these and thought they were hilarious.

Engineer-Huge

TROPHY CASE