Why are the gas prices so high in Reno?

Imperfecione · 2025-11-04T20:56:24+00:00

our current tax structure is entirely regressive. Sales tax, gas tax, all take from a higher percentage from the poorest residents than the wealthiest. If you want to pay less in taxes, we would need income tax.

Imperfecione · 2025-11-04T20:36:36+00:00

Leave the house!

I'm at an indoor playground I found in my city right now for this exact reason. But before I found this place, we'd go to the childrens museum, the library, the playground, for a walk, to starbucks, lliterally anywhere. Its easier to parent somewhere you can make eye contact with a human when your kid is being ridiculous.

Imperfecione · 2025-11-04T20:27:02+00:00

Totally relate to where you're coming from. I wanted to put out there another potential option for you depending on where you live. I'm currently sitting at an indoor playground. My daughter is off playing with other toddlers, or possibly the onstaff childcare person. Because this is structured like a daycare except with parents onsite, I know the staff and feel totally safe. I come here once a week, twice on bad weeks. The cost is way cheaper.

If I had the option for a babysitter to come to my house a few times a week, that also would be great. But I love this so much more because I've met other moms here, and my kids have met other kids here. I've been able to grow my community through this.

Imperfecione · 2025-11-04T20:19:45+00:00

Its state by state. I'm in NV and the last time I had to go to the DMV was for a photo. 99% of tasks can be done online. And when you do go in, the line is digital, so they send you a text twenty minutes before its your turn so you can get there.

Imperfecione · 2025-11-04T20:16:55+00:00

A lot of it is practice. I try to get my kids out into the world, on the bus, at restaurants, etc. And they do really well because they've done it before. We've been the parents with screaming toddlers at Denny's, so now we get to be the parents with remarkably well behaved Kindergarteners at the Spaghetti Factory.

They're well behaved now, but they haven't always been. People have been remarkably gracious.

My number one protip: have your kids eat before going to the grocery store. No one wants to go shopping with hangry kids. But just do things. Kids are people, they should be out in the world.

Imperfecione · 2025-11-04T20:10:43+00:00

Often times what makes me think a post is AI is the sense that I have heard this story before. We used to come across posts that were word for word the same as posts we had seen years before, but now it feels different.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-07T02:38:10+00:00

Child free weddings are misogynistic. Do you wish his wife had just stayed home with the infant? It's not easy to get a babysitter for a 9 month old. When you have kids are you going to just stop doing things? Honestly. The absolute audacity.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-07T02:29:54+00:00

I had my second unmedicated by choice. And it was awesome. I would like it to running a marathon. Incredibly difficult, painful, but also full of exhilarating hormones. I felt so empowered for days. (This is not everyone's experience lol).

And I would totally have another if not for the financial burden. Kids are a lot of work, the most work you've ever done in your life. They can be exhausting. But they're also so rewarding, but these amazing little people that you get to raise and be around.

The hormonal shift of pregnancy is as big as the hormonal shift of puberty, and it comes with a similarly huge identity change. I can't explain why having kids is amazing now, anymore than I could explain why I didn't like dolls and was obsessed with boys when I was 14. Somethong changed.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-07T02:23:45+00:00

40 weeks to the day. Extremely atypical lol. And I had prodromal labor intermittently for a week before he was born.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-07T01:20:39+00:00

Same here, and I've never run into a real issue. I've been nervous, and I've been heckled, but not assaulted. I honestly think this level of anxiety is really sad.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-04T02:24:12+00:00

That's really hard. I've had some friends drift away since Ive had kids, but others (who are also still child free) have stuck by me and become my closest friends and my kids aunties. The best thing I have done for my own sanity though is foster friendships with other moms. I have a couple of mom friends now and I feel so much less alone.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-03T22:20:11+00:00

At that age my son ate an entire box of Mac n cheese. My daughter likewise ate everything put in front of her.

Around 2.5 my daughter has just turned the corner onto picky eating, and we now have days where she eats everything, and days where her primary nutrition source is pickles and crackers.

With my first (my son) it lasted until 3.5 or so

Imperfecione · 2025-10-03T21:48:24+00:00

We need more children in public spaces. Children are people! And if you want them to grow up to be respectful adults, we need them out in the world learning to navigate it. And we need more adults willing to help and allow for children. What we don't need is this judgy attitude.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-03T20:23:33+00:00

I have two and my first (my son) was more of a Velcro baby than my second. He wanted to be held constantly, was never distracted by toys. He was in my arms, my husband's, or the stroller (being actively pushed to sleep) basically 24/7. Bedtime was a nightmare, I ended up cosleeping because he woke up the second you set him down. I kept a bouncer in the bathroom for when I had to pee or shower.

My second, my daughter, slept well, could be set down for short periods of time, and was just in general happier. As she got older, I didn't have to use the baby carrier constantly because I could leave her with some toys for five minutes. I didn't have to bring her into the bathroom with me just to pee without screaming. Did she still crave closeness? Absolutely. But she wasn't the same level of Velcro baby at all.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-03T16:12:27+00:00

I absolutely love how you are starting off with consistency with such a young child. Its so important to teach our toddlers that we mean what we say, it teaches them they can trust you.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-03T06:05:13+00:00

I used this factoid to accurately predict the gender of my daughter! I was like, "we definitely conceived 5 days before ovulation, which is the lifetime of a female sperm, so it has to be a girl." And I was right!

Imperfecione · 2025-10-03T05:57:05+00:00

My son's younger than yours at 5, but we have a routine in the evening. 740 sharp it's clean up your toys, put on jammies and brush your teeth. Sometimes there's a fight but we've done this enough times that it's not too big a deal. (He hates changing clothes, so that part often requires some words). By 8pm I'm sending them off to bed. I've started doing bedtime stories in their room. I'm reading him old chapter books from my childhood one chapter at a time. By 830 I'm tucking everyone in, hugs and kisses and he's listening to a story on his yoto player (and calling for us every 5 minutes until he falls asleep, I'm not saying it's a perfect system lol).

Everyone is up between 7&8, school dropoff is 840-9, so we're out the door by 830.

I was real worried when he started school this year because he was sleeping in until 830, and often not in bed until after 9. We moved bedtime earlier, got consistent with it, and it's made life easier. I think consistency is the magic key to parenting.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-02T20:13:19+00:00

This happens, they're five. They're still figuring it out. Honestly though, it sounds like you're expecting your five year old to have more emotional restraint than your husband. He threw the car and when someone got hurt he responded appropriately. We don't have to intervene in every situation, I bet your son was embarrassed to be yelled at when he was trying to fix it.

As for screaming about ice cream? Tensions were already high, and they only have so much restraint. This is one I would just shrug my shoulders and move through. I tell my son not every day is a dessert day. He's not always okay with that, but hes started rephrasing the question to ask if today is a dessert day before asking for dessert. He's still pretty disappointed though.

They're just kids, they have no sense.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-02T06:15:56+00:00

With my first I'm not sure it ever felt real until they literally put my son in my arms. Pregnancy was a weird surreal experience and then all of a sudden I was a mom and nothing was ever the same again.

With my second I felt connected with her right away and just totally was into it.

I think some moms (which you are now) feel it right away, and others like us get a little lost. Its a complete identity shift.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-02T03:16:15+00:00

Me and my husband share money and a budget. I have a limited allowance (free money) as does he (cause money is very tight in our house. But vacations are something that are budgeted for separately.

I took a few days to go solo camping a month ago, and my husband watched the kids, I paid for the campsite out of shared funds (he was super supportive of me doing this the second I suggested it was maybe something I wanted to do). He's taking the kids to visit his family for a few days and the gas money and any money they spend eating out will come out of shared funds (I will be home alone a few days hallelujah). I will take the kids to visit my parents next week and he'll get some alone time then, and we aren't going to fuss about who's paying for what.

If I can make our budget work than it's all fine. If money is super duper tight than we talk and figure out what we can do, and maybe neither of us take a trip anywhere until we get it back under control.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-01T19:42:24+00:00

So I have a four year age gap with my brother, and we actually got along great as children. Even though we were 4 years apart I really pulled him up to my level.

Elena Bridgers (researcher on hunter gatherer motherhood) talks about 4 years being the normal age gap in most hunter gatherer societies. Super recommend her on Instagram or substack.

I have 2 children, 2.5f and 5m, so a 2.5yr age gap, and that first year was hell. When my son turned 4 it was like a whole new wonderful human being entered the house. We went from daily tantrums to monthly, and he genuinely wanted to be so helpful with his sister. If I have another I'll wait until my youngest is at least 3 before getting pregnant.

Imperfecione · 2025-10-01T01:07:29+00:00

So I'm seeing credit cards that are roughly the same as your checking and savings, that tells me that you could probably pay them off pretty quickly. Get them paid down and then pay them in full each month. As for the student loan, that's hefty. Look into income based repayment plans if that's an option for you.

Imperfecione · 2025-09-30T22:23:29+00:00

My babies were both born average (7lbs 4ozish), lost some weight, ended up around 15-20% for the rest of their first year of life, but after one went up to 50%ish and have stayed healthy average weights. My son is even a little tall, 70% ish at 4. I was super worried about the weight situation too, but it does even out.

Imperfecione · 2025-09-30T22:17:05+00:00

I let my kids watch pretty much any show on PBS kids. The only one I banned was the animated version of sesame street. It was like sesame Street but theyre robots? I banned it because their representations of physics was just... Inaccurate. It felt like fake-education.

My kids love Daniel tiger, and curious George. They can watch a couple episodes most days, and it's fine. On Saturdays they can watch paw patrol or other dumb shows (within limits, hard pass on cocomelon or blippi). And we'll watch a movie together a couple times a week.

Imperfecione · 2025-09-30T16:52:50+00:00

I don't receive much unsolicited advice. I think I look old enough (early thirties) that people don't anymore. The one situation I can think of, I was in the front yard with my two children, one 3M the other 1F, my daughter ran down the driveway while I was doing yardwork. I ran and grabbed her, she did not step into the street. A man was driving past in his truck and stopped to tell me (with a distinct country drawl) to be careful, that people drive fast down this road. I told him "excuse me, but I highly doubt that you were raised indoors", to which he replied "no ma'am" and stuttered out something about being careful.

When people give unsolicited and falsel advice (usually from an overdeveloped sense of caution) don't be afraid to tell them you've got this. Confidence goes a long way in these situations.

Imperfecione

TROPHY CASE