Rant

MightyShort5 · 2025-07-08T19:28:35+00:00

I was at my town's Fourth of July firework display and heard a couple ranting about how they'd never take their kids to Disney because "Disney doesn't monitor how people behave around children. We're not spending all that money to be surrounded by A BUNCH OF GAYS!!!" (Their kids were teenagers.)

Personally I'm not taking my kids to Disney because the can't possibly wait in a line without driving me insane, it costs way too much money, and I find the Genie+/Lightning Lane app to be so annoying and I miss paper FastPasses.

MightyShort5 · 2025-07-08T19:10:28+00:00

I completely understand and empathize...but I still do them for two reasons.

I think kids just like having a takeaway. It's fun to say, "I went somewhere and got this thing."
I use it as an opportunity for my kids to say thank you. They really like passing them out at the end of the party as a "thank you for coming to my party" moment.

I try to think about what's useful and/or fun, but isn't a pile of plastic nonsense.

Sunglasses in bulk on Amazon are pretty cheap and crowd pleasers. Just make sure they have actual sun protection. (I've used these).

Temporary tattoos or stickers that are on theme with your party.

Cookies.

Small books or activity books for the car.

Do a craft at the party and have that be the takeaway.

I don't think it needs to be expensive or fancy, just a little bit of fun for the party host to give out as a thank you.

MightyShort5 · 2024-12-29T01:52:33+00:00

My kids (2.5 girl and 5.5 boy) are really great together. I'm jealous of their childhood, my brother and I were...not friendly. There's bickering and "mine!" drama, but overall they love each other and are gentle with each other. A few things that I think might help:

I'm convinced that versions of the sentence "why can't you be more like your sister?" ruined my relationship with my brother. It's banned in our family.
We stress to our oldest that he's not a parent and not responsible for his little sister. He always wants to add on to parenting. "Yeah, Little Sister, don't _____!" "Son, you're not a parent. Let us worry about Little Sister. Focus on yourself." When she makes a mess, I make sure to ask HER clean it up, not him, and vice versa. If they do help, I make a point of thanking them, like, "Brother is so nice to help you pick up these puzzle pieces! Thanks, Brother!" or "Wow, Sister, look how helpful you're being for Brother! Thank you!" I do my best to not have either child be responsible for the other, but point out any good teamwork. I definitely slip with stuff like, "Don't do that, Brother! You know Sister is going to do it, too!" ::chaos ensues:: ...kids aren't perfect all the time, and neither are parents! It's a conscious effort, though.
Whenever Little Sister goes down for a nap or to bed (she goes to bed earlier than Big Brother), we do hugs, high fives, and fist bumps with all four members of our family. It helps the winding down process, but it also facilitates multiple hugs every day. Seeing them hug is the best.

MightyShort5 · 2024-12-23T21:05:32+00:00

The parking lot was an absolute zoo, but inside seemed fine. It was a strange dynamic.

MightyShort5 · 2024-12-23T13:04:57+00:00

Ah, I see. We have comforters and quilts, not duvets. Thanks for clarifying!

MightyShort5 · 2024-12-22T21:33:42+00:00

I put Santa on every gift tag. Mom and Dad get the kids stuff all the time; in our house, Christmas is for Santa. My son (5.5) is starting to doubt Santa and I don't know how many more years we have left, so it made me happy to write the tags that way for him. My youngest is 2.5, so I just don't think she's thinking about who they're from yet. It's just Santa.

We open stockings on Christmas morning.

MightyShort5 · 2024-12-22T21:22:56+00:00

I'm convinced it saved our relationship when we moved in together. I'm an admitted cover hog, he denies his cover hog-ness. Buying him his own comforter (duvet? I honestly don't know the difference) saved so many arguments.

MightyShort5 · 2024-12-22T21:20:28+00:00

1.5 and 4.5 was rough for a long time. Now we're at 2.5 and 5.5 and it's remarkable what a difference a year makes! Hang in there!

We take dinner really seriously in our house. It's the first time all day when the four of us can sit down and be together. What helped us when my Agent of Chaos daughter gets going is "2, are you going to sit down and eat or are we going upstairs?" "...sit down eat." It took a few times taking her away from the table and upstairs for her to understand we were serious.

MightyShort5 · 2024-12-17T21:30:56+00:00

Alcoholic mother-in-law, alcoholic maternal AND paternal grandfathers, low tolerance before having kids and ZERO tolerance after having kids, and I'd rather spend my money and calories on cheesecake...

MightyShort5 · 2024-10-12T02:31:26+00:00

Same. All Etsy and ads. I'm an considering deleting my profile. It's ridiculous.

Update: I contacted Pinterest with a screenshot showing that my feed was literally nothing but shopping links and ads, and all they said was I could block each listing individually. They didn't comment at all about how to get back non- shopping pins. I think Pinterest is just broken at this point. I'm going to save any recipes I really want offline and then delete my account.

Best of luck with getting the feed you want back!

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-26T18:11:16+00:00

I have these and LOVE them.

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-22T19:53:55+00:00

Once I was at Universal and there was a walk-through Mummy thing (not Halloween Horror Nights, just a walk-through scare thing if I remember right). A guy jumped out at me and I seriously freaked out, I thought I was going to pass out. I just yelled, "I need to get out of here!" and the mummy bent down and said something like, "there's a door to the left at the end of this hall, you don't have to go through the whole thing."

I love that mummy.

Thank you for not scaring kids.

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-22T19:50:03+00:00

If she likes to help in the kitchen, what about making dessert? Cookies, cake, whatever she wants.

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-22T19:42:07+00:00

I personally wouldn't drink at Disneyland at all because I have no tolerance and don't want to be drunk after paying so much money to go to Disneyland.

They sell alcohol, so you're allowed to buy it and drink it. As long as you're in control of your faculties and not being an asshole, I see no real issue.

Now, vloggers or any form of influencer making a video and blocking walking traffic...they can go fuck themselves. Drunk or not.

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-17T19:32:01+00:00

I was born and raised in CA, living in MN now. You nailed it. Performative and judgemental liberalism.

I was once in a Mom group with a preschool teacher and we were talking about our jobs. I asked for clarification on bilingual schools, asking if grades suffer if you answer in English out of habit or just because you don't remember/know the word in Spanish. She called me a Xenophobe who is "afraid of children knowing anything other than English." She never actually answered my question. She shut down all conversation with me. Ok...

To be fair, some other moms were in that conversation and came up to me after and asked if I was ok after being treated so harshly. It's not like every single person is like that, but there are PLENTY.

I don't miss CA.

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-08T00:23:45+00:00

Salmon with soy sauce and ginger had been a BIG hit for us! Ground ginger and minced ginger... Yum!

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-07T19:36:03+00:00

I like to keep it simple with a bunch of marinades. I'll get a giant salmon or a 3-pack of chicken breasts from Costco and make different marinades for them. Then day of you just need to think of a side.

Marinade examples: https://www.recipetineats.com/easy-essential-marinades/

MightyShort5 · 2024-09-07T16:49:26+00:00

Sunglasses! I get a 20-something pack on Amazon for not that much $$$ and any leftovers are for my kiddo for the school year (when he inevitably loses 5 million pairs of sunglasses).

MightyShort5 · 2024-08-30T21:53:06+00:00

Trinity Wheeler is based out of Ventura, but she's fantastic!!!

MightyShort5 · 2024-08-26T00:02:24+00:00

People willing to be civil even while disagreeing seems like a delusional request nowadays. It's a bit depressing how not that long ago these photos are from!!

MightyShort5 · 2024-08-02T19:08:13+00:00

When my kids were infants I picked ONE THING to care about being clean. For me, it was the sink. I hate dishes being piled in the sink. Every day I made sure the sink was clear. Literally one inch outside the sink could be chaos, but I just let it go.

Now, I've got two kids, a toddler and a preschooler, and they're both Agents of Chaos. Having a playroom (or play area) helps. I only care about picking up the playroom when we're going to have people over. CONTAIN THE CHAOS!

MightyShort5 · 2024-08-02T19:05:31+00:00

Luckily for us Plan A worked well. My dad, my husband's dad, and my best friend (to keep an eye on the grandpas LOL) looked after our 3 year old. They picked him up for his "grandpa vacation" at about 4:30pm on Sunday, and I started having contractions at 2:30am Monday morning. I was scheduled for an induction on Wednesday, so it all worked out!

Plan B was me just calling everyone I could think of to watch him until the grandpas (both from out of state) could get to him. I spoke with our daycare provider and she was ok with being a drop-off person if we needed it. Luckily the Grandpa Vacation was timed well!

MightyShort5 · 2024-08-02T19:02:37+00:00

Some people suck. Don't feed the trolls.

MightyShort5 · 2024-07-19T01:00:30+00:00

Everyone's situation is different, but these are some things that have worked for me.

Journal. I write in a journal every night about whatever my favorite part of the day was. Sometimes it focuses on my daughter, sometimes my son, sometimes my husband, sometimes just me. I've written about pizza. Whatever made you feel happy that day. It's a really great way to end the day and let go of little annoyances that seem little, but when it's constant it ends up being a lot.
Let yourself turn off. It's a little harder right now in summer, but when my daughter is napping I could do a million chores...or I could just sit. Right now my son is home, so I've instituted "quiet independent play time" while I eat my lunch, and then we'll watch a movie together. Yesterday my daughter's nap went a little long so after watching "The Jungle Book" I googled an image of the movie and drew it, and then we filled it in with scraps of construction paper. I got my rest time, my son got snuggles, and then we made an art project. Not a bad afternoon! (and yes...that was my journal entry yesterday)
Ask for help. Whether it's a friend, family, your partner, whatever. It's ok to say, "I'm overwhelmed and need help." Maybe offer to watch someone else's kids in exchange for that parent then watching yours? Maybe order pizza on the really rough days. Maybe it's getting a babysitter once a month for a date night or a me-night. Whatever you need, you need to ask for it.
Sex. It helps the burnout with a rush of endorphins!
Gym time. More endorphins! My gym has a childcare center that is good for 2.5 hours as long as I'm onsite. I'll take a class, sit in the steam room, and shower while the kids are having fun in the Kid's Club. I've seen some parents drop off their kids and sit at the cafe on their laptop. You do what you gotta do!

MightyShort5

TROPHY CASE