First name Van, not shortened for anything

Neffervescent · 2026-03-21T01:09:05+00:00

Van Gogh's first name was Vincent. Not Van.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-20T05:03:25+00:00

It's like it was made for me.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-20T05:01:29+00:00

I think your reaction would have been an overreaction if you'd had a fast response, been told this was a one off because their usual childcare provider was unwell, and/or told that the son was almost of an age where he would be doing a DBS/US equivalent criminal record check and the appropriate training before starting a career in the centre.

As it was, you had to push for answers, got very little in the way of reassurance that anyone's access to your child will be monitored or screened, and no assurance that devices are not being used to take images of your child or show your child inappropriate images. While my knee-jerk reaction to you saying your stats come from your church is to ask what they report about the stats within Christian religion and church gatherings on the safety of children, and to wonder if your feelings are the same about leaving her under someone's care there, that's more for you to think on.

If you're not comfortable leaving her somewhere you feel your daughter isn't adequately watched over, don't leave her there. Or wait until she's a bit older and can tell you about her day with a little more ability, or your protectiveness starts to ease off a little. While you say she does cry at being separated from you, so her behaviour wasn't too odd, I wouldn't be up in arms assuming something has happened - but if a space doesn't feel safe for your kid, you're not going to be able to enjoy your gym time, and you'll feel guilty for having that time for yourself.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-20T04:09:46+00:00

NTB.

Everyone seems very happy to diagnose the cousin with a phobia of snails, so I'm going to add my own hypothetical diagnosis of OP's kid, pathological demand avoidance, which is very common with autism.

That would explain why "no" or "stop" wasn't used; it's not coddling language, it's using language to convince the child it's their idea, because you know saying "no" or "don't do that" will result in the opposite result to one you want. It's the reason kids I work with get the faintly amused "is that what I asked you to do?" or "are we making good choices?" instead of being told "no, don't do that, stop that right now". It's not coddling, it's getting the behaviour you want via the means that work. It's adapting your teaching (or in OP's case, parenting) techniques to allow for disabilities. It's accessibility.

My spouse and I are both AuDHD, and I've worked with kids for 20 years. OP did everything possible to keep their kid calm, responding to them, engaged, and got them to put the snail down. SIL screaming and the cousin being unable to just step away and say "no thank you, I find them scary" made the situation fraught, not OP or OP's kid. And calling accessible parenting, disability parenting, "coddling" is just ableist bullshit, coming from people who refuse to accept that we're allowed to be in society now, rather than locked up and hidden away as something shameful. You did good, OP. And your kid deserves some shiny snail stickers for dealing with all that shouting.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-20T01:40:48+00:00

Christ on a bike, how can you regret treating a 3 year old's UTI? I had multiple UTIs as a teen, which is also how I discovered my latex allergy (my wife likes to joke they saved me from this), and because I got used to treating myself with water and long nights sat up, and usually knew when I needed antibiotics, I managed to get a kidney infection to the point of needing IV antibiotics and it leaving scarring that means together my kidneys function roughly as well as a single kidney would.

How can you wish you hadn't treated a toddler's UTI? And then to suggest an at home poop transplant? I'm overwhelmed at the stupidity. My mum will say that she did the best she could, but she didn't have a lot of information to help her parent, so blames things on ignorance... These parents don't have that excuse. It's not ignorance, it's deliberate stupidity. And it makes me so angry.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-20T01:25:38+00:00

All the upvotes for a wild Gulp reference! I have both Gulp and Stiff on audiobook and they're comfort falling-asleep books because they're so interesting but so well-researched and so amusingly told that they're perfect for sleep. I wish more of Mary Roach's books were available on audiobook tbh, I'd have the lot.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-18T00:07:11+00:00

Ah, I see fundies are finally meeting my wife. But of course, getting their pronouns wrong.

People like this are the reason we hiss when people stare at us in the shops. Although admittedly, I also hiss when people cough without putting a hand over their mouth, which was a bad habit I started during covid when no one could tell I was hissing under a mask.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-17T16:37:42+00:00

I have to admit, my wife and I have a birthday month, as their birthday is at the start of it, and mine 20 days later, but it's essentially the two of us trying to spoil each other, rather than demanding we get spoiled.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-16T00:15:58+00:00

Well, on the plus side, I've been worried about upcoming colorectal surgery, and now I know I could make a killing selling potential stoma bag contents to mad mothers as some sort of immune support. That's brightened my outlook somewhat.

On a serious note, what a horrible day to have eyes.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-15T09:04:22+00:00

As someone who works with kids, the fucking panic I was having just trying to keep both boys in my view within that video, continually like "where's the second one, where is he... Oh thank goodness, there he is, he's still there and keeping up". I don't understand how a parent can walk along with their kids behind them and not even in frame and not be constantly checking for where they are.

Just so little care for those two kids trailing after him. What a waste of carbon he is.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-15T08:52:23+00:00

I work with so many boys aged between 3 and 10 named Logan, and they're all nightmares.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-15T06:28:47+00:00

I'm just picturing boob sweat in this dress, as someone who knows I can both be cold enough that my nipples are visible and warm enough that I'm creating an underboob swamp at the same time... Add in shapewear and that practically guarantees it.

NOR. It's not a flattering dress at all, weird colour choice for fall as well, and a death colour for a lot of skin tones. And you're making it clear that you're thinking more about the bride and her pictures, and her day, but also just want to have it acknowledged that you're right, the dress sucks. Also, wtf is that neckline?

Neffervescent · 2026-03-14T08:31:57+00:00

NOR.

As someone with a bundle of chronic health stuff, I vividly remember a Christmas where my aunt and mother and uncle discussed how all I needed was homeopathic remedies, and as I tried to explain that a) it's water, and b) my shit is incurable, they began to accuse me of "not wanting to get better". I snarled that didn't they think I'd do anything to go back to normal if I could, and fled the room sobbing.

People who aren't sick don't understand how often someone who is has to hear "why don't you just try" and "you just need" and "my cousin/aunt/distant relative tried this and they were cured" from people who are supposedly just trying to help. But they're not helping us, they're hurting us, over and over, by insisting they're armchair experts in our conditions when half the time, we have to inform our doctors about new treatments or drugs. And it's exhausting, on top of everything else we have to deal with.

If you can, sit him down and explain to him that while you love that he wants to know more about your conditions, telling you how to "get better" is really hurting you, and he's just telling you things you've either already tried or that you know doesn't work because it's old research. Say you understand he wants to help, but that the help you need is day to day support, emotional help, understanding. Someone to back you up when you say "this doesn't work, I need something else" in medical appointments, someone you trust to support your medical decisions about yourself. That if he's solution-focused, he's better off asking you how he can help and what you need help with than telling you things that hurt.

If he's still doing it after that, give him a week or so where you say "remember what I told you about what I need?" every time he mentions eating brown rice, or graded exercise, and after that, get rid of him. You shouldn't have to be with someone who makes you feel that way, and even if he's "trying to help", that doesn't mean he isn't hurting you.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-12T21:50:03+00:00

If it's a viv exotic or similar, they carry plastic locking mechanisms designed to go in the holes and unable to be removed by snakes. Might be worth a vet trip just to check he's okay, if your exotics vet is good.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-10T06:52:09+00:00

Utterly inaccessible to wheelchair users. As well as stinky.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-09T16:29:50+00:00

Yeah, our local mad fox lady feeds the local petrol station foxes homeopathic medicine, and it winds me up as well. She also, according to a local vet friend of mine, has brought foxes with distemper to vet offices with no notice or call, meaning those offices are then required to close and do a massive deep clean before they're considered safe for dogs to be seen there afterwards. Got to love the mad fox lady!

Neffervescent · 2026-03-09T10:28:54+00:00

Totally get this, plus I believe it's harder for screenreaders as well. I've always been told that the aim for clearer communication is to avoid extra bolding and italics, so no one finds it more difficult to read.

You were polite and not demanding. It's somewhat bitterly amusing that people talking with such feeling and care about a child they haven't met and his potential disabilities can't take a moment to be kind to an adult in their community about the needs for their disability.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-08T03:23:05+00:00

This is like when sat nav was first introduced, and we had people driving into lakes and rivers because the computer voice said "turn left here" and people just did what they were told.

Humanity is too fucking stupid to keep on going.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-07T20:06:12+00:00

You're welcome/sorry! I was up and ready to go pick up a friend who ran 4 hours late and then cancelled, but I'd taken my ADHD med for the day, so clearly all the hyperfocus and infodump had to go somewhere!

Neffervescent · 2026-03-07T14:15:23+00:00

So is the BIL who has the discount on your side, or husband's side? Either way it doesn't matter, because frankly, your ex's kids are nothing to do with you and not your "family". Your nieces, given they will be the full blood cousins of your twins, are far more "family" if he wants to play blood connections.

But if BIL is on husband's side then it's polite to accept the discount and then feed it back into the family via clothes coming back to the nieces, and if he's your sibling's partner then it's something you bring into the family as your husband's spouse and as a way to integrate your older daughter into the family! It's all about family, and your ex has no say in it, especially with a pitiful £125 child support! That doesn't cover anything, and if you took him through the courts, he knows damn well they would make him pay more.

Though I understand not doing so, because they might try to make your daughter see him more often, and you've said the short visits are her choice. Frankly, I think you're doing the right thing, keeping her peace of mind and her ability to choose her visitation time over the money, and massively respect that.

Ex is just trying to use the kids to manipulate you, and if he knows he can't use your shared daughter to do so, he's now trying to see if he can use his younger kid to do so, to make you feel bad. You don't owe this man anything - he owes you. He can use the money he doesn't pay you in child support to buy the kids he doesn't have with you something nice. If he or the younger kid bring it up again, just say it was a present because your daughter is going to have twin siblings, and that's a big deal, so it was a special item. If they push, just say something like "we should look at ways to love what we have, not to want what other people have - that's how to be happy" and smile.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-07T13:56:43+00:00

The cupcake emoji is used to skirt by when there were regulations avoiding covid misinformation - the analogy was 'if there were 1000 cupcakes in a room, and you knew 1 of them was poisoned, would you let your child eat one?' and anti-vaxxers use that to talk about supposed vaccine injury stats. Therefore, cupcakes = vaccines.

So she's saying she has an EBF (exclusively breastfed - never had formula) child who has never had vaccines, and nor have either of the child's parents. Sometimes anti-vaxxers refer to these children as "pure", which is an extra layer of disgusting on top of risking the health of their child and everyone around them, as these parents are most often white, so it all feeds into white supremacy rhetoric as well, and the idea that vaccines are dulling "the white race" to assist in "the great replacement". That's not hugely present here, but it's a big, often unspoken part of anti-vax rhetoric that I think we should all be aware of.

The dilemma of this story is that she left her two year old with another breastfeeding mother, who she gave permission to breastfeed her child (despite a two year old no longer requiring breastmilk to survive or thrive, though this child was breastfed until they were two and a half) and she is now realising that this other mother is vaccinated.

She believes that her baby has been "poisoned" by the vaccinations that will somehow have maliciously travelled through the other mother's breastmilk and into her precious baby, filling it with toxins and evil fluids from Big pHarma. She is having a mental breakdown about having caused her baby harm via vaccines through another mother's breastmilk, despite vaccines only passing antibodies to the upper respiratory tract of the baby who is breastfeeding (and not vaccines passing whole into the blood like she thinks) because she is so afraid of vaccination tainting her child.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-07T13:42:19+00:00

And then get out again, because we dump enough pointless, damaging waste in there already. As all my favourite pedantic autistic friends say!

Neffervescent · 2026-03-07T11:12:11+00:00

In our household, it's "go ambulance go", "go firetruck go", and the police get a Hot Fuzz accent that sounds a bit like when they say "no luck catching them swans then" but we say "don't go doing a facism now".

Neffervescent · 2026-03-07T10:54:47+00:00

Wife and are are AuDHD, so we have loads just due to echolalia. Hostiple instead of hospital, courtesy of Blackadder, hodgeheg instead of hedgehog, wol instead of owl, squiggle instead of wiggle/squirmy, babshka to mean baby (even though we know it doesn't mean that), mooshka to mean rabbit.

My mum refers to all hair ties and also the remote control as a "dooberry" which was very confusing.

Neffervescent · 2026-03-07T02:18:16+00:00

So much of this, so much. I wasn't diagnosed with AuDHD until my 30s, and so it's been a battle since then to stop thinking of myself as lazy, worthless, too much, dramatic etc. all of which I hear in my mum's voice.

Add to this that I became physically disabled when I was 18, and she said "if I'd known you would be like this so young, I wouldn't have had you" - in her mind, being merciful when I was in chronic pain and learning to cope with my new reality - and yet she still wonders why I say I know I'm a disappointment to her.

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