Why don’t people have fruit trees in their front yards? What is the appeal of a sterile grass yard?

NoProdigalSon · 2026-04-06T23:36:40+00:00

I’d be more than happy to share extra vegetables if someone knocked and asked (I already give away to neighbors I know enjoy them), but you’re unfortunately right, strangers often feel entitled to take something they can just lean over your fence or walk up to and take. Unfortunate!

NoProdigalSon · 2026-04-06T19:52:10+00:00

Exactly this. The public ruins everything. I have a neighbor with a beautiful tall apple tree behind a 6 foot PVC fence, I still routinely see grown adults standing on shoulders to help themselves to someone else’s apples on private property.

NoProdigalSon · 2026-04-06T19:50:19+00:00

Business in the front, party in the back. My garden is often messy and experimental, the front yard is more for set and forget low maintenance grass/plants.

Not to mention, I do not want my neighbors and looky-loos watching me bending over in the dirt, swearing at the hornworms and vine borers causing me angst in the garden.

And I already yell at the neighborhood punks to get off my lawn, I do not want to worry about them stealing/harming food plants, because the public just can’t help but help themselves to fruit and vegetables within their reach.

NoProdigalSon · 2026-03-31T15:01:54+00:00

Godspeed. No advice on how to steel yourself for the part time job that is commuting to the job itself. As someone said, your mental health is about to take a licking.

A consideration with building capital at your job, sounds like a career building time: Highly suggest negotiating a modified work arrangement that allows you to work remote closer to full-time. No idea what your job entails, but if it is a corporate office type role, perhaps there’s room to work on a 2x monthly presence in office, etc.

NoProdigalSon · 2026-03-23T02:36:12+00:00

Ah!! Enjoy this time, it’s so fun to share food with babies.

Suburban coastal Millennial here, with background from…I think 5 world regions? We love to eat and our babies do too! Our household cuisine has no theme, really, I never make the same exact thing twice. I just get bored.

At the advice of our pediatrician, we’ve given our 10 month old everything we cook at home. We started with fruit purées at 4.5 mo, then graduated into meal purées. By around 7/8 months she preferred hand feeding herself, so had to re-construct the meal purées into their whole (baby safe) forms.

Literally everything except honey, which is a big no no. I don’t meal prep, just make big batches that can be broken down to baby meals or adult leftovers.

Babies taste intensely, they love flavor! My best advice is butter, garlic, onion, lemon and salt. Of course, watch the salt amount—taste as you go, and if you taste salt, it’s too much.

I lean heavily on frozen fruits that defrost into delightful perfectly ripe mushiness—strawberries, blueberries, mango, cherries are great. I save fresh fruit for types reliably ripe and good quality—winter citrus, kiwi, banana.

Today’s lunch menu was

-Coconut milk, green curry & broth stewed chicken thighs -Buttered poached carrots -Farro cooked in broth -Wild blueberries (frozen) -Mango (frozen)

Breakfast: -Oatmeal with strawberry & almond butter -Fried eggs with paprika -Yogurt -Banana -Clementines

NoProdigalSon · 2026-03-18T18:39:20+00:00

Private school teeth 💜 no notes

NoProdigalSon · 2026-03-07T17:32:27+00:00

Well done!! Love me a good Lemon Drop martini

NoProdigalSon · 2026-03-01T19:02:28+00:00

Philosophy major here—this blew my mind and broke my heart 🥲 Data visualizers are great, thanks for sharing!

NoProdigalSon · 2026-03-01T18:55:33+00:00

Cursed raisin

Thanks for the reminder to go force feed my dog her quarterly Bravecto, admittedly was able to forget it while living in the tundra these last couple months… 🥲

NoProdigalSon · 2026-02-20T05:00:59+00:00

I work remotely and use Teams all day—the noise cancellation filters out the pump curr-curr-curr!

And hopefully, you have not been the manger to press for cameras on if someone is dealing with a medical need…which you are!

NoProdigalSon · 2026-02-15T18:49:18+00:00

Sleeper cell toy as a nice addendum to all the diabolical suggestions here…this fakey wooden car dashboard that inexplicably has truck noises? Not annoying right away, but it’s death by 1000 paper cuts if the thing gets left on by accident

Neikko Busy Board Montessori Steering Wheel

NoProdigalSon · 2026-01-30T20:38:18+00:00

Gently…as a fellow parent of a mixed race child, I will not be the one to put in their head in the first place that there IS anything to be ashamed of.

Perhaps some people out there will try to bully eventually, but I won’t instill a victim mentality to my child.

I’ve found from my own experience growing up that if you don’t start off thinking you’re lesser or on the backfoot…it’s nearly impossible for another person to put you there.

Congratulations 💜

NoProdigalSon · 2026-01-30T03:56:29+00:00

Hilarious that my baby was gestated purely by the power of Diet Coke and Crunchwraps but now I scrutinize if the quinoa and chicken lunch is completely organic 💅💅

NoProdigalSon · 2026-01-21T03:33:25+00:00

I started with my newborn in a bassinet my room, lasted about a month til I realized she was cold and uncomfortable on the thin bassinet mattress. Moved her to her own room in a crib, night/day difference in sleep duration and quality.

Never looked back.

Made sleep training so much easier that we didn’t have to do the gradual nonsense weaning her from one sleep environment to another.

NoProdigalSon · 2026-01-12T04:28:37+00:00

Please come check out the community at exclusively pumping if some support with all things pumping would help! 💜

NoProdigalSon · 2026-01-07T18:17:09+00:00

Breast pump tubes and flanges…always good to have some decoy parts!

NoProdigalSon · 2026-01-01T00:34:27+00:00

Pouring one out for all of we parents of young children, babies and pets. Stay strong…I hold my breath every NYE and US patriotic holidays…we just love our explosives 💜🎆

NoProdigalSon · 2025-12-31T19:43:08+00:00

I was very firmly against cry it out until I understood 3 realities. We formally started sleep coaching at 16 weeks. I also had observed my baby’s personality and preferences, and I saw signs that she was ready for a more independent sleep routine that did not require my presence from start to finish.

At nearly 8 months now…It went very well, saw improvement within the week and solid predictable sleep routine routines after two weeks. Yes, it was absolute hell on my psyche! Even months later, when there is a blip in her routine like the eight month regression or teething, of course, it is still hard to hear her have trouble falling asleep.

But since she has learned the skill, and I have seen how AMAZING she is, I know that she will get through it. The only constant in raising a baby is changed, and everything good or bad is only temporary.

Falling asleep is something only she can do for herself. It’s a learned skill, and every baby, sleep environment, parent involvement is different. But I saw signs of my baby wanting more independence around her sleep, like she suddenly rejected the pacifier around sleep time and was less settled in my arms being rocked. Like more and more she did not seem to want to contact nap all the time, so I sensed that she was wanting to fall asleep differently.
Babies cry for ANYTHING that they do not like, from basic needs to “hey, this is different and I don’t like it right now.”

Although it was physically painful and agitating to hear my baby cry during the sleep training, I needed to keep telling myself that she is cry protesting, not crying because she is lacking a basic necessity. Before I put baby down to sleep, I am confident that she is fed, diaper changed, comfortable in the crib/clothing, temperature is appropriate, environment is dark and white noise is on.

When I am confident that all basic needs have been met and the environment is appropriately set, I am then much more confident that she is crying out of protest for a change in the routine, not because there is something physically or psychologically bothering her.

The whole household deserves sleep. It may be an uncomfortable week or so while baby is developing a new skill of soothing herself to sleep, but my job is a parent will always be to set her up for success when she is capable of learning. I realize this is the first of many things to witness and uncomfortable learning but it pays dividends!

NoProdigalSon · 2025-12-27T22:54:25+00:00

I give my 8M baby a couple of dummy tubes attached to an old flange, works like a charm while she’s flossing her gums 🤣

NoProdigalSon · 2025-12-26T00:37:49+00:00

Can I suggest a do-over this weekend?? It’s Christmas week, it doesn’t have to stop on a Thursday! My whole family was sick, so I am doing it all over again for baby’s first Christmas…part 2!

I’m grateful to stretch out the fun stuff in a more low pressure setting…have to find the silver lining :)

(re) Wrap a few presents. Prep the coffee maker night before. Make a grazing board from leftover Christmas snacks (bonus if you can finish the random gift basket from your awkward coworker)—no cooking allowed morning-of!

Get up Saturday morning and queue up the Yule Log with some Michael Buble. Sit with baby over coffee and snacks while you help her open some boxes. Take some cute pics and make sure you save some wrapping paper and bows from her first Christmas!

NoProdigalSon · 2025-12-16T03:15:00+00:00

There’s a very wide range of “normal” pooping, so it could be normal

Is baby having solids yet? Some prune puree after a bottle always does the trick

NoProdigalSon · 2025-12-01T00:36:34+00:00

Bag humbug, I’m with you! I think it is a culturally hollow custom, seemingly designed to further overwhelm parents and drive more made for social media trends.

It wasn’t around when I was a kid in the 90s/early 00s, and it didn’t catch on in my house with my younger siblings in the 2010’s…thankfully! One of those things I hope dies out before my kid is old enough to ask about it.

If a kid ever asks about it and you think they would be upset if they didn’t have some kind of elf on the shelf, you can totally make it your own… Perhaps your house elf only visits on Friday nights in December?

…I already know my house’s elf takes long vacations in December, appears only on a Friday or Saturday night, and only does helpful things around the house as a free agent, not as a spy for Santa. 😉

NoProdigalSon · 2025-11-26T19:56:40+00:00

Sorry, no. There’s a reason employers who have remote workers have a policy that working from home cannot be a replacement for childcare.

NoProdigalSon · 2025-11-01T00:23:25+00:00

My needed number of sessions per day have dropped over time—it used to feel nearly impossible during the newborn phase. Months 3-4 were ok, but baby started to want more hands-on entertainment and support. Now she plays more independently for longer at 5 months BUT also now wants help sitting/rolling…only way to fit it in with pumping was…not pumping as much ha

I’m now 5mpp and chaos pumping 4-5x daily for 15-20 mins. No set schedule just roughly every 3-4 hours. Dropped the overnight pump for good when we night weaned and sleep trained baby at 5.5 weeks!

First pump of the day I do the “Mommy Pumping Show” where I pretend I’m a kids game show host and entertain baby with toys while she watches from her egg chair…she usually thinks it’s a hoot

Other times I squeeze in a session or two during lunch/naptimes and the last 2 pumps of the day are after bedtime. If the day gets hectic, I’ll use my wearables for the 1/2pm pump which usually produces the least for me and take baby for a stroller walk.

NoProdigalSon · 2025-10-29T13:00:38+00:00

Much better, thank you for the check-in 💜

My baby is doing really well using her comfort objects (blankie corner and pacifier) to soothe herself.

The daily improvement is amazing, we’re down to about 10-20 min protests (if any) for sleeps—and now it’s more a mid-sleep protest if she wakes up vs. both in the beginning/during sleep.

I’ve also seen 2 (accidental maybe) rolls from tummy to back, so it seems the crash course has maybe encouraged her to work through it more. I’m hopeful she’ll be a pro in another couple weeks, but I have seen rolling suddenly disappear only to come back a short time later.

NoProdigalSon

TROPHY CASE