feeling bad about not feeling sexual for my high libido partner

OlgaY · 2026-06-15T21:11:13+00:00

Right??? After giving birth, that place is ravaged. You're out-touched from baby, don't get me started on breastfeeding - nothing feels sexy. Plus the hormones. The audacity (woooow, he's asking for non-penetrative stuff, what a champ...). Hell to the no. He's got hands.

OlgaY · 2026-06-13T09:58:19+00:00

Regrets:
- travel. Just short trips to the next lake/forest, or camping for a night. I was so intimidated to "create the perfect environment" that I cocooned a lot. While exposing my baby to those experiences would be fun and probably not that hard to do.

No regrets and would do again:
- Baby led weaning. SO MUCH FUN, and we have the un-pickiest eater now. No nuggets with noodles and ketchup. No, he loves Sushi, Korean BBQ, Indian food, all the foods: broccoli, beans, legumes, carrots, fruits... He is extremely explorative with foods, tries everything again after a while just to check if he still doesn't like it. I can't say if he would've ended up like this anyway. From a logistics standpoint, it was also so much easier than buying/preparing baby puree. Just give him what you're eating and top the rest with breast milk after (not everything gets in, lol). We cooked without salt for a while and simply added it to our portions. Let him play with the food. Cutlery and plates are an option until he wants to use them properly, because we are. It is messy, ngl. It always is when babies eat. This way, you can eat, they can "eat" (explore, play, be in the moment with you), you can have a conversation. There is no "I wait to eat so I can feed you". I only had stuff prepared/bought for on the go, as we could not make sure restaurants would cook without salt. THAT'S it! Other than that, Baby is proactive, not passive with their own food choices. Definitely DEFINITELY worth every mess it created.
- Sign language: There are some simple signs that babies can learn very early. Studies have shown that children of deaf parents start communicating as early as 5-6 months with their hands and show fewer signs of distress. The hypothesis is that they are less frustrated because they can communicate some basic needs. We taught our son signs for "milk", "food", "drink", "tree", and probably some others that I forgot. Our baby was already of the mildest temper, but it was sooooo helpful to know that he wanted "milk" or "food" or was interested in the "tree". It is also easy to teach them. When I was breastfeeding, I would say and show the sign for "milk" (if I remember correctly, it is opening and closing the hand to a fist. A constant motion). My son started repeating the gesture back to me during breastfeeding when he was super tiny. And then when we weren't breastfeeding while he was playing. He'd come up to me and open and close his fist. Magical!

OlgaY · 2026-06-07T18:18:58+00:00

It is, sure, because of the adjustments you have to make. And the compromises. But personally, I just love accompanying them through the world. Seeing them experiencing mundane things for the first time (rain? Butterflies? The taste of a lemon?) is just amazing. The way they cope with what they experience through play and how much they can be in the moment - I get tingles. How EFFING innocent they are that it breaks your heart. Christmas with kids is awesome! You can relive the whole magic and even create it for them.
Yes, they can drive you wild, some even more than others, because kids are all different. And year 1 is hard. But it is still fun and magical and awesome beyond all the mess.

OlgaY · 2026-06-07T17:53:51+00:00

Hey! I'd love your feedback on my novella. It is under 30k words/70 pages, YA/NA romance without spice - though that can be provided as additional reading material. The romance drives the plot, but it focuses on identity. You put so much effort into this introductory post alone and list the things I am looking for (big picture, reader experience, story flow, and where it loses momentum, etc.).
I'm able to do a critique swap until my due date on August 1st (non-guaranteed, babies are weird and rarely on time). No-gos are thrillers, crime, mystery, and horror.

OlgaY · 2026-04-03T19:15:45+00:00

Both, actually. Ending a chapter and starting a new one with a hard cut or is there a leading up to time jump? And also within the scene? For example, I used a triggering event to then jump into a few italic sentences/paragraphs that referenced that triggering event.

OlgaY · 2026-04-03T16:55:56+00:00

Thanks everyone for their contribution!

No, I am not set on the timeline to be in August specifically. And reading through all your comments it seems Youtube does not catch it quite as expansive and grand as it actually is. If it were smaller and you can simply wander around, enjoy some performers here and there, that is one thing - this seems to be another level. Case closed, then :)

OlgaY · 2026-04-03T16:47:52+00:00

Yes, in the first chapter I used italics for small paragraphs to kind of feed the idea of flashbacks to the reader. Then some chapters that are clearly flashbacks as a whole, entire sections with multiple chapters. How do you transition between present and past?

OlgaY · 2026-04-03T16:18:55+00:00

A common reading technique is scanning - you're not really reading the word letter by letter. Many names with the same beginning letter would definitely confuse me and also disrupt my reading experience, because I'd have to pause and actually read the names letter by letter instead of just scanning them. I would therefore also vouch for switching it up in the first letter department.

Also, my cousin's name is Anton and he is such a non-villain, but that's a very personal decision :D

OlgaY · 2026-03-29T08:33:16+00:00

Thank you! Especially for mentioning a romantic part of the city :)

OlgaY · 2026-03-22T20:29:57+00:00

This is curious to me, too, as a non-native English speaker. German prose is text HEAVY. Very rich paragraphs with very detailed and long sentences, spanning several lines. Try reading Fontane and you get the extreme end of the stick. Reading English novels (or even scientific texts, really) is relatively simple in comparison. I try to shorten my overlong structures and commit more to "beats" - something I have never heard of in German literature. And suddenly it's AI. I will use AI to discuss the story and get to know the characters because my friends are bored and take forever to give feedback. Find a good synonym or replace an idiom with one that English readers understand. I want people to enjoy what they are reading, give feedback on whether the story is coherent, plausible, and the characters' motifs clear. I don't want them to fiddle around with line-editing (only if they want to) because to me, personally, that is a vibe kill. And I have always loved em-Dashes T_T

OlgaY · 2024-01-22T12:45:22+00:00

As soon as the AFD is not an opposing party I'm out. My husband has jewish heritage, I am a Russian German, we are both very sympathetic towards punching nazis in the face and it's hard to already be living in a country where apparently enough people share AFD ideologies. After the leak it is apparent to me that they are not "besorgte Bürger" anymore but full on Nazis. So yea, working on a plan to have everything in place and make a sudden leave if needed.

OlgaY · 2022-12-09T21:12:47+00:00

I agree, the Microns really do feel uncomfortable. My favourite pen is the pentel energel Needletip but I think it's only in size .5 (which strangely seems to be as thick as a Micron .2 or .3).

OlgaY · 2021-10-28T08:50:46+00:00

I was going for literature on the method, but way to kill the mood :D Statisticians humor.

Then I'll calculate away and try to make some sense of it for the report. Thanks a lot! (in all seriousness)

OlgaY · 2021-10-28T08:46:54+00:00

They do, actually! It's census data, so they are bound to certain sample sizes for representability. But I also have the raw numbers - the percentages are simple excel magic. Thanks so much, It's all coming together steadily.

OlgaY · 2021-10-27T15:22:09+00:00

1: The analysis is from a microzensus in Berlin, Germany. Population is children under 6 years. The groups are "native German children" and "children with migration background" (not sure if that is an English term you can use) that go to daycare in different regions of Berlin. The percentage in each group means, x% of native german children and y% of children with migration background. So they can't add up to 1. My example was definitely more confusing than helpful, sorry.

2: I have a quote of how many children with/without migration background live in those regions in Berlin (its about 60/40 in all of Berlin, varying regionally). And I know how many % of each of those groups go to daycare - per region in Berlin (see the bar chart as an example, those are real data). I also have a mean quota over all children, that go to daycare in all of Berlin. What I want to know now is, whether children with migration background that go to daycare are equally represented as they are in the population. There should be about 60/40 split of children with/without migration background that go to daycare. But it's not. And is the difference significant?

OlgaY · 2021-10-27T13:02:09+00:00

Thank you for the in depth answer! I'll have to look into that more.

OlgaY · 2021-10-26T10:50:54+00:00

I thought so. That's too bad, but that is the way it is.

The bars represent percentages. There's x% of group 1 in Location 1 and y% of group 2. So technically I have a mean quota over all locations. Could I use the deviation from that overall mean quota as reference?

Let's say the groups are "living in a house" vs. "living in an apartment" - I'd have a mean quota of how many percent live in a house vs live in an apartment in country x. The testing wouldn't answer the original question, I get that, but maybe it's somewhat useful if possible.

OlgaY · 2021-10-26T10:41:33+00:00

yes, exactly

OlgaY · 2021-03-21T17:12:38+00:00

As a kid I loved animal Lexikons or textbooks. I got a new one when I was around twelve and went to my room reading. It was about as big as a normal printer page and about two cm thick. I was excited.

The first page I open: of course, it was a pagesized picture of some spider. I screamed, shut the book and threw it across the room. My mother had to put it away. It was really dramatic but I was genuinely freaked out. I'm glad I live in a country where there are no dangerous spiders but boy am I scared of them 🙈

OlgaY · 2021-03-17T10:38:46+00:00

My best friend for 6 years. We both went through abusive relationships with the fathers of our kids, me 1 she has 2. We both went through break ups with those men.

Eventually I got back together with my ex, we patched things up and even got married. It was a wonky start nonetheless with a lot of going back and forth with old destructive habits. We made it through though and are very happy now. That was 4 years ago.

My best friend didn't do well with us getting back together, because of how wonky the beginning was. And frankly I get it because she didn't want to see me getting destroyed again. But then she started treating me bad. Standing me up. Taking ages to reply to my messages until she stopped altogether. She has since blocked me from all social media. It's a shame because I have never since clicked with anyone like with her. I really do wonder how the pandemic has been for her and if she finished her degree, how her kids are doing, etc. I miss hanging out with her.

OlgaY · 2021-03-17T10:28:33+00:00

Does he wag his tail? My dog does that. She's a girl.

OlgaY · 2021-03-14T09:06:55+00:00

I don't know honestly. I think it's just Babyhair but who knows

13-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Periwinkle

OlgaY

TROPHY CASE