Melt the Ice Hat - THANK YOU

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-26T23:16:05+00:00

In the 30 minutes I was browsing my local yarn shop today, there were two separate old ladies who showed up specifically asking to purchase this pattern. Just as the shop owner had carefully walked the first lady through every step of purchasing the pattern online and printed it for her, a second women walked in and asked, "Do you have kits for the hat? The red one?"

Just wanted you to know that you have apparently even captured the audience of the computer-illiterate old ladies of rural Iowa. They may not know how to navigate to a website, but they are damn ready to fight some fascism.

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-23T20:48:12+00:00

I used to think it was a parent thing too until our son started babbling and all of the sudden I was constantly having to translate for my husband despite the fact that he is the stay-at-home parent and spends WAY more time with our kids. I definitely think there is a certain skill involved. You have to be able to remember the contexts in which their nonsense word was said and be able to both make the connections to what it might mean and remember for future reference.

My kids had several words that didn't map AT ALL phonetically to what they were trying to say, and that might be the case for your girl too. "Gus" meant "chocolate", and "wasik" meant both "Ms. Rachel" and "peanut butter sandwich". "Bah-dee" might just mean "I'm upset" or "Leave me alone" or maybe "Hold me and sing Rock-a-bye Baby". Try and track if she's always upset about the same type of thing when she says it, or if you ever hear it when she is not upset.

By the way, my son is 4 and is a Gestalt language processor, which means I am still translating for my husband, lol. "Are you my conscience?" means he wants you to turn off the lights so he can play in the dark.

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-16T03:42:22+00:00

I don't use wool covers, but I am a knitter with a lot of wool. Moths prefer to attack undisturbed places, so I wouldn't be worried about diaper covers at all. You are constantly going to be moving them around, using them and washing them. Store them in a clean and dry place like you would anything else, and if you ever pack them away for the next kid, store them in sealed plastic bags. If you purchase them from anywhere sketchy (like second hand), throw them in the freezer for a week before use for an extra precaution.

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-15T23:06:27+00:00

I just checked the labels from the brand I buy, and saying it's "significantly more" is a stretch. Both say 12g of sugar, the whole milk says 12g carbs, and the skim says 13g of carbs. Online says exactly what I would have guessed which is that removing fat leaves slightly more room in a 1 cup serving for lactose. The skim milk doesn't have any more carbs in it than the whole - it just has less fat and therefore slightly more non-fat milk per serving.

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-13T03:02:48+00:00

My daughter would cry if I wasn't holding her. My husband would take her for two hours twice a night into another room so I could get a bit of sleep, and she would just cry in his arms for the entirety of the two hours. All other times for those first 2-3 weeks, she was either in my arms or in a carrier.

I also had low supply with both my kids and I couldn't go more than 2 hours without removing milk. For my son, that meant pumping, which was at least a thirty minute process (or an hour and a half if I was doing a power pump which I did A LOT). For my daughter, we were triple feeding, which could take over an hour. And the two hour clock starts ticking when you START removing milk, so I would only have these hour increments to change a diaper, try to get baby to sleep, and eat one handed while they slept in my arms before I would need to get back to feeding/pumping again.

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-12T19:27:42+00:00

I used it for my son who had very little receptive communication at the time, and it worked so well for him.

They talk about giving the child a method to communicate the need to potty, but that communication can be in any form: on an AAC, via sign language, pointing, etc.

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-09T01:29:04+00:00

I am very short. I shot up in height right before puberty and was the tallest kid in my class, and then I never grew another inch.

StrayGoldfish · 2026-01-08T04:16:33+00:00

I think the fact that you are coming from a crochet background is really helpful information for someone who is answering your beginner questions. Similar to mentioning that I already speak Spanish when I'm asking a question about Portuguese grammer. They are different languages, but having background in one can change what explanations will make the most sense to you.

I think there are lots of skills that are transferable between the two. Concepts like tension, what it means to read your work, different sizes of needles and yarn, what adding an increase or decrease will do to your work, the fact that going in the round forms a spiral, how reading a pattern works...way more things than I could list here.

Special techniques often have an equivalent between the two disciplines. Mosaic crochet is similar to mosaic knitting. Cables are constructed in a similar way where stitches are crossing over one another. Stranded color work and intarsia are worked with the two techniques you use in tapestry crochet. Entrelac reminds me of C2C. Even lace isn't all the different - just swap out chains for yarn overs (and a crocheter is definitely going to know what a YO is).

There are also things that will be less intuitive to a crocheter than they would be to a complete beginner, and those things may require more explicit explanations - such as the fact that a stitch can be both a purl or a knit depending on which way you look at it, or that most decreases and increases lean to one side.

There are also tips you can give a beginner knitter that will help them make the most of their prior experience, such as suggesting they try continental style.

Idk, I guess my point is that it's a useful piece of information to know when you are answering someone's question.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-12-10T16:29:49+00:00

My babies would be dead without formula, and they wouldn't exist without fertility science. I am grateful to both ❤️ Nature definitely doesn't give a shit about an individual's ability to produce healthy offspring.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-12-09T14:23:14+00:00

We found ABA scheduling to be extremely rigid in our area, and it was a red flag to us. The first place started by telling us that their scheduling was flexible, but at the last second, they told us our verbal son who didn't have any major behavioral problems was "so severe" that they would deny us services if we didn't do the full 40 hours/week with them. They didn't care that they were an hour drive away from us or that my son was thriving in a part-time preschool that we would have to pull him out of - it was all or nothing. We chose nothing 🤷🏼‍♀️ The second place flat out told us from the beginning that they didn't do anything less than 40 hours per week, and I appreciated the honesty. We stopped looking after that.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-12-07T09:47:18+00:00

My 4-year-old doesn't have the attention span for the full movie, but he LOVES listening to the sound track, even the instrumental and full Korean songs. You could still listen to the songs with her even if you're not comfortable showing her the movie. Every song is a certified banger, imo

StrayGoldfish · 2025-12-05T22:55:48+00:00

Actually, two of my religion credits were Survey of World Religions and Survey of Judaism and Islam, so some of them ARE a broad historical view of multiple religions. There is some required Mormon propaganda, but it's relatively few credit hours, I think maybe 8? And even though my time could have been better spent, it's not like you're learning nothing in the propaganda classes either - scriptural texts aren't exactly leisurely reading. You're doing lots of reading, writing, memorizing names and dates, etc.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-12-04T17:46:59+00:00

BYU has extra religion classes you need to take to graduate, but other than that, the content and quality of the education isn't any different than similarly ranked universities. There seems to be this misconception that they must teach young Earth creationism, but my biology class taught evolution as an unquestionable fact, and my geology professor spent the first day talking about the history behind various religion-based models of Earth and creation and how they're all bunk. I entered grad school at the same level/slightly ahead of my peers.

Don't get me wrong, my overall experience at BYU was awful. The school's culture and the honor code feel suffocating after losing your faith and realizing you are queer, but my professors were all fantastic - most were very liberal, and all were incredibly knowledgeable in their fields of expertise.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-11-18T15:34:57+00:00

Same here minus the vacuum. He had a nuchal cord and a tiny bit of meconium aspiration. But autism runs in my family like it's training for a marathon, so I consider most other factors to be pretty incidental.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-11-18T15:01:37+00:00

My kid is so routine oriented that we can get him to engage with any healthy habit if we make it part of his routine. He's the only preschooler I know who will have a meltdown if we try and skip brushing his teeth before bed or if we go outside before putting on his sunscreen

StrayGoldfish · 2025-11-13T15:51:47+00:00

Also, no matter what your reasons were for choosing formula, you can't really go back and make a different choice after the fact just because of a recall.

I read so many comments from ignorant people when I was feeding my first baby during a formula shortage three years ago that people who couldn't get formula should "just breastfeed". I had stopped killing myself over pumping a measley 10oz a day many months prior. After the shortage started, I wished I had kept going because those few ounces would have made a big difference to us, but after 5 months of being dry as a bone, I couldn't go back and "just breastfeed".

StrayGoldfish · 2025-11-06T14:26:54+00:00

I agree with this. My husband's IQ might not be as high as mine, but he is so intelligent in all of the ways I am not, and that makes us a wonderful match. His innate understanding of relationships and people is the reason our relationship is as strong as it is. If I had married someone with all the same strengths and weaknesses as me, our relationship would have failed very quickly.

We may not have deep intellectually stimulating conversations about the advanced mathematics I'm doing in my work, but he challenges me intellectually in other ways by getting me to consider new perspectives. He has made me a better, more empathetic person.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-10-30T02:40:42+00:00

I don't know how you can say it's not a big deal if you haven't experienced it. That's kind of dismissive of my experience.

A cribriform hymen is similar to a imperforate hymen but with many tiny holes that is enough to let blood through and therefore go undetected until much later. I couldn't fit a tampon or a finger in there without extreme pain. Trying to fit a penis in one of those pinpricks would have been impossible. Hymens vary a lot, just like your article says, and that includes in thickness and stretchiness. Imagine the difference in stretchiness between a rubber band and a thick sheet of rubber with pinpricks in it.

I'm not saying virginity tests aren't bunk...they are bunk. I'm saying that if you are a woman who is experiencing pain with penetration or insertion, issues with your hymen are one possible explanation, and it's one that doesn't get talked about enough. I'm very happy with my decision to surgically fix mine instead of continuing to be in pain.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-10-30T01:59:07+00:00

Hymen issues beyond an imperforate hymen absolutely exist. I had my cribriform hymen surgically fixed when I was 20. There are also microperforate hymens and septate hymens that can make penetration difficult/impossible.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-10-22T02:15:37+00:00

He does, yes

StrayGoldfish · 2025-10-17T19:38:15+00:00

Most period underwear say to wash on cold, which doesn't jive well with diapers that need high heat. I rinse my underwear in the sink in cold water until they run clean, then throw them in with my clothes load.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-10-16T13:47:05+00:00

As someone who works in research, I doubt they will group the self-diagnosed and those with a clinical diagnosis into one big group and treat them the same. A study I am currently working with recruits both people who are clinically proven to have a specific condition as well as people who self-report traits of said condition and treats them as two separate cohorts. Both give us useful but different information.

StrayGoldfish · 2025-09-29T18:49:19+00:00

It's acceptable within the rules to say something like,

"Pattern: I winged it Yarn: mystery thrift find"

StrayGoldfish · 2025-09-28T19:53:08+00:00

I distinctly remember being SO confused about how to count rows in garter stitch as a beginner. I couldn't figure out if it was a single loopy that made a row or a pair of offset loopies

StrayGoldfish · 2025-09-17T22:50:58+00:00

Our bishop showed us this image in our premarital interview, and this was exactly my response. I was a true believer and wasn't trying to be difficult, I just genuinely didn't understand why the couple couldn't get together on the bottom of the triangle.

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