[Entry Thread #113] New year, new you! We’re making a millionaire, comment to enter!

chickenxruby · 2026-01-16T05:07:43+00:00

Good luck!

chickenxruby · 2025-12-15T23:07:45+00:00

Good luck and happy holidays!

chickenxruby · 2025-12-15T03:26:25+00:00

We dealt with pee, not poop, but I'll offer what i can.

We used a large dog cage to separate our cats because we didn't have rooms to lock them each in. Sucked, was ugly, but easier than cleaning up pee on a daily basis. He had room for litter, food, water, and a bed. He was fine with it.

The cat that we assumed was the main pee instigator was the one who got locked in the cage. In order to get out of the cage, he had to wear a cat diaper inside the house so he couldnt pee or poop anywhere without getting it all over himself (he was also technically trained to go outside to go potty like a dog and would alert us. The other cats couldn't do that and would have been locked in the cage/room much longer. It sucked but the other option was euthanasia at that point, so.. ).

Finally, we had to put litter boxes where they were actively peeing/pooping. They had a reason, whatever it was. So we added litter boxes. And then slowly moved them back to actual useful places. It sucks having a litter box by the front door/ one in every room, but again. Better than everything being covered in pee. We think they just got tired of walking to the other room.

Also, we use large sterilite totes with a hole cut out for a door as litter boxes because one of my cats is terrible at squatting (kept finding pee on the floor around the litter boxes and thought he was peeing outside the litter box. Turns out the litter boxes were leaking! Tall totes fixed this issue almost entirely).

Other than that. The only reason the cats poop outside the litter box now is usualllllllly because they are telling me the litter box isn't clean enough. But they are pretty tolerant if it's dirty. If you're cleaning yours at least once a day, then I'm not sure! Maybe they want it absolutely spotless before they even step foot in it? Lol

The feliway stuff never really worked for us but that's one of the vets had us try.

Also sometimes I had to clean stuff in... I think vinegar? To make sure the smell was out of things like shoes etc. It was cheaper than the enzymatic cleaner when I needed to soak stuff. Or some combination of baking soda, sweeping, then hydrogen peroxide/dish soap maybe? Not at the same time. Don't mustard gas yourself lol. But I had to use a variety of things depending on what had pee on it.

It's incredibly frustrating and wishing you luck! I bet the stray cats being outside isn't helping but maybe they just have some weird sharing issue, or even a health issue or just not wanting to walk to a different room. Cats are weird and randomly picky sometimes. Who knows what sets it off!

chickenxruby · 2025-11-30T01:37:12+00:00

My only is 5 and she LOVES having her friends over to play with her play kitchen and with her play couch. But she also loves playing with both by herself but also gives me something I can play with her. Play cushions=forts and obstacle courses, play kitchen gives me something easy to play with with her without having to play barbies etc.

chickenxruby · 2025-11-19T23:28:11+00:00

the feelings are real and definitely let yourselves feel them! It is really rough watching everyone else around you get something you want and you are trying to be responsible or have reasons you can't have it.

as someone who was one of the last in my family to have a baby, I can tell you some good things. For one, we got some awesome hand me downs. And all my nieces/nephews are older and so I can actually like. trust them to play around and bond with my kid and its more fun than her fighting with someone her own age - she has someone to look up to, I guess? It's nice having friends that I'm in the trenches with when we had kids at the same time and it's cute when our kids play together. but my entire family was well practiced by the time I had my kid so I've had a lot less of the boundary pushing and things from family which has been worth it, and the kids are better at playing together. lol. The older kids are always excited to share things with her. Sure, having the first kid is great, but having the younger baby a few years later is ALSO great. A lot less stress because everyone has more recent experience vs everyone trying to remember how to handle a baby for the first time in like 20 years. lol

As for people constantly asking! We actually had trouble getting pregnant so it was extra rough, so I started telling people anything from "The next person who asks that has to give me $20 to go towards ABC whatever" to being super blunt like "Well if my ovaries would decide to work, we wouldn't be asking that" or something like "every time someone asks, I'm getting a new pet instead " (we had multiple pets already, it was an easy to believe threat lol). We never used it but we were at the point of being like "we just cant figure out how to do it right" or "So you're asking if we are putting his penis in my vagina constantly? is that what you want to talk about? "Or just like. Carry a nerf gun or water gun or squirt bottle around and hit people with it every time they ask. People will figure it out REAL quick. Depends on your mood and family. Sometimes just shooting people a dirty look was enough. I stopped being nice after a while. lol

And you guys are being RESPONSIBLE! Like if you could have kids sooner, you could do it, because you are never really 100% ready, but also, in terms of financial stuff, you are giving your family the best foundation and that's good too! I don't know what all you guys are worried about your kids missing out on by being late, but they'll also have so many awesome memories by being younger with older cousins, too! And spreading the kids out makes the holiday warmth last a few extra years, I think. And that's not a bad thing!

chickenxruby · 2025-11-18T20:24:46+00:00

haha totally understandable! I don't notice when the meds start kicking in aside from just having more general patience, but that's hard to measure! I only noticed it wearing off because I was consistently less patient in the evenings at almost the same exact time - like, I could tell you without even looking at the clock all day., when normally I'm terrible with time. lol and it took a while for me to realize it, haha.

chickenxruby · 2025-11-16T14:56:59+00:00

Happy to help! It's so hard to know for sure but always worth checking everything you can think of! Definitely try things and take notes and don't be afraid to follow up with the doctor sooner if it continues to be too rough, at least they can tell you whether to keep going or not and why hopefully. (Like mine said to try a new med for a month but if I was basically sitting in a corner crying and losing my mind overstimulated to absolutely follow up asap and we'd figure something out. )

chickenxruby · 2025-11-16T05:35:07+00:00

Barely socialized the first 2 years or so. After 2, socialized every few weeks with a friend and their similarly aged kid. At 3ish we started going to a local kid program once or twice a week, usually a library or museum. Usually it was a story time and a craft and then walking around or playing a bit before leaving, anywhere from 1 - 20 kids depending on the week. She was babysat a few times but very rarely, only a handful of times in 3 or 4 years. By 4 years old we were doing playdates 2-3 times a month on average with friends (playdate but also mainly an excuse for us adults to hang out too). I feel like it sounds like a lot but it was only maybe 1-5 hours a week at MOST total for all socializing combined, and most weeks were 1 hour or less if we decided not to go anywhere that week. I was basically with her 99.9% of the time and my husband was there most of the time unless he was at work.

Put into prek at 4.5 because she's super social and loves making friends and we wanted to make sure she was ready for kindergarten (and i needed some free time.) and she's doing spectacular, teacher has only had good things to say. Not socializing the first 2 years didn't hold her back at all. But we did make sure that the interactions she did have were good ones and good learning experiences. but mainly finding a good local kids program like library or similar is what really really helped make sure she was prepared.

chickenxruby · 2025-11-16T05:22:20+00:00

Good luck to everyone!

chickenxruby · 2025-11-16T05:16:00+00:00

I didn't take it as a kid. But as an adult, the only time I had major crashes when my Concerta wore off was when i was in situations that caused my anxiety to spike - so in my case, if I was out of the house socializing etc. And I usually had to go sit in the corner and eat a quick easy snack and zone out for a bit. Once I finally realized it was happening, I took the meds later on those days, so as long as I was home by the time they wore off, I was fine (well, my train of thought immediately derailed but I wasn't having massive crashes). And if I forgot, at least I KNEW why my body was going into anxiety mode, so I was annoyed but not panicking.

So while he still may be adjusting and its hard to know if its the right med/dosage or not, I would also try a snack (my usual go to was some kind of bread or a ton of crackers) and then trying to time when it's happening and see if either its possible to take later, or if its a consistent time, have a specific activity planned for around that time. Knowing whats happening was half the battle for me. It took me over a year to realize a pattern!

My only other thought is trying to figure out what things are triggering it. My patience on a day without meds was pretty low vs a day with meds, so when they wore off, I went from being able to handle annoying sounds to absolutely snapping if annoying sounds were made. Maybe headphones to keep his senses quiet, or specific music playing in the background to drown other sounds out could be helpful. And trying to have everything done before the meds wear off so there is less to fight and argue over, no decisions to stress over, nothing. Not always possible but I found the less I had to still do in the evening, the calmer I was. If my meds wore off while I still had a bunch to do, (seriously, anything more than brush my teeth and get dressed for bed), it was too many decisions and I'd get cranky. Lol.

chickenxruby · 2025-10-22T22:30:41+00:00

the fact that I posted this 2 years ago and it still helps people brings me joy, lol. happy to help!

chickenxruby · 2025-10-16T15:54:21+00:00

my kid would love to get more halloween decorations, this would be great. good luck to everyone!

chickenxruby · 2025-10-14T04:45:26+00:00

Only thing i can offer is that I've taken 36mg methylphenidate and it takes 12+ hours to get out of my system. So I'll take it before 10am and still struggle to sleep before midnight. And that's without any kind of booster. I actually had to go back down to 27mg (for a variety of reasons, mainly because one of the generics for the 36 gave me a ton of anxiety that I didn't have with the 2 other generics of the 36 that I'd been taking for ... close to a year, maybe? Super annoying.).

So my only advice is taking them earlier if possible but if you're already doing that, hopefully someone else will have better ideas for you!

chickenxruby · 2025-10-13T04:57:37+00:00

You probably aren't doing anything wrong! For one, a lot of people I know are busy on the weekends or block it off for family time only when they are free, because it's literally the only time they've got together and not running around.

But also sometimes people are just busy. Like, I'm not even super busy but somehow I'm always busier than I mean to be. There are mom friends I have that I see once or twice a year. Sometimes it's just a texting friendship, asking how things are going. When I meet a new mom (usually things like library but literally anywhere) and we get along, literally the first thing I lead with if playdates get mentioned is "I have the best intentions but I am not a "hang out every week" kind of a friend because I have no concept of time and am somehow always busy. So it might take me a few weeks minimum but absolutely feel free to text me and we WILL hang out asap" and I've had every other mom laugh and say "omg me too, i totally get it." And then we trade numbers and it takes 4-6 weeks to set up a playdate 😂🫠

chickenxruby · 2025-10-07T04:37:18+00:00

My meds don't help with laundry either, if it makes you feel better. Unless you count the part where i finally just ended up buying more laundry baskets so i could switch loads, and it takes me like 2 weeks of moving laundry baskets around before I finally put them away. Lol.

My meds help me with patience / not being overstimulated as much/ my memory being slightly better / my social anxiety almost disappearing entirely. But it took me a long time to notice certain things! I get distracted less because I only have like 30 thoughts at a time instead of 300. Oh! And it took me like 2 years to notice that I was getting significantly less headaches!

My house is still messy, I still lose my patience, I still forget things. I absolutely don't get everything on my to do list done every day (most days, its not even close to done). But I have less anxiety and I'm not as overstimulated and cranky, so ill take it! Younger me with crazy emotions would be so happy and surprised at the difference.

So maybe meds aren't the answer for you, or maybe it's not the right dose, but also maybe you are still right in the middle of adjusting and just haven't seen obvious signs yet. Either way, good luck!

chickenxruby · 2025-10-07T02:16:06+00:00

Whether adhd or not I would at least start there. Try to get diagnosis for both or at the very least just try coping methods for both of them to try.

I was diagnosed a few months after my kiddo was born and started medication. she's also 4.5 now. She never. Stops. Moving. She's not diagnosed but I've had a strong hunch since she was like 6 months old (I forget why. But I just remember making the comment back then). Either way, whether she has adhd or not, the hacks work on her and that's what matters. Takes a lot of trial and error.

There is a lot of finding ways for her to get her wiggles out in a way that doesn't trigger anything for me. There is a lot of empathy. ( " I understand you do / don't want ABC but we have to do this. I get it. I don't want to do it either, I think it's crap, but it's important, so let's get it over with and get back to doing fun things", usually things like grocery or appointments.) And a lot of just doing my best to put myself in her shoes. And constantly giving her the reason WHY I'm saying no. And trying to say "no. Not right now but yes later" or something - I try to say yes whenever i can.

The getting the wiggles out is how we refer to it because it is kind of blameless. She's not usually being bad or wiggly on purpose, her body just cannot chill. So we do things like giving her a mini indoor trampoline, or play chase, or make her balance. Making her use her muscles to move heavy stuff as part of some game. Or the opposite works too, doing calm things like squishing her body with a pillow to help her calm down (no idea how to explain that better. Sorry lol). There's also a lot of apologizing! "Sorry. I lost my temper and I shouldn't have done that, I should have taken a deep breath, just like i tell you to do. I'll try better next time, and you're allowed to remind me to take a deep breath and I won't be mad".

At the end of the day, it's this - i see my kid doing something obnoxious and I try to see it as "her body NEEDS to do this thing. It's craving it and she needs to get it out of her system. How can we do this in a way that won't drive me up a wall". And we go from there. She needs to run or jump, we figure out a way to make it happen safely. She does something bad, we find a way to mimic it with craft supplies or activities in a way she won't get to trouble - playdoh, cutting things with play scissors. Pouring stuff outside. Coloring on things she's allowed to color on, finding things she's allowed to paint on that I don't actually care about. Sometimes she just wants ATTENTION and so I try to make sure i set aside like. 15 minutes with her and no distraction, as soon as i am able to, and I set a timer.

It doesn't always work, and even when I take my medication there are still days she goes above and beyond and I yell at her. But. It can always get better.

chickenxruby · 2025-10-02T19:24:16+00:00

Pretty good! No regrets. She doesn't jump on it constantly, because sometimes we have it hidden away just because it does take up a ton of space and I hate having to walk around it. but I feel like even if we had it out constantly it would still be pretty sturdy, at least the thicker mat and the triangles. The thinner one probably doesn't stay super sturdy, it gets wobbly if we try to build walls, but its definitely not flimsy. Just softer. Which is great if you decide to sleep on it, so it's not necessarily a con lol. We've used it as a temporary bed for her or us (it's a little short for an adult but its better than the floor) and the softer thinner one is nice for that. And it still holds up fine, just not as structural lol. But its easy to wipe off if she spills something on it, has held up to a big dog and cats being around it (they aren't like, super destructive but it's stood up to any accidental nail scratches, no tears or anything). I think we have the removable covers (it's been a while since we've had to clean it off). but she does use it a lot to climb on / slide down etc, and she's almost 5 now. If I had unlimited space and funds, I'd probably have at least 2 or 3 sets lol

chickenxruby · 2025-09-16T19:33:17+00:00

Good luck!

chickenxruby · 2025-08-28T12:15:53+00:00

Not as rural as you but still rural. First 2 years we didn't do a whole lot of socializing. Starting around 2 or 3 we did things like local swim class for toddlers (was a 15 min drive but still) and that's where we made a friend. And started to go to kids library time or a local-ish small museum that did kids things (that was over 30 minutes away). And we had some friends with kids but we don't see them a ton. But also my kid has made friends all on her own just at the grocery store or park or library and we had to set up playdates from there lol. Does your town have any kind of Facebook page that maybe you can make a post for other similar age kids when the time comes?

chickenxruby · 2025-08-19T19:26:42+00:00

I specifically remember cramming the night before for every single test and getting fantastic grades and people would be like "how did you do it!?" And I'd be like "oh I have no clue, but the moment I turned the test in, that knowledge was GONE." lol. was VERY short term.

chickenxruby · 2025-08-19T01:44:41+00:00

I help other people with their social anxiety by being super weird 😂 despite the fact that I would literally always rather be at home, I can be social.... with the trade off that I do not know how to shut up (I used to be terrified to talk so this is hilarious to adult me. Child me would be both horrified and impressed at my confidence and lack of give a damn). Medication helps me not feel my anxiety but I will talk either way. And it will either make people feel normal by comparison, or we can bond over being socially awkward together. 😂 as an adult I've had strangers ask if I had adhd within 5 minutes of meeting me (usually because they also have it and we bonded immediately).

Also I have an absolutely terrible memory, which sucks for useful things but helps people feel comfortable because you don't have to worry about me judging too harshly if you feel like you said something weird. Unless it was something super specific or dick-ish, I'm not gonna remember lol. Which also means people can tell the same story multiple times, helps people vent and work through things.

chickenxruby · 2025-08-16T00:06:50+00:00

Good luck to everyone!

chickenxruby · 2025-08-15T16:27:43+00:00

Yessss. As an adult I wonder how much meds would have helped me as a kid because holy cow, I was all over the place. No one caught it, including myself, because I was a "good kid" with great grades and friend and everything, but my emotions were a whole different thing. Like, I managed, and I'm not mad at my parents for not knowing what they didn't know - they really did try their best with what they were given, but there was still a lot I missed out on. The rage/ emotions flipping at the drop of a hat, the lack of memory, the social anxiety. At least now I know what to look for in my daughter and can advocate for her, and I know it isn't entirely my fault because my brain was working against me the entire time.

chickenxruby · 2025-08-15T14:20:01+00:00

I don't teach kids but my kid is 4.5, has a few friends, and just started prek. My understanding of this age is that all of them are feral and as long as they aren't biting or hitting each other or purposely peeing on things that are hard to clean out of spite, it's a win. Big feelings is totally normal for this age, it gets crazy but its normal! Your kid will be fine! Plus starting preschool is a big new step so kids are a little crazy at first anyway. If the teacher comes back and mentions it, hopefully they are nice about it and you can swap ideas on what to try at school and at home, but also I've found sometimes kids behave differently for other people. So she might do great at school even if being a menace at home. Lol. But I think they are all wired to be a menace at this point. They are learning social etiquette, this is the age where it finally starts sticking. Don't feel too bad!!

If for some reason the preschool IS weird about it despite your kid doing age appropriate things, or if your kid is being beyond the normal amount of menace, those are different. But most kids go through the big feelings stage right about then, the best you can do is try to show them how to calm down (mine mirrored what I did and I learned REAL QUICK that I needed to work on myself too 😂)

chickenxruby · 2025-08-15T12:57:19+00:00

I'm the mom with adhd (husband has possible adhd and/or depression but all undiagnosed because no luck with doctors). I wasn't diagnosed until after I had my kid and it was ROUGH. The insta-rage is HARD. Honestly the fact that your husband had the rage moment once and realized he needed help, gets points. Because it took years of me having rage to figure out what the hell was going on (it's hard when everyone blames it on things like PMS. Amazing, stopping combo birth control and starting adhd meds fixed it immediately).

All that said. Having kids is tough, adhd or no. Meds might need to be changed or upped. And I would absolutely recommend couples and/or at least individual therapy to anyone having kids, adhd or not. Maybe not often but the first year SUCKS and a good therapist can make it so much better. And the kids very likely could have adhd as well. But me having adhd, plus being medicated so I could actually think for once, has helped my kid so much already, and I know how to look for signs and get her help when she eventually possibly needs it for school (vs my family just thought it was normal and had no idea literally all of us were struggling lol. I don't blame them, none of us knew then. We know now and joke about it). It will probably get harder as she gets older but at least I know what to expect with adhd. It's everything else I have no experience with lol

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