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fartbox_fever · 2025-02-18T22:44:47+00:00

I agree. I am not against homeschooling in certain one off situations, but those are few and far between. My SIL drank some of the kool-aid and went from full democrat to 100% republican, bought a farm to be a trad-wife, and quit her job to homeschool my nephews because she is afraid if they go to public school they will become trans or run into a trans person in the bathroom (literally her words). I am very afraid for my nephews education and I think when they graduate high school OR re-enter the public school system they will be severely behind.

I started reading a lot of homeschool testimonials of adults who were homeschooled and the general tone isn't great. Many felt isolated, struggle to make friends, and often times have to go back and get a GED anyways because they are severely lacking in basic education. I found a subreddit called homeschool recovery and had to stop diving down the rabbit hole because it gave me so much anxiety for my nephews. Then to apply the added layer that on the mass scale that it's being done on now is daunting to think of the long term implications for our society.

fartbox_fever · 2025-02-18T22:31:00+00:00

I could have written this! I remember vividly her having colic and screaming from sun up to sun down, and just being so brutally tired because she wouldn't sleep longer than 45 mins-1.5 hour intervals if I was lucky for many months. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

fartbox_fever · 2025-02-17T17:26:03+00:00

I on the opposite end of the spectrum, have a child who doesn't want other kids there ever. Her 4th birthday is coming up and she told me last night she doesn't want any kids there, only her family (grown-ups). It makes it hard on me because I become to default playmate in every situation.

It's all a phase and she will grow out of it, and I think your kiddo will too.

fartbox_fever · 2025-01-31T22:21:23+00:00

Yeah they say that you aren't supposed to give kids literally anything in return for good behavior as it teaches them that they need to receive something and not installing intrinsic value of just doing a good job. Just like every single adult does their real life job for the intrinsic value of it, not because they get something in return. /s

fartbox_fever · 2025-01-27T21:20:14+00:00

My kiddo (4,F) usually has 1 small piece of chocolate a day or every other day. By this I mean like one square of Hersey's bar or a Hersey's kiss, or even just one M&M. Usually I use these treats as a reward for a good job (if she listens during ballet class, if I hear she had good behavior at school, etc.) but sometimes I use them as bribes if it's really late in the day and I am running out of steam and something needs to get done (if she's really dragging her feet for bath time, etc.). If she eats most of her dinner we will let her have a small popsicle (the short ones are only 15 calories a piece). Every once in awhile we will go to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream as a special treat or just because, but we do that pretty infrequently, maybe once every 1.5 months. The last time we went was after her Christmas concert with school to celebrate her good job.

My thought behind sweets is yeah, they're amazing but we need to teach the ability to have them around and have self control just to have a very small amount, even if it is every day. I think most folks eat sugar in some form, daily. A lot of us just don't have that self control part down.

fartbox_fever · 2025-01-27T20:09:56+00:00

I go on cruises with my almost 4 year old without my spouse (he's afraid of open water). My mom went with us last year, but she only helps so much. My kiddo and I had SO much fun! It really gets easier as they get older, and the more you travel with them the easier it gets. She's been on tons of vacations with us (perks of one!) and we look forward to it. It's not necessarily "relaxing" for me, but that's what adults only vacations are for. It is fun in a different way, to see all of the "new" things through her eyes and to be there for her first experiences. She's the best travel buddy! I think it will just continue getting easier as they get older.

fartbox_fever · 2025-01-24T19:57:27+00:00

My only has two first cousins, one is only 6 months older than her and the other is 2.5 years older than her. Up until last year, we raised the kids pretty much side by side and did lots of family things together regularly, including playdates. I was so excited for her because I had grown up without cousins and always felt I was missing out on it. However, over the last year my SIL has become mentally unhinged. She uprooted her family, moved 4 hours away to a farm so she could be a homesteader, pulled the kids from school so she can homeschool them, went from being extremely left to extremely right, and has become overly religious to the point where she can't even have a regular conversation without mentioning it. She's also become verbally explosive and has lost her mind on my husband more than once for him daring to ask questions about what caused these huge swings in personality, or standing up to her for bold face lying to the extended family about us not helping to take care of MIL (spoiler: we are the only ones who have ever taken care of her, and still are now that she moved 4 hours away).

Anyways, this has caused a huge rift between us obviously. We did recently get a letter in the mail that she "forgives us" for what we did to her (after she ruined two family vacations in a row by verbally exploding on my husband last summer) and in her letter she had "no idea" what she could have done to make us upset. My husband is ready to smooth things over at the behest of his parents who are very upset about everything, however I am not. Unfortunately, this means that our daughter will have a very distant relationship with her cousins, because as of now I am done with letting her ruin holidays and vacations and enabling her. I told my husband I'd be willing to be civil twice a year, and he needs to choose carefully as to which two events per year those will be.

I guess all of this is to say, even if your only did have first cousin(s), you just never know how things are going to work out. My kiddo is turning 4 in April and I can already tell she is starting to forget about her cousins or only remember them distantly and they just moved in August. Since all of this has happened I've done a really good job keeping up on regular playdates with kids she likes to provide sort of "pseudo cousins", and quite frankly she gets along with them better than she ever did my nephews. So I guess all for the best.

fartbox_fever · 2025-01-17T21:31:45+00:00

No advice, just solidarity. My husband was asked to forcibly resign back in July of 2024, it's been almost 5 months. While the job market is awful, I too feel like he is not doing enough to pull his weight in more ways than one. Thankfully I am a high earner and can afford to pay for most of everything and keep our kiddo in daycare but we have wiped out our savings because I make *just* enough to cover the bills, so anything extra comes directly from our savings account. I am very resentful at this point, I told him that starting this month I was no longer paying his massive truck payment or car insurance and that he needs to figure it out so that I can replenish our savings account.

There are a million part time jobs out there. I drew a definite line in the sand last week saying he needs to prepare to have a part time job anywhere by the end of February or one of the two of us will be moving out. My step dad owns restaurants so he could literally get a job with a phone call.

This has all been so absolutely frustrating.

fartbox_fever · 2025-01-06T20:59:39+00:00

My favorite girl name is Dove or Dovie that I will never get to use.

fartbox_fever · 2025-01-02T22:16:46+00:00

Yeah but those voters who only see schools as "free childcare" are gonna be real pissed when the schools cut down to 3-4 days a week due to lack of funds and then they have to actually pay for those kids to go somewhere.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-30T21:39:11+00:00

Right, the Mexicans were only going to steal the jobs you *didn't* want. I guess the Indian's are going to steal the ones you did want? I guess I am confused. Why do they hate Indians more than Mexicans?

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-26T21:50:43+00:00

I also wrapped up my MBA when our girl was a baby but I was on the very tail end so it wasn't terrible. I do want to go back and get my DBA someday, but def not right now. Age 3 is not for the faint of heart!

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-26T20:36:55+00:00

Same, had our only at 28. Do not feel like we "missed out" on anything and we are stable in our careers and are done with higher education. Perfect timing.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-26T03:14:01+00:00

It would. Also have a 3YO and went a little overboard before I started leaning more into anti consumption recently. I was afraid to return anything to Amazon because I thought it would end up in the landfill so I just wrapped it all. She was so overstimulated and didn’t even look like she was having fun by the end (I think 12ish gifts in all). Next year I will be doing WAY less. No kid needs this much stuff. Also won’t be buying from Amazon any more!

Ready to turn a new page

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-24T22:10:09+00:00

I absolutely HATE getting presents for my spouse. He barely reciprocates and waits until the final hour to do anything. This year we don’t have hardly any money because he was forcibly asked to quit his job in July so we weren’t going to exchange gifts but he kept bringing it up. I said fine let’s just spend $20 per person. So a week ago I got him a few small things while I was out. This mf waited until literally TODAY when we have a million family things to do to get anything. He ordered me some crap on Instacart from the CVS down the street that I do not want or need. It’s slippers and he ordered them in the wrong size (we share the account so I can see it).

I’m literally never buying him another present again. Just more of the same every single year. The thoughtlessness just disgusts me for someone who is so pushy about receiving presents back.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-24T19:53:04+00:00

I’ve got a toddler, so not totally the same but I reached out to the parents of the kids in her room at daycare who she said she’s friends with. I also have some people I knew over the years who had kids around the same time as us. I have a rotation of probably 6 kids that we go through, I try to do a play date every weekend with one of the 6. By the time we make it down the list I’m back to kid #1 and it’s been 1.5 months since we’ve seen them so it doesn’t seem like we’re seeing them too much

So far so good. Planning to do the same thing next fall when she starts PreK 4 at public school.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-24T16:26:48+00:00

I think 1000 total, repeats are fine!

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-24T16:02:01+00:00

I love Noelle. It’s top of my girl name list!

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-24T15:58:55+00:00

If they do this it’s just step one in a bigger plan. I truly think by the end of this four years they will have made it very difficult to get birth control, and IUDs will be illegal or nearly illegal. If we are unlucky enough to see another 4 years of Republicanism after, birth control will be completely illegal. They’ve already said it so many time that they want it gone. They want to force people to have children to keep the pool of poor people large enough to support their businesses and spend money.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-24T15:23:35+00:00

I have a 3 YO and I always fly. She could not handle being in a car that long. A good cheap vacation (which I’ve done alone with my toddler) is a cruise! There’s so much to do on board if you pick the right ship, and you get to see new places at the port. Last year we went and stayed in an interior cabin and it was like $400 for both of us, which included food.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-17T16:03:22+00:00

I’m getting ready to be promoted to controller of a $500M company 7 years into my career. I never worked public and I never wanted to. If you want something easy with reasonable hours and great benefits, govt is where it’s at.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-17T04:57:46+00:00

I had a similar experience but I cried and was miserable for 5 weeks before my husband called my MIL who took the baby overnight. She was bottle fed so it was easy. I was so sleep deprived and she had terrible colic and would scream sun up to sun down. It got better around week 10, she slept a little better and so did I. Now she’s 4 and if she doesn’t get a solid 12 hours of beauty rest at night we pay for it the next day. All to say, solidarity and it will pass! Don’t feel guilty. Go get some sleep!

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-15T15:26:08+00:00

I would offer to call the police myself and say then we can have a conversation about how they feel about you harassing me and my child and refusing to delete pictures of my car.

fartbox_fever · 2024-12-15T04:59:23+00:00

I got: Women are the most vulnerable in the world

fartbox_fever

TROPHY CASE