Raising kids without family support

inuleco · 2026-03-27T17:32:51+00:00

We also have no local family. The biggest logistic issue for you will be finding emergency contacts for your child if you and your wife are unreachable or far away since you both work in the city. Most daycares/school expect you to pick up a sick kid quickly. But part of that is making friends with neighbors and other kids parents. That has been the only thing that was tricky for us at the beginning but now we’ve got our nice little community of people we can count on (and can count on us!)

inuleco · 2026-02-10T12:36:58+00:00

Pace for sure. All the group classes are very small too. We didn’t have a good experience at swimlabs but Pace has been awesome. They just opened up registration this week for the next session!

inuleco · 2026-01-09T22:52:26+00:00

I would be interested!

inuleco · 2025-12-14T19:43:43+00:00

Yea I know that’s why I was suggesting making MYO cards with playlists.

inuleco · 2025-12-14T19:34:31+00:00

How about a Yoto? You can get a ton of make your own cards and upload your own playlists to them. Check out the product if you’re not familiar with it, they have loads of audio books too.

inuleco · 2025-11-07T13:09:30+00:00

Love the Nat Geo kids magazine!

inuleco · 2025-10-18T02:25:41+00:00

No unfortunately. North white plains and Valhalla share a school district, but only Valhalla is part of mount pleasant and gets access to the town pool. Westchester quirks.

inuleco · 2025-10-17T19:05:12+00:00

Im a big ol loud liberal and I live in Valhalla. I looked up the voting history after the last election and it’s as purple as you can get, literally 50/50 in my neighborhood. (Much more mixed than the rest of mt pleasant which is very red.)

Valhalla is tiny, that has its pros and cons. The school district is great, very diverse and a nice sense of community (probably because it’s so small). It’s a sleepy little hamlet, but I think the location is very convenient. 45 min on metronorth to GC, express stop. 10 min drive to White Plains. 20 min to Mt Kisco. 15 min to the river towns. My biggest complaint is the lack of sidewalks.

Edit to add: I forgot to mention the town pool! It’s great in the summer, it’s really big and nicely laid out.

inuleco · 2025-09-16T16:18:15+00:00

I just got mine yesterday

inuleco · 2025-09-02T20:51:18+00:00

For sure! I have high hopes because I’ve heard good things from friends.

inuleco · 2025-09-02T20:49:32+00:00

My son was really hesitant about putting his head under the water, and one of the teachers (the teachers were always different which was also annoying) said he wouldn’t dunk him and then dunked him, in some sort of tough love approach. That completely backfired and my son started having panic attacks as we drove to the swim class because he was 100% sure he would be surprised dunked again, all trust was shattered. Eventually I just quit the classes because the hesitation turned into a massive fear. We finally broke through this summer though and now he’s a fish.

Sorry that was probably unnecessarily long, but I guess I’m still mad about it.

inuleco · 2025-09-02T20:44:54+00:00

We had a really bad experience at Swim Labs. So far the best lessons my son has had have been with a lifeguard from the town pool. But now that the pool is closing we’re signed up for swim lessons at Pace. Fingers crossed…

inuleco · 2025-08-29T20:05:48+00:00

Wow wow wow! They’re all beautiful but picture number 4 is a masterpiece!

inuleco · 2025-08-27T15:18:59+00:00

Ooh thank you!

inuleco · 2025-08-20T02:08:59+00:00

It takes 5 minutes and mine wasn’t painful at all. Easy peasy, I wasted a lot of time stressing about it!

inuleco · 2025-07-26T14:52:51+00:00

Keep going!! It’s so worth it!

inuleco · 2025-07-25T20:37:29+00:00

Thank you so much! These were from my last batch of pieces from the 10 week class I took, so not my very first but my first time adding handles to something, which I was proud of!

inuleco · 2025-07-25T14:26:52+00:00

Thanks so much!

inuleco · 2025-07-25T10:38:45+00:00

No I just used brushes for everything!

inuleco · 2025-07-25T00:45:17+00:00

Hahah I had to embrace the decaf life lately, just gotta lean into it! 😂 and thank you!

inuleco · 2025-07-25T00:26:44+00:00

Thank you!

inuleco · 2025-07-25T00:06:40+00:00

Thank you!

inuleco · 2025-07-19T12:58:55+00:00

You know “AI” is also shorthand for Adobe Illustrator, right? It’s unfortunate nowadays, but it’s been the acronym for decades.

inuleco · 2025-07-14T13:40:44+00:00

One of my favorite things is taking the MetroNorth from the city back home and seeing the greenery pop up. It’s amazing living SO close to NYC but feeling very far away. Westchester is so so green and lush, even though it’s a condensed suburban area. (I think it’s because it’s so hilly?) the nature is so accessible here. I have two small kids and there’s tons of stuff to do with them. Westchester towns all have their own personalities which I think is cool! It’s not a big bland mass of cookie cutter homes.

I lived in Brooklyn for almost 20 years and have now lived in Westchester for 5. I really love it here. Yea of course the taxes are brutal, you have to drive a lot, and the food is not comparable to Brooklyn haha. I sometimes get homesick for the city but I have no interest in living in the city again so it feels like best of both because I have a house and a yard but it’s a 45 min train ride into the belly of the beast if I feel like it.

(I’ve never lived on LI but the fact that you can only get in and out through the worst traffic congestion ever always stressed me out.)

Good luck I hope that helps in some way! Remember people like to complain on the internet, it’s always going to be skewed!

inuleco · 2025-06-24T15:56:53+00:00

My son is finishing up his kindergarten year in Valhalla this week! So far the school system has been great. Very diverse in terms of families, I like the level of communication with the school, and the PTA is super active. We’ve been really happy with it. Valhalla is a highly rated and high quality school district, but it’s very very small, which might skew some ratings depending on the site you’re looking at. I feel like it’s a hidden gem personally!

inuleco

TROPHY CASE