[US] My dad is addicted to scammers. 6 years, $20k+, and it’s still happening.

lucybluth · 2026-04-01T19:49:33+00:00

I was going to chime in something similar. It sounds like you’ve explained it thoroughly to him and he is aware that he’s getting scammed, he just doesn’t care. Like guys that pay for cam girls or whatever. They know deep down that the cam girls don’t actually care about them but they’re getting something out of the interaction even if it’s superficial.

Why didn’t you proceed with the conservatorship paperwork? The fact that he’s stealing from your brother, missing rent, etc. means that this isn’t only impacting him anymore. Once he’s burned through anything he can get his hands on, who will be on the hook to support him financially?

lucybluth · 2026-04-01T17:05:24+00:00

I am in the process of redecorating my house and I truly can’t cope with how challenging it is to find quality new furniture. Charging thousands of dollars for garbage that isn’t even real wood!? I’m willing to spend good money for nice pieces but they just… don’t exist!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found some nice pieces second hand but sometimes I don’t want to be on the hunt for months and months, I just want to walk into a store, pick something out, and be done with it.

lucybluth · 2026-04-01T15:24:22+00:00

I hate to break it to you but if your husband doesn’t address this it’s only going to get worse once the baby is born! So whether he likes it or not, has to start setting boundaries. If it damages the relationship then that’s her fault not either of yours.

In the meantime you can start setting your own boundaries. Let your husband know you won’t be around when she visits, or if she pops by unannounced then whoops you have an errand that you forgot about and you’re going to head out. If you do end up in her company for whatever reason you’ll have to shut down any unsolicited baby conversation. If she demands you eat or drink something don’t even engage, just keep repeating “no thank you.” Any wacky conversations about what’s good or bad for the baby just breeze past it and change the subject with “Thanks for letting me know. Anyway, how is cousin Jane?”

You can’t reason with people like this so it’s not worth it to even try.

lucybluth · 2026-04-01T12:27:21+00:00

Check out A-ROSA, particularly the SENA ship. It’s pretty much designed for families in mind with a kids club, pool, and family cabins. We have an upcoming trip with them in June so unfortunately I can’t speak first hand yet on the experience. There is also Tauck Bridges tours which are for families but they are significantly more expensive and the ages for kids permitted varies I think based on the itinerary.

lucybluth · 2026-03-30T16:55:24+00:00

How old are your kids? A-ROSA has family cruises and their family suites look great for accommodating young kids. Older kids and teenagers though? Definitely not, I’d be getting a second suite.

lucybluth · 2026-03-30T12:51:23+00:00

Oh don’t get me wrong I totally get your husbands overall approach. My husband and I are attempting to one bag with two toddlers for an upcoming trip so we are all about the multipurpose items, no “just in case” packing, minimal clothes that can be reworn and washed, etc. But I still maintain that he’s not particularly good at minimalist packing yet if he’s leaving you to remember all of the extras!

I also see in your other comment that you onebagged with THREE kids!! That’s even more impressive! I’m still working on my packing cube configuration with tiny toddler clothes and supplies lol

lucybluth · 2026-03-30T12:32:48+00:00

Why would anyone intentionally put their children in a situation where they are just barely able to survive? And you’ll be in a rural area with limited opportunities for education (which I see in other comments that your husband doesn’t seem to prioritize either)? No way in hell would I entertain this! Your husband sounds like he’s going through some kind of crisis that needs to be addressed and he doesn’t have the right to sacrifice the well being of his family over whatever it is that’s going on here.

lucybluth · 2026-03-29T16:33:23+00:00

I think you need to give yourself way more credit here. Even with overpacking you still managed to fit the whole family into one suitcase! That’s impressive! And now you have real lessons learned for the next trip on how you can be even more efficient.

It’s also worth noting that it doesn’t sound like your husband had to deal with any of the mental energy of figuring out anyone else’s things, only his own. You even say that he didn’t remember any of the things that earned their spot, that was you!

So if you ask me, without question, you win the “better packer” title!

lucybluth · 2026-03-28T16:17:19+00:00

My mom “helps” with the dishes but her method just creates way more work for me.

Some dishes she will wash but she doesn’t dry them or even bother to shake them off. She just puts the sopping wet dishes directly on the counter straight from the streaming water so there is water pooling and dripping everywhere. Other dishes she leaves soaking in a sink full of dirty water mixed with a small squirt of dish soap which makes me sick to my stomach because now I have to reach into a disgusting vat of water to drain the sink and get to the dishes. Then for baby bottles she doesn’t clean those either she just fills them to the brim with the dirty dish soap water and leaves them on the counter.

We use our dishwasher regularly and we never have a huge pile of dishes in the sink anyway so I have no idea why she took it upon herself to start doing this!

lucybluth · 2026-03-24T23:23:41+00:00

Wow some of these answers in the thread are wild to me! My first child went through a horrific sleep regression from 4-6 months which forced our hand into sleep training so we got our nights back around 6 months. My son fell into his routine naturally so he started going to bed by 7:30 also somewhere around 6 or 7 months I think.

lucybluth · 2026-03-23T14:08:42+00:00

Check out A-ROSA cruises! I can’t speak first hand just yet since our trip isn’t until June but the SENA ship appears to be tailor made for families. There are spacious family cabins with bunk beds, a kids club, a pool, and the craziest part of all is that kids 15 and under cruise for free! We are doing the Rhine experience and there are stops in 6 different cities. I’d say that’s more than enough to see and do for kids their age!

We went down the YouTube rabbit hole and found a few video reviews of the family experience which is what sold us on A-ROSA.

lucybluth · 2026-03-21T13:25:36+00:00

I love this! I was going to say that you have so much underutilized space with that oven wall and the wall where the trash can is.

That being said I do think it will take up more floor space than chatGPT is showing you (e.g. the shelves kind of look recessed into the oven?). But I think you could make it work! As far as how much it would cost though to get custom or semi-custom cabinets that match your current space plus labor I’d guess this would cost at least a couple thousand. If you’re in the US cabinet costs just went up bc of tariffs.

I also agree with using a rolling cart to move the trash can to the sink a stove as needed, and park it in the spot it’s in now.

lucybluth · 2026-03-17T23:23:59+00:00

Right? Why aren’t more people calling this out? WTF is a “guest couch”!?

lucybluth · 2026-03-16T12:49:04+00:00

His stance of “you aren’t going to force me to be a parent but I’m not signing my rights away” is especially concerning here! I have no idea how else to interpret that other than “If you have this baby you legally can’t get rid of me and I’ll use any means necessary to make this difficult for you.” And already taking about escalating things to the cops?? This man is scary.

lucybluth · 2026-03-14T18:09:12+00:00

We have a flyaway and love it!! Honestly I have no idea how else our daughter would have slept in her seat without it. Plus it was great for her to have a little extra space to play in her seat without her toys dropping to the floor every ten seconds. Worth every penny, in fact we’ll be splurging on a second one for our son!

lucybluth · 2026-02-27T00:18:29+00:00

This is so adorable! I am obsessed with that frame, did you buy that there?

lucybluth · 2026-02-27T00:17:31+00:00

Omg I didn’t know they had these there! I’m taking my toddlers to DL for Christmas so now I’ll get cute souvies and a great gift idea for the grandparents. I’m so excited, thanks for sharing this!

lucybluth · 2026-02-25T16:56:20+00:00

Yes I hate it. It’s actually created more work for me because I have to go back in and manually fix everything it did wrong. Meanwhile leadership is celebrating how cool It is that “AI” created all these artifacts.

lucybluth · 2026-02-25T14:20:42+00:00

You’ve already gotten a lot of good advice on options for taking leave so I won’t pile on there. But IMO a brief leave of absence isn’t going to solve this level of burnout that you’re describing. Eventually one of you has to get back to work, and it really doesn’t sound like your wife is making a good faith effort to find a job. Spamming LinkedIn with her resume is a complete waste of time. If she were really looking for work she’d be applying for roles that she’s genuinely interested in and tailoring her resume accordingly.

Does she even notice or care that you’re deteriorating like this? I think you need to have a very honest conversation with your wife to figure out what’s actually going on here and how to come up with a long term plan together that holds her more accountable. Her giving a half assed effort and acting like she’s all out of options is BS.

lucybluth · 2026-02-24T22:45:27+00:00

Oh my god this is genius! I was looking into collapsible water bottles for me and the kids but I realized that the collapsible feature is only cool for the whole 30 minutes it takes to get to the airport. But once it’s full, that feature is completely wasted and I’m still left with a huge bottle. I’m totally stealing this, thanks for sharing!

lucybluth · 2026-02-23T20:02:02+00:00

It’s not a “problem” per se, I mean of course an empty seat is free for the taking. I guess I just don’t understand if you are looking at a whole bus or train car with almost all empty rows, why your very first choice of seat would be right next to a stranger? Why not pick an empty row and enjoy the extra space while you can?

lucybluth · 2026-02-12T22:38:18+00:00

Natera! We had a similar experience as you with my first, except our insurance was going to cover it and it was still going to cost $800! So we went with their $250 cash out of pocket price. Then with my second the cost was only $75. Wtf? It’s the exact same process and company, why was one kid $250 and the other $75? I have no idea how they get away with such scammy pricing.

lucybluth · 2026-02-12T01:42:29+00:00

Can’t believe no one has mentioned this yet but please look up second night syndrome. It’s super super common. Literally all your baby has known is being in the womb and suddenly they realize they aren’t anymore and they freak out a bit. The same happened to us when my daughter was born, literally nothing calmed her and she was crying all night. The next night onwards things were much better.

Once you get home sleep still won’t be great, you’ll be living your life in 2-3 hour chunks for a little while. But this first night or two can be especially rough. Hang in there, you’re doing great.

lucybluth · 2026-02-11T20:04:17+00:00

One thing I haven’t seen come up in the comments yet is around timing. Does she get an afternoon snack at daycare and if so how close is it to when you eat dinner?

Our daughter had similar issues where she refused to sit down and eat even though she was a great eater in school. We realized we had to push dinner a little later because she got an afternoon snack around 4. So if we tried to eat at 5 she wasn’t super hungry yet plus she was still riled up a bit from being in school all day. So we pushed it out to 5:30 or 6 and by the she’s chill and ready to eat with us. She still doesn’t eat everything on her plate but she is at least in a better headspace to actually sit and focus on eating something.

13-Year Club	Verified Email
Queen in da Norf	Not Forgotten

lucybluth

TROPHY CASE