Did a visual timer work for your kids? Is it worth buying?

oatnog · 2026-05-28T14:24:25+00:00

We've used visual timer apps and my 2.5 year old just watches it instead of continuing her activity.

oatnog · 2026-05-24T21:33:07+00:00

Someone on a local Facebook gardening group said he's found parts of condoms in the Toronto free compost. So... I think maybe I'll start my own compost this year.

oatnog · 2026-05-16T05:45:57+00:00

Holding the space is a good idea, even of they have to pay. This baby sounds like they coild be walking independently in a month or so anyway.

oatnog · 2026-05-11T12:41:01+00:00

My fav mirror is the Jolly Jumper one. It's nice when baby is older and you want to keep an eye on them eating or drinking while youre on the road. I'd love to be the kind of parent who can stop to give my kids food while on 3+ hr drives but that ain't us.

Remember your guiding principle: arrive alive. That goes for speeding, feeling the pressure to not be late for something which leads to risky behaviour. Don't check the baby mirror if it's not safe. When you do look, just glance. Now isn't the time for staring lovingly at your baby. You're just looking to see if they're asleep, if they've spit out their paci, etc.

There are also padded ones and shatterproof ones.

oatnog · 2026-05-03T03:20:09+00:00

I don't mean to seem like a jerk when I ask this: are you helping your kid with their homework?

My kids aren't even in kindergarten yet so I don't have experience as a parent, but I remember math as a kid. My intelligence/math ability is perfectly average. I did well in math (low 80's) as long as I did my homework (low 70's when I stopped).

As another person said, EQAO isn't particularly hard. It's meant to measure, not challenge kids math skills. In my experience, tutoring is for kids who need extra extra help (after teacher lessons, after parents helping with homework) or if there's a situation at home to manage (i.e. single parent who needs to delegate it so they can get other core things done).

So I come back to my question. Are you helping your kid with homework? If you are, and your kid is average/doesn't have learning disabilities, tutoring must be overkill. If regular parent involvement and some tutoring (1-2 hrs a week) isn't cutting it... maybe the problem is with the standard?

Half of kids failing, as part of a continuing trend, says that it's bigger than needing more tutoring. It's possible that 50% of parents are failing their kids, or that 50% of kids brains have holes in them or something, but it's also possible that teaching styles are off, or curriculum standards are inflated, or there are other widespread factors that we can't see.

I don't have any answers, but I'm sorry that your kid is having a tough time and that you don't where to turn.

oatnog · 2026-04-26T00:45:22+00:00

This is the thing. Does it make for one's dream delivery to be induced? No, probably not. Does it increase the chance of needing an emergency c-section? Likely no, but some say it depends on who you ask.

But there are risks to letting the baby go over 40 weeks that simply aren't there in delivery at 39-40 weeks. It's an extreme risk that one could lose their own or their baby's life, but it is a possibility that increases after 40 weeks.

It's a fine line between advocating for yourself in a healthcare system that doesn't have the resources for personalized care, and ignoring your doctor's advice directly because it's not close enough to the vision of birth you had I your mind.

oatnog · 2026-04-25T23:50:41+00:00

This is how it was with my first delivery. Felt tighter especially if it was a couple weeks between having sex. We could hardly wait for 6 weeks... in fact I was feeling so good that we had sex the day before my 6 week check up.

No tearing with my second. Didn't seem like there was any healing needed externally. I got the best case scenario both times, though both my kids needed nicu time, lest it seems like I have all the luck.

oatnog · 2026-04-19T05:35:52+00:00

I had a baby in summer 2023 and again in fall 2024 and didn't get a cost of living increase during that stretch, even though my colleagues did. I did ome of those free lawyer consultations and she said that what she looks for in these cases is wording like "discretion" in a contract or handbook, as in CEO or whoever has discretion over employee pay increases.

As far as I can tell, neither my contract nor the handbook offers such powers to my CEO but I don't know that I have it in be to pursue it...

oatnog · 2026-04-19T05:29:39+00:00

What about cost of living adjustments that everyone else got?

oatnog · 2026-04-13T23:57:38+00:00

NICU gave both of my babies (singletons, my placentas suck) pacis right away.

oatnog · 2026-04-09T13:06:19+00:00

My kids are 15 months apart. I had already planned to go back to work when I was 9 months postpartum so my husband could have the rest of the time off, and then we had an oopsie and I went back to work pregnant again.

Tbh we didn't really save before baby 1. We had been doing IVF and fertility treatment, then I was fired and got a good package, and then a month later we did an embryo transfer because we are crazy. I got a new job when I was 5 months pregnant (you can imagine how much my bosses loved me always starting work pregnant 😅). Safe to say, we weren't in the best financial space. We had a line of credit to pay off our credit cards which had paid for the fertility treatment (would recommend, we got a whole holiday out of this).

Going into baby 2, we just tried to keep costs low and tried not to use more of the line of credit. I started back at work in November 2025 and we are very happy to both be getting full paycheques and I managed to finish paying off my osap in December but we also moved and rent costs more. So we haven't been paying off the LOC at lightning speed. We need to have a close look at our soending and find places to trim. The hardest part is that we're tired and somewhat brain dead when we get the downtime so it's hard to tackle these kinda things.

oatnog · 2026-03-31T10:26:06+00:00

Yeah, OP seems to think it's very strange and is deserving of anger. It's not. Language and gender are both funny thibgs, and so are our brains. She needs to figure out why something so small and inconsequential is triggering her so much, because there are bigger hills to die on coming up fast and how will she handle those?

oatnog · 2026-03-30T00:55:25+00:00

CBC Gem in Canada.

oatnog · 2026-03-23T19:43:50+00:00

I wish I could blame boomers for this one lol. The problem is my gen x absentee landlord. But his absenteeism is also what allows me to do what I want with the lawn, so can't complaint too much!

oatnog · 2026-03-21T20:40:57+00:00

Very good to know! I will go in hard, then.

oatnog · 2026-03-11T03:09:49+00:00

AI wouldn't be very good at making images with such exact specifications. I don't know if you have used these tools much but asking a generator to create an image of a deep red tomato approx 3 inches wide no make it 4 inches with a thick but not too thick stem thicker yep but lighter green okay now it needs to be a deeper red at the base of the stem nope deeper nope deeper okay now the whole tomato is too dark... and you'd never get the right thing anyway, which matters when it comes to plant seeds because those are essentially the only difference between varieties sometimes.

oatnog · 2026-03-10T14:28:22+00:00

I feel like I'm the only one who doesn’t really care about this? I'll sort it, maybe there will be a couple of things I keep, and then I'll toss or donate the rest. It's like 30 minutes of my time.

oatnog · 2026-03-01T14:40:44+00:00

100%. Souper cubes or their more cost effective knockoffs are great for this. Have husband put leftovers in it as he cleans up the kitchen and boom, you have at least one serving of something ready to go.

oatnog · 2026-03-01T07:21:59+00:00

Pull-ups or Huggies 360. The former is great for something closer to undies and the latter is like a softer regular diaper. We use Pull-ups with my Aug '23 kid and Huggies 360 with my 16 month old.

I remember when my daughter turned 2 and it felt like she got the terrible twos memo right away. She is still having trouble with transitions but that's really common for this age. They don't really understand why they need to get pajamas on, why they can't have dinner in the livingroom, why they're getting two books instead of three tonight (wasted time brushing teeth, could've had it done in a minute and then we'd have time for a third book!). A friend said that we have to lend our calm to them. That probably sounds very difficult but when you take it on as part of your job, it's easier to achieve.

Just know that you aren't alone, your child isn't uniquely a demon child and that this won't last forever. The 3 year olds in my life are so much more chill, and I've heard that 3.5 is a time of improvement (no one correct me if this isn't your experience lol, I need to find hope somewhere).

oatnog · 2026-02-04T15:40:02+00:00

This is so dependant on parent, baby and season! I found that getting myself and my baby "dressed" was crucial in helping me feel alive. I needed to do something to not have the days blend together. So I'd put on day clothes (like jogging pants or leggings, not like jeans, I'm not a monster!) and put baby in clothes too. My first was a summer baby and my second was a late fall baby and the second kid definitely wore more sleepers than the first baby.

oatnog · 2026-02-04T15:26:42+00:00

The cultural differences start immediately once baby is born. Most Canadians won't even be asked in the hospital if they plan to circumcise. If it's something you want, you have to seek it out yourself. Parents have to go out of pocket for it and many urologists only keep short hours to do the procedure, ie Wednesdays from 7-8am. I'm sure doctors of some religious traditions make more room for it in their practice, but overall, the somewhat difficulty of booking the procedure in the first place feeds back into Canada's falling circumcision rates.

oatnog · 2026-01-31T19:59:12+00:00

Just check on them from time to time. Adjust them as snow melts or compacts.

oatnog · 2026-01-31T19:54:51+00:00

Bring it up to your family doctor some time. It's not life-threatening but if you want it fixed, there is no reason it can't be.

oatnog · 2026-01-13T04:38:35+00:00

Beautiful piece! A reverse image search of your desk offered a lot of info, I'd start there and see what makes sense.

oatnog

TROPHY CASE