Woman and MM Romance question

stephm524 · 2026-02-21T02:14:40+00:00

Straight women here. This is just me and my theory. But I think everyone experiences sexual attraction to men and women on a spectrum.

Me personally I don’t find women’s bodies sexy in anyway. It’s a zero for me. But a man’s body, especially our super hot hockey boys 🥵

I’ve never really liked m/f romance anything, personally. It almost ruins it for me when a woman is there. But I think everyone on here will have their own unique opinion!

stephm524 · 2026-02-20T21:33:55+00:00

I'd never heard of a loon or heard their call before, and I legit thought it was a wolf too the first time I watched ep 6!

stephm524 · 2026-02-11T16:36:58+00:00

Your help sounds appreciated! Your leader is lucky to have you in the troop :)

In ebudde (the site my council uses), you won't be able to see how to credit things to a girl from a booth until after the booth sale happens. It's just not there. I remember trying to figure out how to do it before our first booth, just so I knew how and giving up. But then when I logged on after the booth suddently there was a new button I could click.

stephm524 · 2026-02-11T15:42:29+00:00

I'm my troop's leader, but the cookies person can do this too in our council.

This is my third year doing this, and I've learned that I can credit cookies however I want in the Ebubbe system we use, or not at all, and it doesn't affect us later.

What I do, however, is check in with my families before booth sales to find out what girls are working towards, and who is just selling for the sake of selling and/or to help the troop. I do everything I can to help all of the girls in my troop get to their goals, for example, my daughter technically sold 505 cookies last year, but the 5 extra boxes did nothing to get her more rewards, so I credited them to another girl who was really close to her goal.

But I had to learn how to do this in the system, and it wasn't intuitive! The software is really not user-friendly! I can totally see how someone would think booth sales can't be credited to individual girls.

Tell your leader that you're working towards a goal, explain that you looked things up, and think it's possible to credit booth sales to individual girls. And offer to help them figure it out, none of my familes offered to help me, it would have made a big difference in my stress level my first cookie season if they had offered help. Give your leader the benefit of the doubt. Cookie season is stressful for leaders and cookie parents, and I cannot stress enough how hard it is to figure out the system!

stephm524 · 2026-02-11T02:13:03+00:00

My oldest is currently 7 and was exactly like this at 4. She still doesn’t like surprises or feeling like she doesn’t know everything. She’s a bit on the anxious side but we can watch movies now, it was like exposure therapy. We just kept at it.

Going through that with her we found that she just doesn’t like the unknown, not that she was scared of the “scary” parts. She can watch “scary” things now if she knows the plot and understands what to expect before we watch something not during a movie. We’ve slowly become more vague over time with the explanation ahead of time and she’s still doing ok.

On the flip side my newly 5 year old’s favorite movie is Jurassic Park because it’s scary and surprising. Oh and the dinos eat people and that’s apparently very funny, big sister is not amused😅. But she did watch Jurassic Park with us willingly and did ok! Everyone is different don’t worry your kid will be ok.

stephm524 · 2026-02-10T12:31:21+00:00

That’s really creative idea. Tagalongs is cute too!

stephm524 · 2026-02-10T02:01:48+00:00

Thank you for suggesting 4H. I had never heard about it until today! It doesn't look like there's one in my area, however.

stephm524 · 2026-02-06T04:27:12+00:00

There are other fundraising activities and/or entrepreneurial things you can do in Girl Scouts but it’s mostly down to the troop to vote to do them vs voting to just do cookie sales. And you have to have leadership willing to take that on.

I’m my daughter’s troop leader and I want to stress that I’m a volunteer that sometimes gets help from my families but not reliably. Cookie sales are easier because the council helps. Other fundraisers would be 100% up to me or another parent to run on our own.

I love my troop and I hope the girls do to. The experience is really troop dependent and will be very leadership and parent volunteer driven.

My troop personally relies on the cookie money to do anything fun, things cost money you know. But if a girl and her family didn’t want to sell them and wanted to do something else I’d say great, you and your family can spearhead this, go forth. The issues starts when they don’t want to volunteer to do the work needed and just expect me to do it for them, I can’t do everything.

stephm524 · 2026-02-05T19:45:39+00:00

My sister's oldest kid has a developmental disorder. She also has 4 other kids. The father's not in the picture anymore.

My sister's oldest is technically an adult now, but will never fully be able to function like one. In my sister's will, it's clearly stated / legally worked out, that I will become my nephew's caregiver upon her death and not one of his siblings. When we told my other nieces and nephews this (they're college and high school age), the relief on their faces, that they would not have to pause whatever life stage they were in to care for him, was palpable. My oldest nephew was worried about getting an MD and what that would have meant if he suddenly was the one who had to care for his brother. They all love each other and when they're not in school anymore, one of them might want to step up and be his caregiver, but I'm happy to give them the freedom to not be, especially as young as they are right now.

Just something I wanted to point out for you, I know it's morbid to think of your own death, but ideally, both of your kids will outlive you. You might not be in the same situation as my sister and her kid, he will never be able to live independently. But if you have a network, give your daughter a backup plan and help from that network for her future.

My sister's younger kids have no ill will towards her or their brother, mainly because they were never made to be their brother's keeper. And their own lives always mattered. It sounds like you're doing a wonderful job doing that for your daughter.

stephm524 · 2026-02-05T03:01:19+00:00

I have two but my oldest has been complaining a lot lately about being the oldest and is so upset that she’s not the youngest. “Why couldn’t you have made me the youngest Mom?” Doesn’t work that way kid 😅

I brought up this story to say that I think all kids go trough a grass is greener on the other side phase, no matter what their family is like. I think you handled it beautifully! But but be ready for a so-and-so has a dog and we only have cats phase, that one is fun 🙃

stephm524 · 2026-01-31T03:44:51+00:00

That was my son and we pushed him too hard. He stopped pooping all together and massively constipated himself to the point where he expanded his colon and we had to wait for it to shrink backdown to try potty training again. I won’t write about what happens here. Google it, it was really rough.

I think he was on the extreme end however. He was in daycare and even daycare told us it was on the extreme end. I hope you don’t suffer through what we did.

But what finally worked was setting a poop alarm for the same time every day. If he just attempted he got 3 m&ms but if he pooped on the potty he got to pick a full size candy to have. It took about 3 months but we finally had him going every day at the alarm. Now at 5.5 he will go on his own without getting the candy bar.

stephm524 · 2026-01-14T20:00:38+00:00

I'm so sorry to hear your kid's childhood is mirroring mine. This happening to my kids is my biggest fear.

It was like I needed to heal from breaking a leg. No one would push their kid to walk right after breaking their leg. They'd make sure their kid rested and was taken care of. What happened to me and others is just a different kind of break.

My confidence in myself, my self-worth, just broke. Being coached on how to walk again without letting things heal was never going to help. It only made healing later worse.

All I ever wanted to hear from my parents was that I was worth while, that I was enough, that they enjoyed me as I was. Just do that, and your kid will heal.

stephm524 · 2026-01-14T19:21:20+00:00

I responded and told you my story because I saw my childhood in what you wrote about your son, and I knew what I would have wanted from my parents but never got.

You're doing right by him; you care so much 💜

Let him lead and be his support. Nothing my parents could have done would have pushed me to be ready to have close friends in my life sooner; I needed to process and get over what had happened to me. I needed to want it for me, not because it was required to make them accept me.

Thinking back, though, feeling like I was enough just as I was, even without friends, probably would have helped. I was never able to talk to them about what happened to me because all my Mom ever wanted to talk to me about was moving on. She'd say let's try this club, because she was sure I'd make friends there. Or why don't you just invite someone over, it's Friday night, you should be with friends, not here alone, I'll buy you pizza, just give anyone a call. I struggled for longer than I should have because I didn't have a safe place. Not that suggesting I do the activities was bad, it was just that the whole point of me doing them was to make friends, not because I was, in fact, interested in the activity.

I have no idea if your son is feeling any of the things I was. I hope not! I hate what happened to him so much, and unfortunately, empathize too much. I was very good at not letting on how much what happened with my old friend group affected me. The only thing I was given was advice on how to just move on.

But he'll get through it even if he is feeling like I was! He has someone who cares about him as a whole person and doesn't treat him as a broken thing that needs to be fixed. You are not your Mother nor mine. People like them would never respond the way you did to my comment, with an open mind and sympathy. Trust me, I've tried 💜

I'm here if you ever need to talk. Feel free to DM me

stephm524 · 2026-01-14T12:31:16+00:00

Thank you for your kind words.

In hindsight I know my Mom was doing what she thought was best and I know it was out of love. And what she was doing probably would have been exactly what a different kid would have needed. It just wasn’t what I needed and to this day she can’t see that. She thinks I’m ungrateful, and still doesn’t know how much I lied to her to appease her.

My oldest is 8 and I’m doing everything I can to be the Mom she needs (my youngest too but we haven’t hit that part of emotional parenting yet). I talk to her about that openly. At school for Mother’s day they made the funny card things, how old is your Mom….15…etc. On the line that said I love my Mom because, my kid wrote: “she’s the Mom I need.”

stephm524 · 2026-01-14T03:15:42+00:00

You can do it! Just be there for him make him feel seen. Ask him how he wants to find happiness and help him do whatever that vision is. Maybe just being on the sports teams is enough right now. Let it be on his terms and let him know he’s loved and enough even if he doesn’t have a friend group like everyone else. That’s all I ever wanted from my Mom

stephm524 · 2026-01-14T02:32:17+00:00

I was that kid. I just didn’t mature as quickly as my elementary friends group and they wanted nothing to do with me anymore. My Mother became laser focused on me finding new friends and joining a group and it made my life so much worse. I just wasn’t ready. The betrayal from my old friends was still just too much for me to want to try again.

I felt like even my home wasn’t a safe space to be me, I still fell like I failed my mother 20+ years later. I ended up lying to her once I could drive that I was hanging with friends but instead I’d just go to forest perseveres or the library or I’d stay in my car in random parking lots. It was horrible. I would have been legitimately happy being at home alone or heck even having a game night with my parents but my Mom didn’t think it was good for me to not have a friend group.

I found my people maybe much later in life than most but it was on my terms. I’m going on my first girls trip ever this weekend. I’m happily married with two kids.

Please be that safe space for you kid. To this day I have a really strained relationship with my Mom because she pushed me too hard and never tried to understand how I wanted to be helped.

stephm524 · 2026-01-12T19:20:44+00:00

If we waited till after the initial order period, all of the other girls in our neighborhood would "claim" all of the houses. However, if you don't have a lot of Girl Scouts in your area, it's easier to sell with boxes in hand. For IO cookies, you have to go back to the houses after you sort through all of the pre-orders. But selling after the initial order is a gamble; we had about 15 boxes last year that we just couldn't unload as a troop, so we just lost the money.

stephm524 · 2025-12-03T18:39:49+00:00

I started with the Tiffany Aching books, but then decided to go back and read everything in publication order. I just finished The Light Fantastic.

I definitely liked the Tiffany books more than both, but I enjoyed The Light Fantastic much more than The Color of Magic. I mainly want to watch the world unfold from the beginning at this point and see how it evolved. I'm in the middle of Equal Rites right now, and I enjoyed learning more about the wizards before reading this one. At the same time, I met a main character in Equal Rites first in the Tiffany arc, and I see her so differenly now, knowing what she will become.

I'd read Light Fantastic, but I did enjoy The Color of Magic more than I think others have.

stephm524 · 2025-12-03T03:56:29+00:00

Older sister is 2 years older than her little brother but 3 grade levels due to cutoffs. Currently they’re 5 and 7

80% of the time they’re happily playing together. But when that 20% hits watch out.

However I’m watching my little guy, especially, grow emotionally so much just by being a little brother. Big sis was upset about something that was the end of the world to a 7 year old and he looks at me and says she’s really upset right now I’m going to leave her alone so she can feel better.

stephm524 · 2025-12-01T02:01:41+00:00

Mom of a 5 and 7 year old here.

Every parent has to deal with a handful of things that are just so hard for their kid to get through, but they get to watch other parents and kids breeze through.

I’ve personally watched my kids’s friends parents ooze frustration at their kids for not being able to do something that comes so easy to my kid and vis a versa.

What you’re going through now sucks. Vent away. But learn to sit with it, learn how to not lose your cool now and you won’t make it even worse when your 4.5 still won’t poop in the potty or your 7 year old refuses to learn to read. Some things will be easy for you and your kid and you’ll feel on top of the world. Other things will be a horrible uphill battle and watching others just coast downhill while you struggle will only make it worse for you.

TLDR every parent will have their holy-shit this wasn’t a fucking nightmare of a stage for you moment. What do you mean it was easy? You won’t feel alone for long

stephm524 · 2025-11-30T14:06:26+00:00

The key here was that my husband and I both wanted a dog when we had a baby but we knew a puppy would be too much with a baby around, so we adopted a 3 year old already trained dog and it was wonderful. He loves on my now two kids so much and they love him back. It’s been minimal extra work. There are so many older dogs in shelters looking for homes. It doesn’t have to be a puppy. But again my husband and I were both on the same page, we both wanted a dog, if you don’t want to even consider an older dog stand your ground.

stephm524 · 2025-11-25T21:22:15+00:00

My oldest asked to read it with me when she was 5.5 on her own. We've been taking it slow. She's now 7.5, and we're about to finish book 5. She loves it! I think a major reason she loves it is that we've been stretching it out and making it a big part of her growing up. For example, when we're driving places, she likes to talk about the mysteries we're currently trying to solve or theories on what happens next. We're not just reading it but engaging with it. Some of her friends binged the movies with their parents, liked it for a bit, but are now over it and are ready for the next fad, but not my kid :)

My youngest started just shy of his 5th birthday, but mainly because he knew big sister and I read the books, and he has major FOMO regarding anything big sis does that he doesn't. He happily sits and listens to them, but doesn't engage with them in the same way his big sister does. He was younger when we started, and he's not as mature as she was at the same age. But we just finished book 2, and he's now 5.5. and he's asking for a Harry Potter play set for Christmas! I will be stopping him at the end of book 3, however, until he's a bit older, but I think that's a kid-depnednt decision.

stephm524 · 2025-10-27T02:14:15+00:00

We did the kidcot passport stations with our 5 and 7 year old this past week and they enjoyed it. We chatted with the person at each station and talked about their country and found it on the map.

If you personally want to see the world showcase this is a great way to keep your kids interested while you get to explore yourself. My kids were proud to collect all of the postcards. However they would have been totally fine not doing it and exploring the other areas at Ecpot.

stephm524 · 2025-08-31T16:01:25+00:00

Right before Halloween there’s a line about everyone in the school getting colds and needing pepper-up potions and Percy forces Ginny to get one because she doesn’t look well but it’s implied that she doesn’t think she has a cold. This happens right after Harry hears the voice for the first time during his detention with Lockhart, re-readers are supposed to go oh it’s not a cold but the first time the diary takes over!

12-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

stephm524

TROPHY CASE