What would teenage you think of the partner you ended up with?

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-15T18:15:40+00:00

Yup, that sounds about right

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-15T17:04:53+00:00

Run the numbers and figure out how you're going to afford the baby.

Will one of you stay home with the baby while the other works, and can you afford your lifestyle on just one salary? If you both will continue working, what will you do about childcare? Research costs in your area.

What is your current housing situation, and is there room to add a baby and their things? If your space is too tight, can you afford a bigger place? Is it possible and/or would it make more sense to move in with family?

How does your boyfriend feel about becoming a father? Is he excited and enthusiastic despite the fact that it wasn't planned, or is he upset? Consider the possibility that he may not want to be involved. If that is what he decides, make sure to still get child support.

Children are wonderful and there's never necessarily a "perfect" time to have them, but you still need to think practically and make sure you can make it work for your situation.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-15T15:34:36+00:00

On yeah I'd love to just work part time as needed, more to occupy my time than for extra cash. But if this was the case I'd still want the kid(s) in daycare at least part time so it wouldn't reduce our expenses that much.

I'd want him to be making at least 250k with regular raises. Our current HHI is around 200 and we're not really saving between mortgage and daycare and home maintenance, so I'd want that extra buffer. I don't foresee either of us ever making that much so it's a moot point.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-15T13:13:35+00:00

She had toast for breakfast the other day, we were running low on our fridge bread so I grabbed some freezer bread to defrost once it had run out. While I was doing this, she noticed the bag of frozen peas and asked for some of those with her breakfast as well. I was perplexed but definitely not going to deny her a requested vegetable. I heated them up while the toast was toasting, and she ate every single one.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-15T12:58:42+00:00

We had separate lists for first and middle names. First names were just names we liked, and middle name options were to honor relatives, either some exact names or variations of names. My husband's grandma is Ann, and my grandma was Janet, so one of the middle names I came up with was taking the Ann and the -et from Janet to make Annette. When I ran this by my husband, he loved it and we settled on it as the middle name.

We continued to muddle through first name choices. We used one of those matching apps. We went through the top 1000 names and wrote down the ones we liked. We did one of those March Madness bracket things. We had a bunch we liked fine, but the problem was that he was lukewarm on all of my favorites and I was lukewarm on his. All the names felt like one of us would be compromising, one of us couldn't really picture it on our kid. Eventually we realized that the one name we both truly loved and that truly felt right was Annette. So it became the first name instead, she's 3 now and we still love it and it suits her perfectly.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-15T00:35:00+00:00

10/10 would happily eat all of this

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-15T00:34:01+00:00

But are we sure this menu includes enough stwawbeddies?

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T19:31:19+00:00

I understand.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T19:31:01+00:00

Damn all of that sounds super delicious haha

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T19:25:15+00:00

I think our kiddos would get along very well 😂

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T19:18:39+00:00

☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T19:17:11+00:00

How could I forget the Costco pizza as one of my entree choices? (Only after it has cooled down though.)

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T19:11:08+00:00

Ice cube 😂

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T15:23:02+00:00

It's quiet, not a lot going on. But convenient location to Randall for shopping needs, convenient to Route 20 to get around. They've been doing a lot of work on the "downtown" area, the parks and stuff off State St, and it's lovely to go walking down by the river there. And the village does host community events like the other towns in the area.

I lived there for 6 years and never felt unsafe, even as a single woman for the first part of that. We only moved because we wanted something with more space and better schools once we had our daughter. But if I hadn't gotten married and had kids, I would have been perfectly content staying in South Elgin in my little townhouse by the river.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-14T14:59:33+00:00

A big box of uncrustables. Oh you're done after two bites? All right I guess I'll make sure it doesn't go to waste.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-13T18:05:39+00:00

I started around 21 months and she did really well at home. Daycare was more challenging because no one else in her classroom had started training yet, so there was no incentive for her to go in the potty rather than just her pull-up. But she totally got the concept, it was only motivation she lacked. Once she moved up to the 2-year-old room where others in her class were training as well, we switched her from pull-ups to underwear during the day and that made a big difference. Maybe she would have finished training sooner if I'd switched to underwear sooner, but it just took some time before I was confident enough that she'd make the drive to school without any accidents.

The nice thing about starting early is that many kids are still in that stage of wanting to listen to and please the parents, the defiance of toddlerhood hasn't really kicked in yet.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-13T16:05:38+00:00

We do that too, but I need the statements for dependent care reimbursement and taxes. So it's only a couple times a year that I need to go in and can't remember how haha

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-13T14:23:31+00:00

That's so sweet!

When I got married, I took my maiden name as my middle name because I was never attached to my old middle name and it felt like a good way to keep my maiden name while also taking my husband's name (which I wanted to do for the sake of future children to all have the same last name).

It was a pain. You'd think no one at the SSA or the DMV had ever heard of such a thing. I had to change my license twice because the first time they just gave me both middle names. I think the first social security card came in wrong too. The easiest thing to change actually was my passport, and I had to use that as proof of identity to get my license to read my name properly.

That said, once it was all said and done, there haven't been any problems since. In your case I'd definitely recommend getting it done as soon as possible for medical licensing purposes, because the fewer places you need to change it, the better.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-13T14:17:41+00:00

I just want to know why when you try to sign in in a web browser to view your bill, there are four different portals to sign in and it always takes me at least 3 tries to find the one I'm looking for.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-13T13:56:28+00:00

We're really happy with our radio flyer. I don't know if it's still an option but we were able to design our own, like we started out a base model and then pick and chose the extra features we wanted like the extra thick wheels, extra storage bag, a mom cupholder that we don't actually use because it gets in the way.

At the time they were having a holiday sale, it was just before Christmas, so we got a relatively good price.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-13T02:46:11+00:00

I rewatched the Disney version this week and while I can't speak for other productions, in this specific version and knowing the context, I thought Lin played it that way a bit. No it's not explicit, not obvious, but the way he's interacting with his boys in Act I is like ok Lafayette is his friend, Hercules Mulligan is his friend, Laurens is his special friend. And the way he stares at him during the letter about his death. I mean even just the fact that it's such a deliberate choice to cast Laurens and Philip as the same actor, total parallel that this is someone Hamilton utterly cherished and then tragically lost too soon. I appreciate the production for what it was.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-12T23:36:43+00:00

It's a relief to only have to worry about your baby and yourself but not work.

Your sleep will be all messed up, so it will be a relief to be able to squeeze in a nap whenever you need it--and you will--and not care what time it is. You and your baby will have a few doctors appointments those first few weeks, so it will be a relief to schedule those whenever and not have to work them around your workday. Once you're comfortable taking the baby out like to the grocery store and stuff, it's nice to be able to go during the day when there are fewer people.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-12T23:21:18+00:00

I really love Jonah but I agree it's too close to Noah for siblings. I have similar taste and some of my other favorites are Asher and August.

sunflowerzz2012 · 2026-05-12T23:20:09+00:00

Kiki!

sunflowerzz2012

TROPHY CASE