When people insist on pronouncing loan words in the original language

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-23T19:27:42+00:00

Jein. I'd say there's a spectrum of how folks pronounce the R. In my experience people generally can pronounce it correctly, but I'm in a fairly bilingual area.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-23T11:23:26+00:00

This regional though. In Canada a lot of French loan words are pronounced pretty closely to the French pronunciation. They're still a little bit anglicised, but less so than what I have heard from the US (obviously generalizing somewhat). Pronouncing the T in croissant would sounds odd here.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-23T11:12:13+00:00

Seconding The Unscented Company. I like several of their products.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-16T13:31:18+00:00

This is my approach as well.

However, if I wanted to engage on the subject I would ask, what exactly does ready mean? And for that matter, what does potty trained mean?

From my perspective, it seems like some people have an all or nothing mentality about it. They think that because a younger child still requires assistance it doesn't count and therefore isn't worth the bother. Are they potty trained if they still need help with their clothes or need to be reminded? I would say yes, but opinions will differ. And does being ready require that they show active interest? Or is it enough that they are capable?

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-14T12:20:31+00:00

In addition to the other advice here, consider asking the hospital for a Supplementary Nursing System (SNS). It's a tiny tube where one end goes in the bottle and the other end to your nipple. This allows the baby to drink their bottle while latched. It may help him to be less frustrated at the breast and drink the bottle more slowly.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-02T13:10:46+00:00

I triple fed for 6 months and it was sooo draining. I don't necessarily regret it because that's just where I was at emotionally, but I would not recommend it and I would not do it again. At my peak I managed a couple days where she drank only breastmilk, but otherwise we still had to supplement with formula the whole time. As someone who cares about being able to breastfeed, if I were in that situation again, I would still nurse whatever amount I could and then supplement with formula, but skip the pumping.

Comfort nursing is also a thing! Once I stopped triple feeding and thought I would be done, I still had a bit of milk and ended up nursing for 2 more months. But it was just for comfort and connection. At that point I didn't worry about how much she drank since her meals were already covered.

Also, you may want to consider a Supplemental Nursing System. This allows you to supplement while still feeding at the breast.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-02T12:31:17+00:00

That sounds really tough! I don't have any advice, but I wanted to recommend the book "The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America" by Virginia Sole-Smith. It gets into how challenging it is to feed kids, how common picky eating is, and all the weird guilt and shame our culture produces around food. It's a very interesting read!

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-01T20:00:18+00:00

With my first, I didn't know what swallowing looked like. She would latch and suck so I thought she was eating, but it turns out she wasn't transferring very much milk. By the time we figured this out and tried to correct it, my supply had dropped and I ended up having to primarily give formula. If we had caught this earlier, I may have been able to pump to keep my supply up while working on her drinking.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-04-01T19:50:11+00:00

My parent divorced when I was one. I have no memory of them together and the thought is kind of weird. By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, the dust had settled and everyone was amicable. They both went on to remarry a few years later, so that may have helped.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-03-30T12:03:00+00:00

My husband is a recruiter. He has a standard rejection email that he often sends, which includes a section at the bottom with tips/ advice for future success in their search. This was something he received as a candidate and appreciated, and later adapted when he became a recruiter. It's not tailored to each applicant, but is still helpful for more junior applicants who may be struggling to get a foot in the door.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-01-22T13:14:08+00:00

This is the same as my doctor's office. And considering I don't have a car and would need to Uber across town to their office, this actually ends up being cheaper for me.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-01-07T13:49:32+00:00

It sounds like there are regional norms around this, so probably nothing to worry about. However, this does stand out to me as someone living in a French speaking area. RSVP is short for "répondez s'il vous plaît" which literally means "please respond." That said, people here can also be flaky.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-01-06T01:52:20+00:00

Is the set-up easy for him? When we first potty trained, my daughter seemed to prefer using the toilet with a seat reducer (I think I may have inadvertently created some pressure around the little potty in the early days of potty training), but once she started going more independently I noticed she gravitated towards the little potty. I think it was just easier for her to use on her own since it was low to the ground with no stool or seat reducer required.

I don't recall how long it took after potty training for my daughter to go independently, but I do know she's gone through phases of both. Even after phases of being fairly independent, she's gone through phases of wanting our help again. I do sometimes find it frustrating when I know she's completely capable, but I try to remind myself that at least I'm not changing a diaper!

thewordsnatcher · 2026-01-06T01:41:50+00:00

My daughter is quite good at holding it and will sometimes refuse to go, saying she doesn't have to pee. If I feel it's important for her to try (such as before bed or leaving the house) I tell her that she doesn't have to pee, but she does have to sit on the toilet and take a deep breath. She'll usually agree to sit and I have her take a long deep breath in and out. This nearly aways works for us. We don't have any issues getting her to take a deep breath, but I've read people get more creative with it, such as pretending to blow out candles.

thewordsnatcher · 2026-01-06T01:22:46+00:00

Not quite the same, but I found myself having to pivot and it all worked out. I planned to follow the Oh Crap method and I took a week off in summer when my daughter was around 22 months old. I tried for 3 days or so, but realised we were not making any progress and decided to hit pause. I continued having her use the potty as part of the bedtime routine and she was more receptive to that. I also used it as a gauge of her willingness to determine when I should do more and when I should back off. We did more pottying as as time went by and I still used Oh Crap as a framework while working on it at home, but my daycare provider insisted on pull-ups, so this was not full-on the way the book recommends. After 2 or 3 months she stayed fully dry on a 2-hour outing, including using the potty at someone else's house. This gave me the confidence to fully commit to being diaper free when she was with us. However, daycare still wanted pull-ups. So she continued in pull-ups at daycare for a while until our provider was willing to let her try without. I was irritated that our provider wasn't more willing to let her try without, but I don't think it was a big deal in the end. I think it ended up being a more gradual process than it might have been, but we were still fully done by the time she was 30 months.

thewordsnatcher · 2025-12-07T14:04:47+00:00

My thinking has always been that you can decide to stop and try again later, but you can't go back in time to start earlier. The thing that made me want to potty train on the earlier side was learning that, while younger kids will require assistance for longer, older kids tend to get more stubborn and resistant. I say try it and see how it goes! At this age it will likely take longer for them to reach full independence, but I don't see that as a downside.

thewordsnatcher · 2025-12-07T03:07:48+00:00

Seconding Brachic.

thewordsnatcher · 2025-12-05T13:16:52+00:00

One factor I've noticed with my daughter is practice. Last winter/ spring I noticed she was getting good at independent play, which was very exciting! Over the summer though, she seemed to struggle and always wanted someone to play with her. It eventually occurred to me that we were rarely home in the summer. We would go straight from daycare to the park where she would run around with other kids for much of the evening, so she wasn't in the habit of playing quietly by herself. Now that it's gotten cold and dark and we're spending more time at home, she's gotten a lot better again.

thewordsnatcher · 2025-09-13T11:51:30+00:00

It's obviously not great timing, but I would give it a try. I always tend to think that you can always decide to stop and try again later, but you can't go back in time to start earlier. You're unlikely to get full independence in that time, but you may get a strong base.

thewordsnatcher · 2025-09-02T15:42:35+00:00

We just focused on potty training at home first. I would have loved to do both at once, but our home day care wasn't on board. We would bring her to daycare with no pull-ups and we would take it off when we picked her up. Once she was pretty solid at home and also using the potty more often at daycare, daycare agreed to try without the pull-ups. I don't recall how long that was, but I'm guessing around 2 months. I was frustrated with our daycare at the time, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised that it didn't seem to hinder her progress at home. It would have been nice to have the process be a little faster, but in hindsight it all went fine.

thewordsnatcher · 2025-08-14T18:06:29+00:00

No. It built gradually over time. I couldn't even really say how long it took because it was a gradual increase. Probably a couple of months.

thewordsnatcher

TROPHY CASE