tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post7065354645546524706..comments2023-10-21T03:54:12.029-04:00Comments on A Gift Universe: Three and oneSheilahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-15112625264691879642013-07-29T22:05:15.594-04:002013-07-29T22:05:15.594-04:00If I had childfree friends right down the road, th...If I had childfree friends right down the road, they would totally be over here all the time. Sadly ... I don't have a whole lot of friends within an hour, with or without kids.<br /><br />I should look up that website. I'd be curious to see if anyone here uses it.Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-64533862758405358902013-07-24T15:30:42.562-04:002013-07-24T15:30:42.562-04:00It didn't take long for the angry peeing phase...It didn't take long for the angry peeing phase to end - maybe a few months, max. But we had to stop changing them immediately and start handing them cloths to clean up behind themselves. <br /><br />We did end up changing them within the hour, and of course we did have to clean behind them, but that seemed to go a long way towards communicating that defiant peeing was in no one's interest.<br /><br />The angry throwing thing still goes on. It's decreased but for Son 2, not going to crazytown when he's upset is going to be a lifelong effort. What helps with that is again, having him clean his own messes, and simply getting older and wanting to not be "that" guy. He's Prince Charming when he's happy. <br /><br />I know the community living question was for your other friend, but...<br /><br />We recently started using Nextdoor.com in my community and it's been great. I like that the same technology that broke us apart is helping us get back together. I do live in a very friendly neighborhood to start with (YAY) but Nextdoor has opened up more possibilities. <br /><br />If I lived anywhere near you, I'd help, and that's just from getting to know you on-line. If you are anything in real life like you are here, you ought to be able to build a community of caring parents/people to share the effort. <br /><br />And don't be afraid to ask child-free female friends if they would like to help - sometimes they are only childfree due to having no appropriate partner and cherish the chance to participate in the life of a child. I know I did. <br /><br />The little boy I looked after in my mid-30s(for free - because I wanted a kid and was single and it just wasn't going to happen that way) is 15 now, and is still my friend! I had a friend who did this for my oldest boy for a few years. She moved away, but it brought her GREAT joy to be part of his life when she could. <br /><br />Hugs to you. Your boys are beautiful!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-71781822740453974062013-07-23T23:05:27.721-04:002013-07-23T23:05:27.721-04:00Thanks, Tiffany!
Momsomniac, how long did it take...Thanks, Tiffany!<br /><br />Momsomniac, how long did it take for them to grow out of it? I should have said, clean cloth diapers ... he hasn't tried to dump dirty ones, thank goodness! Though he did poop on the couch last week, but I don't think it was on purpose. :P<br /><br />If you figure out the secret of community living, I want to know. I've tried getting to know my neighbors, but they don't seem to want to know me. And my friends live far away. I started a Facebook group for exchanging favors, but nobody uses it. I guess no one wants to admit they have needs. It's a very shameful thing these days to admit you don't have it all together.<br /><br />My first tentative step has been this: when I'm out and about, when I see the pitying looks (I get that a lot) and people start offering to carry that for me, get that door for me, put the cart back for me ... I'm going to SAY YES. Not because I need it, because I don't -- I know how to manage with these kids. But because if I always say no, they'll stop offering, and then maybe they won't offer help to some other poor mom who DOES need an extra pair of hands.<br /><br />It's a start. Although it's embarrassing to me because it makes me feel like they think I can't handle having two kids. I just have to suck it up and put on my grateful face. Really, I am thankful people here are so helpful and I should let them do it.Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-67576008973109181822013-07-23T18:13:06.721-04:002013-07-23T18:13:06.721-04:00+JMJ+
Your comment about having a nanny turning ...+JMJ+ <br /><br />Your comment about having a nanny turning into a class thing hits home for me. Almost literally! My family has employed at least one woman who took the job so that she could provide for her own children; she lived with us and wired the money back home to them. <br /><br />I also ache for community living--or what I've started calling "shared experience"--but I don't know what to do about it any more than you do. Well, I'm reconsidering my decision to have only two witnesses at my wedding so that my family won't be in my hair. Does that count? ;-) Not that there's even a groom on the horizon or anything . . . <br /><br />This is the article I told you about: <br /><br />http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/dont-diy/Enbrethilielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03414765854670926854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-20086007301035511792013-07-23T16:03:41.309-04:002013-07-23T16:03:41.309-04:00I don't know if this is comforting at all, but...I don't know if this is comforting at all, but the peeing in defiance thing was common for #1 and #2 at my house at age, you guessed it, 3. #2 also throws things. We'll give him back his beloved stuffed hippo at the end of the day if he throws it down the stairs, but if he rips all the sheets off his bed, he either remakes the bed or sleeps on the itchy mattress pad. We do not help -at all. We have carried dirty diapers out to the trash for over a year though - I would not want to risk THAT. <br /><br />We are just about done with diapers! Shew!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-47809367786970103612013-07-22T09:08:56.378-04:002013-07-22T09:08:56.378-04:00Your hair looks so pretty!Your hair looks so pretty!Tiffanyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05772700828819881141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-13483073870993568592013-07-22T09:00:55.445-04:002013-07-22T09:00:55.445-04:00I would like to read that article -- it might make...I would like to read that article -- it might make me feel less like a failure!<br /><br />Husbands are wonderful for helping out at home, and it's great for kids to spend time with their dads. But expecting one's husband to take up all the slack is setting HIM up to feel like a failure too, because he's gone a minimum of eight hours a day and has to come home to a litany of all the things that went wrong because he wasn't there.<br /><br />So yes, "alloparents" or helpers would sure help. The trouble with nannies, though, is who's taking care of the nanny's kids? I don't want it to be a class thing, where the rich children get two moms and the poor children get none. Extended family is better. We see huge amounts of depression both in teenagers and in the elderly. Could it be because they don't have enough to do? I think there is something seriously wrong with a world where I can see, commenting on the same internet thread, women saying "oh, poor me, I am single and what I wouldn't give to hold a baby for a few hours in the evening," and women saying, "oh, poor me, I have three children and what I wouldn't give for someone to hold my baby for a few hours in the evening"!<br /><br />I know when I was a teenager, it was my little brother who pulled me out of severe depression. Just the thought that I was NEEDED by a small person made all the difference. And my mom felt *her* life was saved in turn by having me around to share the work, even on the side of the other things I was doing like schoolwork.<br /><br />And yet, with all my talk about extended family, what have I done about it? We live in a different state from either family, and haven't so much as applied to a job in the places where any of them live. We want to live here, and I guess that trumped living next door to my parents. Hardly a week goes by that my mom and I don't moan about how nice it would be to be able to trade off kids, but she wants to live in Washington and I want to live in Virginia, so there we are.<br /><br />I don't know how to restore this sort of community living. I do know what we use today to replace it: machines. From the baby swing when your arms get tired, to the TV so you can shower without your toddler destroying anything. And then we wonder why people grow up caring more for machines than people!Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-32737853097907920672013-07-21T22:30:23.361-04:002013-07-21T22:30:23.361-04:00+JMJ+
Gosh, Sheila. I don't really know what...+JMJ+ <br /><br />Gosh, Sheila. I don't really know what to say. I'm happy that you've found your equilibrium again, of course, but I have no practical advice or even similar experiences to share. And I don't want this thread to resemble a Facebook debate timesuck. ;-) <br /><br />But this might be relevant and interesting to you, so I'll go ahead . . . Last week or so, Mrs. Darwin wrote about feeling really exhausted now that she is pregnant with Baby #6, and a commenter left her a link to a post which compared modern housewives' exhaustion to the ease with which their counterparts from 100 years ago ran their homes. The writer argued that the nuclear family model, while characteristic of the American ideal of "rugged individualism," really <i>will</i> exhaust women who can't ask for help. In the past (and in other cultures today) women have helped each other and got by; these days, a woman is more likely to ask her husband than another woman for help. <br /><br />Now, I didn't agree with the writer's conclusion that deviating from the women-helping-women model and asking your husband to pitch in is a bad thing. But coming from another culture, where it's still quite common to have live-in help, I have seen what a HUGE difference it makes for a full-time housewife to have an extra set of hands just for the housework, or for watching the children for a few hours so that she can do that housework. The stereotype of a woman with a nanny is someone who doesn't want to spend time with her children, but I've seen some very hands-on mothers who still want a nanny around because a full night's sleep is no joke. It's not an abdication of parenting, but a fully functional tag-team. <br /><br />In any case, I think that we can all agree that housework is simply epic, and if it had been the thirteenth labour of Hercules, it would have been what had finally broken him. <br /><br />PS -- Does Marko's shirt read, "Seize the sleep?" ;-) That's <i>my</i> motto these days! Enbrethilielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03414765854670926854noreply@blogger.com