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JustJay

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It's funny.  I was raised pretty poorly by my parents.  Really, my grandparents did more since my parents were of that generation that thought that working to put a roof over kids' heads, clothes on their backs, and food in their bellies was enough.  They eventually split up when they decided their own happiness was more important than mine and my siblings'.  I say all this to illustrate that I often have some insecurity and unsureness about being a parent.  And I need to tell you that if, at the end of the night, you ever sit and wonder if you did enough for your kid that day, or if you're doing right by then, then guess what: you did do enough and you are doing right by them.  Because I can tell you that shitty parents don't have those thoughts. 

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I don't know if I'd totally be on board with that, piece-of-shit-parent-wise.  I got a lot of the same scent from mine that you did your own, it sounds like, and I also have always had the impression my father was the sort of person to internally grind on bad decisions (probably where I get the same habit).  Then again, his coping mechanism for that discomfort was, and is, to be snide and superficial and make everything about himself (while simultaneously tearing down anything and anyone who makes him look like a buffoon...sound familiar to anyone?), so it's all but impossible to feel the least bit sorry for him, no matter how much he might beat himself up for things.

So, I kind of agree with what you said, but I think there can be cases that go against the grain.  Bad parents seem to want carbon copies of themselves, and good parents want their kids to outstrip them, even if that means being left behind in some way.  I grew up with an object lesson in what kind of person not to be, so I had a bad parent who accidentally seems like a good one to outside observers.  *shrug*

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Nah man, I get you.  And I probably shouldn't have said it in such absolutes.  Maybe bad parents still do have those thoughts but then they find some way to brush them aside, I don't know.  I guess I mean that if you had bad parents, just do what you can to be better than them!  :)

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I find myself blessed in that I was adopted a few days old and raised by 2 very driven yet loving parents. My relationship with my father was contentious after the passing of my mother when I was 16 but I was always in awe  of the man he was. He never understood my love of comics, cartoons and what not. He was a serious guy who worked hard, graduated Ivy League 2 years ahead of when he was supposed to (with a double major no less) and then ended making money on Wall St. to support me, my sister and mother (and my mother worked too, she being Price Waterhouse after graduating Columbia). I didn't comprehend what a private school education meant when I was younger and how lucky I was to get that kind of education (and by the time I could appreciate it, I kinda had pissed my opportunities after that away)

James

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  • 2 weeks later...

Grumpy parent opinion of the day: Adults who use the "family restroom" all by themselves, presumably to have  more privacy and a cleaner bathroom-going experience, can fuck right off and hopefully catch ass-devouring super staph.  Fuck those people.

 

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9 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

The error there is "presumably".  As someone with his share of GI problems, the best bathroom is often classified as "within reach".

Well the family restroom is usually located right next to the others, but you do have a point.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My 2 year old has become quite the Nick Bockwinkel at stalling her bed time. 

Can barely get her to brush her teeth in the morning. Takes a good 10 minutes at night. Then goes looking for her teddy at the other end of the house, before wanting the same story a good 3-4 times. Then another round of cuddles. Then the music CD changed. And more milk.

Heard stories of kids deliberately throwing up or filling their diaper to avoid it. Pulls that shit, and I'm enforcing the title changes hands on a count out or deliberate DQ rule.

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11 hours ago, RolandTHTG said:

My 2 year old has become quite the Nick Bockwinkel at stalling her bed time. 

Can barely get her to brush her teeth in the morning. Takes a good 10 minutes at night. Then goes looking for her teddy at the other end of the house, before wanting the same story a good 3-4 times. Then another round of cuddles. Then the music CD changed. And more milk.

Heard stories of kids deliberately throwing up or filling their diaper to avoid it. Pulls that shit, and I'm enforcing the title changes hands on a count out or deliberate DQ rule.

My daughter is 4 and let me tell you...the delays are still happening.  I try not to blow up but damn, sometimes I'm like, "WHY DOES IT TAKE AN HOUR TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE??"

Also, re bedtime routines: don't get used to any bedtime routine, because it will change and change often.  Hopefully for the better.  Knock on wood, but I remember having to read a stack of specific books a specific way for like 90 minutes when she was young.  It's a lot easier now but I understand that could be totally different in a month!

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My daughter is 10 and there are still days where the words "I have to poop!" magically appear after I say it's time to get ready for bed.  Or once she's in bed she think of five separate things she forgot to tell throughout the day, then needs a hug and a kiss after each one.  I keep telling myself it's not that big of a deal because there will come a day where I'll be lucky to get a "Goodnight dad" out of her.

 

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So I took Sandy to the store with me to get something to drink. I get what I wanted and go to the counter and start talking with the guy who owns the place. I pay and me and Sandy leave. Now Sandy is in her little truck and we're heading home when I notice she has something in both hands. Turns out she grabbed 2 Payday bars from the lower shelf while I was talking to the owner. I turn around with Sandy in tow and return the candy bars. He just laughs and gives her a ring pop

James

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On 7/23/2019 at 11:10 PM, RolandTHTG said:

My 2 year old has become quite the Nick Bockwinkel at stalling her bed time. 

Can barely get her to brush her teeth in the morning. Takes a good 10 minutes at night. Then goes looking for her teddy at the other end of the house, before wanting the same story a good 3-4 times. Then another round of cuddles. Then the music CD changed. And more milk.

Heard stories of kids deliberately throwing up or filling their diaper to avoid it. Pulls that shit, and I'm enforcing the title changes hands on a count out or deliberate DQ rule.

Really you need to start to worry when she starts using Bockwinkel's King of the Mountain tactics to keep you out of the bedroom. 

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19 hours ago, J.H. said:

So I took Sandy to the store with me to get something to drink. I get what I wanted and go to the counter and start talking with the guy who owns the place. I pay and me and Sandy leave. Now Sandy is in her little truck and we're heading home when I notice she has something in both hands. Turns out she grabbed 2 Payday bars from the lower shelf while I was talking to the owner. I turn around with Sandy in tow and return the candy bars. He just laughs and gives her a ring pop

James

LOOOL I've had the same thing happen with my little shoplifter.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Statement: I'm kind of terrified of my daughter
Explanation: The Wife and I were chilling with Sandy in the bedroom few days ago. It was quality family ssnuggle time. Then one of our cats meanders in. This is "Sandy's Cat". His name is little bit but I think he's an asshole and so to me he is lil'Shit.  So Lil'Shit slinks on to the bed with us and suddenly Sandy flops on top of him. Janice and I spring in to action and start counting a 3 count since The Baby Wrestling World Championship is under 24/7 rules. Sandy goes all heel and lets the cat up at 2. I start laughing BUT THEN..Sandy grabs the cat by the right front arm and then wraps her legs around the cat's neck and starts to squeeze. Janice immediately tries to get Sandy to break the hold. I'm too stunned as I start thinking out loud "Did she just put the cat in Gogoplata?"

James

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On 7/29/2019 at 2:07 PM, J.H. said:

So I took Sandy to the store with me to get something to drink. I get what I wanted and go to the counter and start talking with the guy who owns the place. I pay and me and Sandy leave. Now Sandy is in her little truck and we're heading home when I notice she has something in both hands. Turns out she grabbed 2 Payday bars from the lower shelf while I was talking to the owner. I turn around with Sandy in tow and return the candy bars. He just laughs and gives her a ring pop

James

 

On 7/30/2019 at 9:58 AM, Technico Support said:

LOOOL I've had the same thing happen with my little shoplifter.

For the dad's and their little kleptos.

 

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  • 3 months later...
13 hours ago, Robert C said:

Found out how hard my four year old son can hit a wiffle ball today. On the one hand I’m kinda proud of him. On the other hand it’s been three plus hours and I’d really like for things to stop hurting 

Sounds similar to the way I felt at my daughter's first soccer game when she was ten.   A girl from the other team kept fouling my kid by throwing elbows on the inside while scrambling for the ball and I was irate.  No yellow cards or anything.

So the next time the girl dribbles near my kid, my daughter goes into full street justice mode and slides in cleats first at the other girl's shins.  Kid goes down hard and my daughter gets up and starts walking towards the sidelines because she already knows she's getting a red card.

On the one hand, I am proud of my kid for not taking any shit from this obvious bully trying to intimidate her.. 

On the other hand, the girl on the ground bleeding from the calves is some other person's daughter and I'd be pretty pissed of if that were my child out there.

Speaking of which, my daughter will turn seventeen next month.  Someone is getting older and I am fairly certain it's not me.

It's funny.  I got a certified letter from the court reminding me that my financial responsibility to pay child support will officially come to an end when she turns eighteen next year and I thought to myself, "I will have only begun to financially support my daughter by the time she turns eighteen.  The ex, her new husband, and I will still have college, vehicle,  and far more expensive financial things to work out on our daughter's behalf."

Edited by J.T.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Patterns of Behanior...

So Sandy is moving along nicely as she enters month 18 in a week I'm always in awe of her learning routines to form certain patterns of behavior. It started with her morning routine. She gets a pureed fruit pouch followed by her bottle then she gets a pancake for breakfast. The thing is if she sees me bringing the fruit pouch she makes a beeline for the sofa. She cclimbs on the sofa and has her hands ready for the pouch. She always finishes her pouchie and if she wanders off tyhe couch before her bottle the moment she sees the bottle she gets back in her spot of the sofa. The same applies to her pancake.

In the afternoon she gets a snack (maple crunchies or Cheez-Its)and she knows to receive it on the blankie laid out on the floor. The new part of her routine is when dinner time comes I get her high chair out and unfold it in the living room. While I get her dinner she now crawls into the chair on her own (hasn't figured to strap herself into the chair yet but that is going to happen sooner rather than later).

She has designated places to receive her meals and I didn't do much to encourage this. She determined these places on her own. She doesn't make much mess most times (at least not until she has her dinner pudding).

I'm so in awe of her and feel like I'm not messing up as much I thought I would asa parent.

77360784_10156814708282951_1149560645453

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  • 1 month later...

My 4 year old daughter clearly watches too many toy videos.  She just told me she'd rather have these figures as opposed to those figures because the ones she wants have more articulation.  Yes, she literally said "articulation."  Sweet Jesus.

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Best part of today's wretched DC commute day was randomly singing the Muppet Babies theme, hitting "Fozzie's jokes are..." and having the toddler in the other room, for the first time, randomly shout back "WOCKA WOCKA." She'll finish phrases she memorized but I wasn't expecting this one.

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Read through this all, at some point will contribute, but to introduce my DADness...

Two kids from a previous marriage - 14.5yo daughter who is a brilliant asshole Swifty multi-instrumentalist and two years class president in a row; extremely extroverted and riddled with anxiety because all her friends are rich and we're not. 13yo son who's the sweetest kiddo but wracked by depression and is barely making it through school right now, very introverted but still stylish AF.

From marriage part duex, a 1.5 year old son born with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), basically brain damage from lack of oxygen (lesion on the placenta is the cause it seems). Very developmentally delayed, incredibly sweet and wonderful but still closer to having a 3-4mo and cannot sit up, let alone crawl or walk like most neurotypical kiddos. Both his siblings love him SO MUCH, and me and the wife do as well but it has been an incredibly hard year and a half. 

So that's the background, and when it's time to say what's up in DAD-dom, y'all can take this in mind ❤️

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm at work tonight and my wife sends me this text:

He (5yo son) wanted me to put my jammies on and I went to the bedroom and closed the door and started changing.

He opens the door a little and says "Julius (our cat) wants you. He'll probably attack your boobs though."

I'm like "What?? Why??"

He said "He'll probably think they're lasers or something. You've got little bumps on them."

He shrugs lightly and casually walks out the door.

Edited by MonteCarl
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  • 2 weeks later...

The family went to Starbucks the over the weekend after we'd finished grocery shopping. We place order order, and are waiting for our drinks. All of a sudden my ten year old starts giggling like a lunatic. I ask her what's so funny and she replies "I can't tell you." I just shurg and keep waiting.

 

We get our drinks, and it turns out that they barista had written my kid's name on both the cup for her drink and for mine. And that's what she thought was so damn funny.

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  • 5 months later...

My son has a favorite stuffed rabbit.  Because he's inherited an inability to name things from both of his parents, the rabbit's name is Bunny.  Anyway, he's decided that July 8 is Bunny's birthday.  Over the last week this has somehow become a bigger and bigger deal.  A few days ago my wife and I looked at each other and said "we're going to have to take the day off, aren't we".  So we are.  I felt kind of silly at first, but at this point fuck it. 

He's had a crappy year like most kids.  He's an only kid of two only kids, and he's been stuck at home with only his two parents that still somehow have to do their full time jobs.  He's barely seen any of his friends since March.  He probably won't go back to daycare, and will likely not ever see most of the kids he's been in class with for four years again.  

In normal circumstances I would never take a vacation day for this.  But this thing is making him happier than he's been in months, so hell yes I'm going to take the day off for the rabbit's birthday.

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