u/DueEntertainer0

This post is to encourage anyone whose child is not doing much independent play! I tried every trick in the book for the first 4 years, you name it.. I really felt like it was so important for my kid to play on her own. But she rarely did. She needed an audience and a playmate! So I played with her as often as I could, then when I needed to get stuff done I either set up activities for her or turned on the TV, which I didn’t feel great about, but it wasn’t the worst thing.

Anyway, she just turned 5 a month ago and all of a sudden she’s had this explosion of imagination and she can play with anything (legos, Barbies, cars, etc) for literally an hour or more. She makes up stories with them and does all the dialogue and she’s so happy.

I expected this switch to happen much earlier (like age 2 or 3) but that’s okay…better late than never!

I hope this encourages someone to not feel hopeless about independent play!

I have two girls and the older one can basically spend all day in 90° heat and be fine.

The younger one pretty quickly gets bright red cheeks, sweaty hair, etc.

I make sure she’s hydrated and we don’t stay out too long in weather like this, but we are entering summer where it’s hard to avoid the heat and I don’t want to keep my kids inside all day.

My question is, is it safe for her to play outside even though she gets red and sweaty? And is there anything I can do to help cool her off?

TLDR: told my husband to stop gossiping at work because it’s risking his job in this economy

Today my husband was telling me about a conversation he had with his boss, let’s call her Jenny.

Jenny sat him down and said “what are your thoughts about Bill?” Bill is Jenny’s boss (so my husband’s boss’ boss). He said he was super brutally honest with her about all these issues he’s seen lately and they had like a 40 minute conversation all about Bill.

Already I was feeling sweaty and nervous when he said this. I said something quick like “wow you really were brutal, huh?” And then I went to take a shower. In the shower I was thinking that I need to say more.

So I went back to him and said I had more time to think about it, and I don’t think you should have said all of that about Bill. First of all, Bill believed in you and gave you a chance and gave you a big promotion lately. Secondly, you never know what will get back to Bill and you never want to talk about someone in a way that you wouldn’t want everyone to hear. Basically their company has a culture of gossiping all the time and my husband thinks it’s no big deal, but I’ve personally been stabbed in the back too many times so I never talk smack about people like that.

I asked if maybe he should go back to Jenny and apologize for saying those things and reiterate that he’s thankful for his role and for Bill for promoting him. He said he would do that tomorrow and he agreed with me.

Part of my concern is that my husband has a really good job as an executive, making really good money but unfortunately his company is trying to save money anywhere they can right now … and because of that I feel like he needs to play it really safe.

Do you think the advice I gave him was good/valid?