u/knitlitgeek

We are in a phase right now where my 7yo has to wait an hour while the 6yo does karate before his class starts. One of the other kids in a similar situation brings his iPad and whenever he is here my son is completely attached to this kids shoulder the entire time. When this kid isn’t here, my son will chat with me or read a book he checked out from the library. It’s making me irrationally annoyed. No issue or judgement whatsoever about this other kid having his iPad, it’s just that the way its mere presence in the room affects my son makes me so sad.

Any time my kid gets attention about anything he immediately stops doing it. So all that positive praise parenting advice has continuously backfired spectacularly for us. It feels so unnatural to ignore my kid’s successes, but he genuinely seems to hate the positive attention.

On the other hand, he seems to seek negative attention at times. Annoying his sister, refusing to do basic life tasks unless being micromanaged and stared at the entire time, or relentlessly picking fights with everyone about everything if he’s in a bad mood, offended by some imagined slight, or was told no earlier that day.

This attention dance with him is killing me. He’s 7yo by the way. Any advice?

Being a stay at home mom, I get all the solicitors when the weather warms up. Pest control, solar, driveway pavers, more pest control, roofers, home power washers, even more pest control. Seriously, I will sign up for the first pest control company that sells a plan to eliminate pest control solicitors.

I don't have it in me to be rude like slam the door in their face, so I've been trying to find better ways to have fun with it. A pest control salesman appeared on my door today. I gave him every polite indication that I wasn't interested, but he wasn't interested in my disinterest. So I thought whatever, the kids are at school and I've got time to kill.

He's going on about the ants in my yard and at some point I say, "yeah, I mean they're ants. They live outside." The look on his face was priceless. Like he had never in his life considered someone wouldn't want every "pest" on Earth immediately incinerated on sight. I wonder if he would have run away had I got on my soapbox about how humans are the real vermin on the Earth, and I'm the one living on top of these ant's home. After a pause the guy of course tied it back to getting them before they're in your house. I should have told him how I don't even bother the bugs in my house unless one has sent my husband into a full blown panic attack and he's annoying me about it. Instead I got boring and went back to I'm not looking to switch companies, I can't commit today, etc, etc, until he left.

I do have pest control, but it's really just to prevent mice shitting in my silverware drawer, and to be fair I'd violently evict any species of roommate that was shitting in my silverware drawer.

Has anyone utilized their happiness guarantee when using frames you already owned? Do they only offer an exchange/fix or will they still refund? Do they take the lenses out and give your frames back?

I'm not happy with their reaction to my son saying his new glasses didn't feel right and looked weird when he turned his head. These were the same prescription he currently has no issue with, just in a bigger frame. They basically said it's because the lens is bigger and get used to it. They didn't even offer to check that his PD had been measured correctly or that the lenses were made correctly to spec. We've been loyal to them because they can get his +9.5 lenses thinner than most other shops, but I don't really feel like going another round with them being so dismissive of an issue.

My daughter is about to turn 6yo and I was thinking about gift ideas. For Christmas someone had gotten her a dress up kit that came with some “kid” makeup, you know jarring bright blue and orange colors with a metric ton of glitter. She loved playing with it and was very sad the other day that it was empty.

I was thinking I could get her some more neutral and natural looking stuff to replace it. I’m just not sure how age appropriate this idea is overall. Surely if these awful play palettes are ok then some more subtle stuff would be?? I’m not a makeup girl, so I’m a little out of my element here, but want to support her girly-ness when possible haha. Her dad is on board with the idea.

I was thinking a neutral/pink shimmer eyeshadow palette, a face “multi-stick” shimmer blush thing, pink lip gloss and a light red hydrating “lip shine”. Am I going to get judged to hell for her wearing something like this if she leaves the house?

I can’t take it. The hysterics. The theatrics. The decibels. The sheer amount of time it takes. My kids aren’t getting bathed nearly as often as they should because I just can’t take it. How do people bathe their children regularly without losing their minds?

My daughter was screaming so loud in the shower today that my husband came in *from outside* to be like wtf is going on? To be fair I had already had enough for the day, so when she again complained that the vaguely-warmer-than-ice water was “way too hot” I may have turned it all the way down until she agreed that maybe a tiny bit warm was ok.

Then 7yo, who wanted to go to the pool three days ago, started by protesting that he might *get wet* while *taking a bath*. The fucking horror!!! He stayed in for an hour pretending that he couldn’t possibly figure out how to get the back of his hair wet. Surely he’s not actually that fucking stupid, right?? I try to stay hands off with him because it’s dangerous to be physically fighting in the bath, so instead it takes an hour+ every time. I hang out in the dining room next to the bathroom unless he calls me in, which is usually at least a dozen times whining and asking what he is supposed to do next. Then he ignores my answer and continues staring at the wall, so I leave again. Ugh. Is this just a terrible losing strategy for bath time? Should I be dunking him kicking and screaming since he’s usually already shouting about being wet *in the bath* anyway?

Our entire household is traumatized by basic hygiene at this point and I don’t know how to fix it.