u/koplikthoughts

I actually have had three bouts of this in my left wrist.

Once in my early 20s when I was pushing around wheelchairs all day for a living… Lasted about 6 to 12 months.

Once in my early 30s after I had a baby and was lifting her… that lasted about 6 months and went away with a steroid injection.

In my mid 30s it struck again when I was doing a very wrist flexion heavy work out program with lots of planks and burpees and I was so upset. After almost a year of this, and not wanting to get another steroid injection, I was contemplating surgery.

Then I started a weight training program - specifically Caroline Girvan Iron series on YouTube. I had always done some light strength training before, like Pilates and cardio base strength training with lighter weights, but never anything where lifting power was the focus like with this program. For arms exercises, nothing crazy heavy either, only like 15-20 lb dumbbells (10 in some cases). After 6-8 weeks of doing it, maybe three days per week, my pain was gone and didn’t return.

I hate to say this, but I did kind of push through discomfort a little bit. Certain exercises like push-ups definitely hurt my wrist, but I just kind of worked through it IF the pain was manageable during the exercise. If the push-ups got to be really painful for the risk, I would just do them on my knees. But I would keep going. For the weight training exercises, I used as heavy as a weight as I could without my wrist deviating and putting pressure on that tendon. I would really have to focus on keeping my wrist stable to avoid hurting it.

I think it must have something to do with strengthening the muscles in my shoulders and forearms is helping to provide overall stability to my wrists? Anyway, I wanted to share weight training as a solution because I sympathize with all of you that this is a horrible condition.

Please tell me I’m not the only one. But ever since we started school, my daughter has been waking up at 5:30 AM (normal wake time has been around 6:30-7). We are all so exhausted in this house. Why is this happenin and does anyone have any advice?

We start bedtime at 7 and it is lights out at 7:30.

Maybe just a coincidence, but one night she got in trouble and had to go to bed early, so she was put down at 6:45, fell asleep at 7 and that was the one day she slept till around 7 the next morning!

My daughter is about 43 pounds and 47-48 inches tall. She’s honestly an inch or two away from maxing out her current car seats (Britax Marathon and Graco Extend to Fit) but… we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

My sister wants to pick her up from school occasionally. I feel like it would be foolish to buy another convertible car seat like the ones we have to use for such a short period of time that she will grow out of quickly. What would be good to buy now that we could use at least for the next year or two? i’m not really seeing many options for taller convertible car seats… So I’m almost thinking she’s going to need a high back booster?

My MIL loves my daughter but I try to keep a distance for my sanity. She has a bad habit of meddling, overwhelming, overstepping and sweetly manipulating to get what she wants. My husband is also driven nuts by her behavior so fortunately we are on the same page about keeping her at arm’s length.

On top of that we do not really trust her judgment. There was a major car seat safety betrayal issue we had with her. Another example - dinner at her house consists of Lucky Charms, ice cream and brownies. I am all for treats but it is like she has zero boundaries/limits for kids. My husband asked her to feed a balanced dinner for example, and he actually brings over meals when my daughter goes over there, and the meals remain untouched because my MIL gives her a bowl of ice cream before dinner. She is a fun grandma but when we need structure and routine my mom is the one when go to.

She has a habit of not taking social cues / soft, polite nos or allowing people to come to her. When she wants something she brings it up relentlessly until someone caves. “I will let you know if we want that” and phrases like that do not work.

When it came to her wanting my daughter to sleep at her house she first started off by asking my daughter, who was 3 at the time, loudly in front of me in a loud voice “Ask your MOMMY when you can stay over at Grandma’s” and proceeded to bring it up ten times that evening - literally ten times. What should be something nice with a grandparent cannot even be enjoyed because of how much she nags and pesters us.

My daughter starts school this year and MIL has brought up picking my daughter up from school probably 20 times - no exaggeration. She wants to pick my daughter up and take her back to her house which is further into town and not helpful to us. Her lack of limits will also be concerning when we want our daughter to be in a healthy routine after school - healthy food, rest and time for homework. If there is an occasional need for her to do a pick up, sure, but we would really rather establish our own routine as a family and do not see a need for this.

And when she caught wind that the school wants parent volunteers in the classroom she has already asked me verbally and texted me eight or nine times about volunteering. I feel overwhelmed by her yet again. This is my first kid and I am working part time so that I can do the school pick ups and volunteer in the classroom. And my MIL is the type of person where if you give her an inch she takes a mile. I worry that if I tell her she can volunteer she’s going to try to make it a regular thing and I just don’t want her around this much.

I know some will say we are lucky to have a grandparent who wants to be involved. I know involved grandparents are a blessing. But this is a woman who has done so many weird, bizarre things and who has had so much pushy behavior over the years I just don’t feel like giving in on this.

Any thoughts on how to handle…? My husband firmly told her when she brought up school pick ups and volunteering that I am planning to do all that and to please allow me time to get integrated and process things and we will let her know. Five minutes later she was already again nagging me - in front of my husband - about sending her the info for pick ups / volunteering. He said ”Mom - we talked about this” and I told her “Hey, that’s so nice but I am planning on working part time so that I can do the pick ups and volunteering.” she still won’t quit asking about it.

I’ve used Retin A 20 years and last few years was on the Micro which was great and helped me to be able to use it often. the Micro got costly so I ordered a cream from All day Chemists and since then (6 plus months) I have had issues with bad dry eye at night. I think it is the tretinoin because the dry eye is worst the nights I use tretinoin. and because I took a two week break for microneedling and my eyes felt prerty good. I try not to get it near my eyes but it must be migrating and maybe the formulation of the stuff from All Day Chemists just migrates more than any version I have ever used!(the brand is Tretin)

about to throw in the towel but wondering if I go back to micro if that might help. this issue only came up when I switched to Tretin from all day chemists.

Our AC unit was having some issues, we suspected a fan motor and capacitor. we thought about buying the parts ourselves but wanted to contact a professional. we called a tech out who confirmed that those needed to be fixed and said it would be $2300. when he left he scratched off the numbers on the part stickers. if we hadn’t taken pictures of them beforehand we wouldn’t be able to see the part numbers anymore. why would he do this? should we report it?

For years now, much of the time when I have a bowel movement (every day to every other day is when I go) it is soft serve style that often sticks to the toilet bowl. Often times after my morning coffee I will have 2-3 of these bowel movements. Sometimes I will have a more formed poop, but more than half the time, it is like this.

I heard that this type of stool counts as diarrhea and is a Bristol type 6. I figure it’s not normal, but it’s also not typical to eat so much fiber as we do on a plant heavy diet. I tracked my fiber the other day to see and got 75 grams.

Just wondering if any other of you with plant heavy diets have the same thing.

my husband and I are both in our mid 30s and we have a five-year-old. he works from home Monday through Friday, probably 45 hours per week.

This pretty much our schedule:

- Monday Weds Friday: He works 7-4, then usually goes to the gym right after work till 6. During that time I am home with the kid. We have dinner together at six, we put my daughter to bed at seven, and then we have a couple of hours in the evening for us to both bathe and get into bed and watch TV or whatever.

- Tuesday and Thursday: I don’t see my daughter or my husband pretty much at all on these days. Basically, my husband works 9-4, well I get the kid to preschool and then I work 10a-10p.

so Saturday and Sunday are our only real days together as a family. As you can see, between my work days, his work days plus gym time, there isn’t a ton of time for all of us to just be together. and he still does get time to himself on weekend days.usually on Saturday or Sunday, he will do another two hour gym session. Or go to the range. I never have any problem with this and I encourage it.

but here’s where the issue lies. it seems like I just want more time together as a family and he does not. It seems like what he really wants to do is go off and do stuff and I get the feeling he just holds back with our family as an obligation so I don’t lose my mind. He likes to golf. And he doesn’t want to do just nine holes. So when he golfs, it’s an all day affair. maybe he leaves at 6 and gets home at 2 and then seems tired and out of commission while I stay home with the kid. It annoys me, but I keep my mouth shut when he does it once per month. When he starts to bring up more than that, I getting really hurt and irritated. He will come up to me sheepishly and tell me something like “I know I just golfed last week but… The guys at work want to do X y z” I feel bad he has to approach me this way but here we Are.

In addition to golf, every week or two he goes over to his brother’s house. He tries to do it when I am working on Tuesday or Thursday, but like tonight, right after he got off work, he wanted to go over there l last minute to chat and have beers. My feelings were incredibly hurt because this wasn’t planned ahead of time. Here I am, it is Friday night, I am at home all day with the kid waiting for him to get off work and he just leaves To go have drinks with his brother after a 45 hour work week, plenty of time most nights to himself going to the gym or going to the range.

I should also mention that he’s not totally chained to the house and probably 2 to 3 times a year. He does a vacation with his friends as well For a weekend.

I feel like I’m trying not to be needy or codependent but no matter what I do my feelings keep getting hurt and I just wanna withdraw because I just get the feeling that he doesn’t be around me I be around him. I don’t know if I’m being realistic about all this, but I’m starting to get very nervous because our daughter starts kindergarten in August and is basically going to be gone five days a week and I just wonder how we are going to have any time for family. I find myself holding back on doing things on my own because if I did my own things, we would literally never see each other as a family.

any advice? Am I just being a total witch?

tl;dr: my love language is quality time, and I keep finding myself resentful of my husband‘s time away.

I feel like my MIL is so desperate to get what she wants, protect herself from discomfort, and create the image she wants to create that she will hide or misrepresent things, or even manipulate a situation. Sometimes if there is an even very minor seeming conflict she will avoid talking about it and then have my father in law call my husband instead of talking to me directly! Therefore she often makes a minor hiccup of a situation worse due to the way she deals with it. As a result I don’t have a trust in her and I also am becoming less and less comfortable with communicating with her openly. Which is strange for me because I am just an unabashedly open communicator with everyone else in my life. I have tried to Google /research this psychological type but am having a hard time articulating exactly what her issue is but does anyone else experience this?

Examples of her behavior:

- When my husband discovered she was driving her grandkids around in a loose car seat she made a big deal about how she cares about car safety and how she fixed it when I inquired about if it was fix, and then I found out she didn’t even fix it at all even though she was about to drive my daughter. I was livid and confronted her about it, and then when I said my piece I said “let’s move on from this” and then a few weeks later in front of the family she praised me loudly for ”being able to move on from things” … I feel like she misrepresented herself fixing the car seat to seem like a great grandma when she didn’t even fix it at all. then tried to gaslight me into getting over it by loudly telling the family how great I am for being able to move on to

- Before my baby was born I already told her she would be able to babysit so there was no need for this — she went and told my sister in law to invite me to lunch to talk to me and convince me that she’s an amazing grandma and to please let her babysit.

- when my husband was hurt about unequal treatment between siblings (she has bought my BIL multiple cars and houses, diddly squat for our family) and I sent her a text saying I was hurt about the obvious inequities, she ignored my text and didnt respond for a week, then my husband got a call from my father in law telling us she was crying all week. she couldn’t bear to deal with me directly even though the conversation started with us.

- Even though she and I arrange for babysitting of my daughter if she has ever had to cancel she always has her husband / my FIL (who never has any involvement in planning babysitting) call my husband instead of just texting or calling me directly. when I finally confronted her about this and asked her to talk to me directly she admitted she just “felt so bad about it” - this has happened so many times and it’s bizarre because she is a grown woman!

- instead of ask us directly to babysit she will talk loudly in front of me to my daughter “ask your mommy if you can come to grandmas for a sleep over” - in some instances she has asked 7-8 times during one get together right in front of me like that. it is so passive and bizarre.

there are so many examples but long story short it just feels like there is some agenda and she’s never truly authentic and she’s hiding / manipulating to get what she wants.

I realize I sound awful and entitled but hear me out.

My daughter is 5 and we are fortunate to have many people in her corner. However we really want to raise her to be humble and appreciative and it is hard because our family and friends give so many gifts.

It is not uncommon for her to get like five Easter baskets for example. My sister gives her a basket with like ten items in it. anytime my friends travel they bring her gifts. On Christmas my sister will give her like five gifts. as a result my husband and I don’t even have a lot of joy in giving gifts as we intentionally hold back knowing others will go over the top with their gift giving. whenever she goes to a friend‘s house for baby sitting the friend usually has bought her a book, new crayons, a stuffed animal etc. when we meet at a restaurant often sometimes our friends will bring her stuffed animals and candy.b

My daughter is starting to seem numb to getting gifts and no longer has any reaction and it’s sad to me. when I was a little girl I remember I would’ve been SO excited to get a little toy or book from a family member and now it’s a regular and excessive thing. I want her to feel grateful but when she is given a gift now it no longer has much value. I want her to squeal with delight when she gets a gift!

we are so grateful for the outpouring of love towards my little girl but we also don’t want to raise her to be a spoiled brat. just donating gifts doesn’t help because I don’t want her being spoiled in the first place.

how can I address this? easier to address with family than friends but I even think at this point the friends need to be addressed. I don’t think they all realize how much others in our circle are gifting on top of what they gift.

My daughter is very tall and skinny (90th for height percentile, 30th for weight). any brands for school uniforms to recommend for her? she wants to wear polo dresses mostly.

My 5 year old is a very advanced reader and and her favorite book is William Bennets Book of Virtues (the adult one without pictures!) and she also loves poetry and we analyze it together. She still enjoys all books, including picture books and early elementary school aged chapter books but she gets very enthralled with chapter books geared towards late elementary / middle school. trouble is I don’t want something too dark. we are reading Island of the Blue Dolphins and she loves it but the dad dies, brother gets attacked by wolves and dies… just a little dark.

Any suggestions? we just finished Sarah Plain and Tall and she loved that. She loved Matilda as well. she prefers a lot of action and “dangerous“ stories as she calls them but of course there is a risk of them being too violent.

My five year old daughter always asks me to tell “dangerous” bed time stories in which someone’s life is at risk. When we make up stories about lions she always wants to hear about the lion eating someone. I sometimes oblige but make it non violent (ie “the lion ate the girl but the girl tickled his throat and he sneezed her back up!”) but I feel like she would love it if there was a dark ending. is this normal or concerning? I don’t see violent behavior otherwise. no, she doesn’t get screen time other than old school shows occasionally like Little Bear.