u/livin_la_vida_mama

I have 4 girls, they are quite skittish about being held, but we've noticed if we gently pet their heads with a finger they stop trying to run and kind of half-close their eyes, sometimes tip their heads back a bit.

I've only ever kept rattos before, and i know if i did something they liked because they'd brux and boggle like crazy. But i don't know if my girlypops are happy or just scared.

They have deep substrate, i hide treats like mealworms in it when i change the substrate so they can dig and find them, and i make their home as cluttered as possible, creating tunnels and hides and stuff out of things like loo roll tubes and cereal boxes. So i am pretty sure they're happy at home, i just want to make sure they aren't absolutely hating being handled.

Like if the first book is where the MC's meet and fall in love, then the next books follow them as they travel together (while building their relationship)?

Gonna try not to dox myself here lol.

I live in an urban area. There's a lot of families here and one particular intersection near my house is the designated bus stop for a few schools.

There is a small apartment building where the bus stop is, and we've had issues in the past with the downstairs tenant yelling at us for kids being loud. We told them not to yell, and if they do it again they have to come stand quietly with us until the bus comes. But even if they just talk, or run or laugh, this guy has been screaming out of his window at them.

Well now upstairs has decided to get in on it. Yesterday we caught one of them filming us (again, not being loud but also not silent statues either) and my friend yelled at them to stop. This morning as we arrived, i saw a phone propped in the window so they were clearly filming again. I took my kids out of the camera view and told them to just hang out with me. My friend yelled at them again, but i noticed after the bus left that there were now TWO phones in the window filming.

It's a big bus stop. Between the two that arrive between 7:15 and 7:30 you're talking about 20-ish kids. It's unreasonable to expect all of them to line up like the von trapp kids and stand in silence.

Nobody has done anything wrong. The kids aren't screaming, they're just giggling and running around playing tag or hide and seek. They're all Elementary school kids, too, so i think that needs to be taken into account.

I fucking hate this. I just want to walk my kids to the bus, see them off safely and that's it. I am constantly on their butts about noise levels, considering others and remembering folk may still be in bed, and for the most part I don't think they are badly behaved. They have their moments, sure, but they are KIDS. And now we can't even wait for the bus without being fucking filmed.

I'm also just in a shitty mood today. It would have been my brother's 57th birthday today (he died in 2021), my oldest doused me with water because i wouldn't give him my lunch for his breakfast, then proceeded to scream at me for like 20 minutes about how i was selfish, hoarding food etc (he's neurodivergent, sometimes it just be that way). Note, i didn't say he couldn't have ANY breakfast, i said he couldn't have my lunch for breakfast, and to please choose something else.

So to then find out that apparently we're going to be filmed at the bus stop every morning (and god knows what they're planning to do with the video??), that was just the cherry on top of the shit sundae that was my morning.

I have strong feelings about that person, and the fucking horse they rode in on.

Saying this right off the bat: I know I can find one on Reddit etc for free. I don't want to do that, for a few reasons but the main one is that I don't want my work stolen, so if I'm trusting someone with it I'd rather it be in a professional setting than just some rando from the internet. Call me an idiot or a snob all you want, I'm allowed to do things the way I'm comfortable with.

With that said, I wondered if anyone used a paid service that they would recommend, I don't really want to get a developmental edit at this stage because that's some serious $$, and I think this is a good option for me.

Thank you!!

They have a lot of clutter/ climbing stuff in their enclosure because i read they love to climb, plus deep substrate so they can burrow.

I freshened up their home today, replaced about 3/4 of the substrate and "rearranged the furniture" so to speak. All 4 of them are climbing to the top of anything they can and, im not kidding, diving off into the substrate. But then they go back and do it again? Are they just having a good time or should i change things so they can't do it anymore?