u/twomomsoftwins

NP, my twins are starting full-time preschool so nanny’s last day is next Friday. Want to have the kids give her a little gift (handmade card included) but not sure what feels right.

Any ideas? She’s a college student, lives at home. Was thinking a gift card she can use to get her nails done (not sure where she goes so thinking just a visa gift card) or maybe a door dash card, she also wears oversized hoodies often so thought maybe an alo or something trendy ☺️ this mom is stumped.

I did help her secure a new role already with a friend and their kids to start the following week and she’s definitely top of my favorite date night babysitter list but want to do something nice for her last official fulltime day with us.

What bags are we carrying after the potty training phase? I feel like I don’t need our large diaper bags (I didn’t love my dagne dover anyway, everything gets lost in it 🫠) but now that it’s basically two changes of clothes, potty seat, snacks and two water bottles .. what are yall using?

I feel like bags I’ve seen only have one water bottle spot, really want two.. anyone find a unicorn they love?

Lower Hudson Valley, White Plains, Yonkers, Upper Westchester .. party venues that will hold 100+ for a big birthday.

Musts: attached hotel for guests. Proximity to NJ, LI, Manhattan, all the things for guests (open to ideas). Beautiful! 😍

Ideally a one stop shop, that will do everything catering, etc.

I’m starting to regret planning this trip but twin parents of the older toddlers, send me tips (or tell me to cancel the trip because I’m leaning that way lol)

We grew out of the travel cribs, soooo I bought the travel beds (blow up with rails). We still have the slumberpods but I just as many times as I’ve set them up at home, I don’t see the kids staying put or sleeping. Not to mention napping. Tell me I’m wrong?

Suppose to be going to a hotel a few hours away for a few days next week and I’m just thinking the lack of sleep, potentially overtired toddlers, in a hotel where there’s nowhere for us to escape, this was just one of my worst ideas 😂😜

The hotel is walking distance to the aquarium and things to do, had a pool, has a lot of kid friendly things, it’s only 3 nights. We could of course still opt to move to an Airbnb but truthfully I HATE house renting on vacation (I have to pay a cleaning fee and still remove all the linens, start the laundry and take out the trash, usually there’s stairs and no baby gates, not to mention all the breakable items) so I wanted a more hotel with breakfast included type few days where we aren’t having to get in the car a bunch. I’m assuming I still made a bad decision at this age thinking now how to sleep properly. Advice so appreciated veteran twin parents 🙏🏻

We are in such a weird position that our HOA doesn’t “own” property, our bylaws are completely written in that we have an association to maintain property that is just at the entry way of the development .. our budget is 1/3 landscaping and the other 2/3 is just costs to have an HOA (insurance, software, taxes, lawyers, etc) .. we keep it as low as humanly possible in my opinion and haven’t looked to raise charges in 2 years but it’s increasingly difficult to keep things from going up in a world where these things increase.

This year taxes, landscaping & insurance all went up. We had a tiny buffer but next year we need to buffer more. I brought up a yearly increase of 3% or we stop landscaping. It’s one or the other.

The homeowners have asked if we can basically “unincorporate” so we don’t have to file taxes, to which I don’t think so. We operate as a not-for-profit corporation so we generally don’t pay tax. As far as I’m aware though all HOAs are required to file so there would be no way around it I can find.

They also are asking if we can just do payments through PayPal so we can remove the costs for PayHOA and the accounting. Currently we pay $2100 for PayHOA bookkeeping & $708 for the yr for the platform. We are tiny but I already do about 90% of things, taking on bookkeeping seems awful. We also have our banking set up through PayHOA. Mind you this $2800 is half what the builder was paying for a management company who did absolutely nothing so I lowered that line item by half immediately coming into the board. Not sure there’s any way using PayPal to do payments wouldn’t either take someone a load of time to manage or really hurt our finances and audit/taxes because things are so easy right now. Anyone do this? How does it work for you?

We have 29 homes, 5 person board but truly I do 90% of the work and just get 4 other people who I have to carry the group project of 😂😅

Orange County > JFK .. are we really paying $450 for airport transportation? Or do I need to keep looking around.

This just seems pricey.

Honest reaction: did I just seriously pay $50+ bucks for 2 hrs to be wayyyy more overstimulated than I have been in a LONG TIME??! Yes, yes I think I did.

Our area just got its first “Play Cafe” and oh boy they’re not for me. I’ll say I definitely think they’re semi overpriced (this one costs me $42 just for my twins for the 2hr slot) and tack on the $8 small mocha and idk if I’m being crazy.

Then there’s parents watching their kids, but also some 8+ yr olds not being supervised that truthfully were way too big to be in the play area with the barely walking + toddlers.

It’s nice that it’s indoors and offers something for when the heat index is just tooo much and you need a change of scenery but am I the only one who didn’t see the spark?? Also will add as soon as this one opened I’m now getting ads on Facebook for another opening in the area 😂😂 I do wonder if these places will survive.

HOA formed in 2024, after builder left. 29 total homes. All we “control” is landscaping of property owned by two homes that was framed as “common space” because the builder put walls on the space which is the entrance to the development.

No one in interested in running for board, and current board members aren’t interested in “doing” anything. I’ve been president since we formed and I do 99% of paying all bills, managing our invoices, etc. it’s fine but ultimately this HOA is unsustainable if no one’s interested in managing it (and I’m burnt out already at the “opinions” haha) especially since we have a board of 5, with 4 members who just have opinions but no interest in doing anything. We don’t enforce any rules, despite a binder of rules & regulations left for us by the builder. We’ve already have violations but no one wants to enforce the rules so they’ve been let to go. (Not saying I generally care for rules, but when I’m paying to be part of an HOA, what are we doing?)

I’ve brought up the idea we just dissolve, “returning” landscaping responsibilities to the property owners who already by tax records own the front property and essentially dissolving any further expenses for insurance, management, etc.

4/5 board members are on board (again no one has interest in taking on paying the bills if I step down this year).. but we have one hold out who is worried the front will “look like garbage” if we don’t pay thousands for the landscaping.

Truthfully risk I’m willing to take 😆 we have our annual meeting coming up so I’m preparing this discussion for the larger association (mind you 4 members have rsvp’d .. like I said, no one’s interested lol) so any tips? Anyone been through this? I do plan to chat with our lawyer but he’s expensive so I want to make sure it’s something everyone’s ready to do before spending like $200/hr on things that go nowhere. 🫠

VENT but this is just collective UGH with my kids preschool but today my son’s backpack is “leaking” to find an OPENED yogurt drink thrown in .. funny it’s NOT OUR YOGURT!

So I had to send an unhinged email to the director only for the sheer fact, I’m not sure how it got there and my kids have food allergies and I’m more worried the teachers they keep placing in these classrooms aren’t being cautious enough.

For background we’ve had so much teacher turnover I don’t know one of their names anymore because we’ve got a month left and at first I thought she was yet another sub, but she’s also not been consistent each week so I’m actually not sure who she is. I’m ready for the end of school.

Everything, including his backpack is soaking in the bathtub. And I hate the smell of strawberry yogurt. 🤮

BUT WHO PUTS AN OPEN YOGURT IN A BACKPACK?? 😅😅

ETA: it wasn’t a child (because that would be easy). Backpacks are in a completely different room during snacks. This wouldn’t even have been possible unless the kid wasn’t watched, walked out of the room and into the classroom while basically no one watching them?? Not sure what’s worse.

Okay twin parents, with kids in full time preschool, what’s the right number! And also if you don’t have a huge kitchen how the heck are we wrangling all these water bottles, lunch boxes.. I thought the bottle phase was rough but preschool is giving me a run 😂😂 give me some tips!

How many lunchboxes have you accumulated? We currently have 2 per twin (one being washed, one being used) I’ve been using the Bentgo chill boxes (which I wish you could just buy without the ice pack because I don’t need more of those and they’re $$) what are the best lunchboxes? I’m not in love with these.

Also what are we packing for lunch? Any good instagrams to follow for inspo? I’m feeling overwhelmed at needing to get everyone ready for school and packed lunches, etc every day. 😅