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Parenting Megathread

rousseau said:
Just going to throw this out there although some of you may be out of the game a bit - recommendations on toys and things to do for kids between the age of 0 - 2? We've got a nice little play mat for an infant, tons of books, and a few toys, but I'm wondering if there is anything unique anyone knows of that kids in that age range tend to really like.
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I don't remember when my youngest was that young.

However I have passed by London, Ontario.
 
When my grandson was 2 1/2 he went crazy for a plush toy we gave him. It was a horse, but he called it his unicorn and named her Katy.

And I've spent the night in London Ont, but long before you were born Rousseau.
 
So yes I love my daughter. We adopted her at 3 and a half years old and foster care and her bio-mom truly messed her up. She was violent to us and her younger brothers and went to psychiatric hospitalization 19 times. She had always looked for drama. It was always all about her.

She is now 20 years old and I don't think that she seeks drama anymore and she is non violent. She has excellent morals. She has been a freshman in college now for a bit over a month. But drama now seeks her out it seems.

First some girls in her dorm were bullying her and went so far to physically assault her. There are witnesses and there will be a hearing where these girls may be kicked out of school. They might be charged with assault and battery. Of course for a week it was very traumatizing for her.

Then she and a friend were off campus and witnesses an arson event where some college boys set fire to a city playground. My daughter recorded a video and gave it to the police and now she's a witness in an arson case.

Then she was walking home from some off campus friend's place at around 10pm and was attacked by some guy who the police are looking for as this same guy has done it to other women about 20 times and is still at large.

Now yesterday she got out of bed in the morning, hit hed head on the bed frame, fell to the floor and blacked out for a few minutes. They took her to the hospital and she had a CAT scan and the doctors say she has a mild concussion. They discharged her and she went back to the dorms with orders to take it easy.

A couple of hours ago she txted she was feeling nausea and staff called the EMTs who have taken her back to the ER. Dr says no need for a second CAT scan. She's on an IV of some fluid to reduce the nausea.

She just wants to do college. She is not looking for this shit but drama is now following her. I don't know how much of this she can fake. Or me. She calls me at least twice a day with some small or large issue.

Yes I love her but she is 20 years old. She needs to be less dependent on us for her own future sake. And I have my elderly mom who I have to take care of as her only son.
 
rousseau said:
Just going to throw this out there although some of you may be out of the game a bit - recommendations on toys and things to do for kids between the age of 0 - 2? We've got a nice little play mat for an infant, tons of books, and a few toys, but I'm wondering if there is anything unique anyone knows of that kids in that age range tend to really like.
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HUGE age gap 0-2.

Books. Board books right now but nothing wrong with not expensive soft cover simple editions of books. Hold them in your lap and read to them, even at Coen's age: now.

Anything they can stack or build with: blocks of all sizes and shapes. Simple wood blocks are fine. So are empty oatmeal containers, empty boxes of every kind.

Stuffed animals/toys. Textures, colors, cuddles.

Wheels. Cars/trucks, whatever walking aid toy is around, etc. Big wheels when my kids were kids. One of them had a caterpillar riding toy that was very much beloved by the whole neighborhood. One of them had a very cheap, very oversized plastic dump truck that cost under $5 but was big enough to hold a little kid's rear and take him down a very small hill in the playground. He loved it, his friends loved it, my dad loved seeing him ride down that hill and said it was the best $4 he'd ever spent in his life.

Mostly, kids like YOU as the toy. Yes, you. Play music and dance around the floor with them. Play dinosaur and be the dinosaur (or dragon or tiger or puppy or whatever). Kids love looking at bugs and flowers and rocks and blades of grass.

Make cookies or bread or pizza dough or all of these and let your kid get his hands into the mess--and eat some of it.

Kids like everything in the kitchen: wooden spoons on pots, pulling out the tuperware. One of mine looooooooved smelling all the herbs and spices.

Things that float in the bath tub.

Things that make sound.

Bubbles!

One of the best things that we ever got for our child (a gift as it was out of our price range) was a Duplo farm set for our son for his second birthday. I thought it was awfully expensive (around $35 at the time) but my dad bought it for him and I swear I would never have balked at the cost if I had known how much enjoyment it would give him--and how much it would occupy him so that I could...go to the bathroom. Read 2 pages. That sort of thing.

Please please please don't let people try to tell you what the 'right' toys are. Just make it stuff they can't swallow and choke on and can't put into electrical outlets. Also: no permanent markers until high school.
 
rousseau said:
Just going to throw this out there although some of you may be out of the game a bit - recommendations on toys and things to do for kids between the age of 0 - 2? We've got a nice little play mat for an infant, tons of books, and a few toys, but I'm wondering if there is anything unique anyone knows of that kids in that age range tend to really like.
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Like Toni said, 0-2 might as well be 0-18.

For infants, blankies, small stuffed animals, and simple interactive things. also ponder how you plan to interact with them, ie props.

6-12 months never too early to start letters. Electronic toy that has letters on it and has multiple interactive elements. A chalkboard is great too.
 
Thanks for the tips. We're aware that it's a pretty wide age gap, just trying to think ahead a bit (2 seems to be a good upper limit to plan ahead for).

We have tons of books already and have been reading to him from the day he was born (occasionally I'll even read him some grown-up poetry, I figure it can't hurt). Also have a nice play-mat, jolly-jumper, exersaucer, some felt books, and a number of things for him to grab and play with (although he seems to like playing with his burp cloths the most). At 4.5 months he seems to be pretty satisfied with his haul so far.

We're trying to keep it simple and not overload him with stuff, so we keep toys in a few baskets, and will bring out the baskets one at a time and let him choose something.
 
These a couple of things that my daughter absolutely loved.

For books, Sandra Boynton seems to be the board book go to. Mo Willems (Pigeon/Elephant & Piggie/among others) is our generation's Dr. Seuss. Doreen Cronin (Click Clack Moo) is pretty good, but she gets repetitive. She moved on to chapter books and those are better, but obviously that is down the road. Little Blue Truck, The Hat series by Klassen, Pout Pout Fish by Diesen. There is also a series where the publisher is throwing Willems' name with other people's books, like the Itchy Book, The Cookie Fiasco which are both classics.

Then there are the classics, Lyle Crocodile (Waber), Curious George (who seems a bit outside the customs of today, but harmless), George and Martha.

There are just so many good reads these days, both new and classic.
 
My wife is at the school with my daughter playing at the playground after school and she hears a few kids talking about our daughter and say she is "a little weird". My wife is a bit unsettled by this (she seems oblivious to our daughter's pro's and con's). I'm like, "yeah, she is". She is several standard deviations from the mean! But she is sharp, very intelligent, but a bit slower on the maturity, a lot due to her brain just being way too much for her to control. The medication has helped a lot with her behavior in class. In the micromanagement days of color for every student every day regarding behavior, she went from rainbow, but weighing more heavily towards naughty last year to generally being good, at worst. I had forgotten her medicine on two consecutive days, and her color score showed it.

But yeah, she is definitely absorbed in her own interpretation of the world. Barking at squirrels (she loves the Paw Patrol, though really outgrowing the show, though not the toys, which is fine) and just doing weird things. I try to tell my daughter that we need to get within 5 standard deviations of normal. I don't try to reel her in too much, because I understand this is about how she sees things, so for me it is about curbing wildly eccentric behavior (please stop barking) and accepting the rest.

Finally getting her into speech therapy. This year obviously was off on things, and was hoping her speech would improve, but it really hasn't and she continues making the same mistakes. Some of it is apparently oral issues with the tongue, others are her attentiveness for being too quick (the quick thing was a problem I had... she seems to have inherited a lot from me). Hoping with the speech therapy, her communication will help with the "weirdness" thing because if her peers can't understand her, yeah, that'll make them feel uncomfortable.
 
I used to be a bit leery about the idea of giving kids meds, but on second thought - if we're mainly preparing them for the modern workforce, and many adults take medications that allow them to participate in that workforce, giving them to kids isn't that far afield.

The speech thing is something I'm keeping a close eye on in our son too. My wife had language issues growing up, while my verbal skills were on the other side of the spectrum. But we've also found that our son had some mild hearing loss due to fluid in his ears, so I'm keeping an eye on how that's affecting things. He'll be a year on the 21st and currently says mama - that seems roughly normal, so who knows.

Good luck with your daughter, I guess you can only really prepare her to be the best version of herself.
 
There is medication and then there is drugging up kids. It is important to be leery of just one of those things. The child psychiatrist had that "I've seen this 1000 times look with her', and the medication definitely works. I wish she could be on it all the time, because she is crazy impulsive. Unmedicated, there usually isn't a yes or no, it is a do. On medication, she thinks about yes or no on an action. Without it, not nearly as much. It wears after a while (years).

Don't sweat the speech until 3 years old, of course, read to them a lot and have lots of educational stuff for them to play with, but language can come early or late. And just because they aren't talking doesn't mean they aren't learning.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
There is medication and then there is drugging up kids. It is important to be leery of just one of those things. The child psychiatrist had that "I've seen this 1000 times look with her', and the medication definitely works. I wish she could be on it all the time, because she is crazy impulsive. Unmedicated, there usually isn't a yes or no, it is a do. On medication, she thinks about yes or no on an action. Without it, not nearly as much. It wears after a while (years).

Don't sweat the speech until 3 years old, of course, read to them a lot and have lots of educational stuff for them to play with, but language can come early or late. And just because they aren't talking doesn't mean they aren't learning.
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We've taken language pretty seriously since he was born since I know how critical it is in the early years of their life. We've been reading to him more or less everyday since birth, although it was a bit awkward at the beginning. We've also been adamant about absolutely no screens at any time, as I believe pediatric recommendations say to avoid this until they're four or five. So we're in a situation now where books have become his main form of entertainment, and consequently that's what he wants to do all day. A few weeks ago (while still on mat leave) my wife was getting annoyed because he kept bringing her book after book, all day long.

I did do a bit of research on speech red flags a few months ago, and I believe there were a few indicators for his age. By 15 months he should be using hand gestures, making a variety of sounds, and expressing a few words. He was saying a variant of 'mama' at around 11 months, and he now waves and makes plenty of sound, so it seems like we're on track. The aural issues were a bit worrying if not common, but we're seeing an Audiologist regularly so at least we can track it. Overall I'm not stressing myself over it, just closely watching and making sure we do the right things as time goes by.
 
rousseau said:
I used to be a bit leery about the idea of giving kids meds, but on second thought - if we're mainly preparing them for the modern workforce, and many adults take medications that allow them to participate in that workforce, giving them to kids isn't that far afield.

The speech thing is something I'm keeping a close eye on in our son too. My wife had language issues growing up, while my verbal skills were on the other side of the spectrum. But we've also found that our son had some mild hearing loss due to fluid in his ears, so I'm keeping an eye on how that's affecting things. He'll be a year on the 21st and currently says mama - that seems roughly normal, so who knows.

Good luck with your daughter, I guess you can only really prepare her to be the best version of herself.
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My oldest son had an issue with fluid in his ears from the only ear infection he ever had. I actually had taken him to the doc right away when he was mildly feverish and tugged at his ear--something that is also present in teething. The doc found nothing, advised teething and he was really fine----and then a couple of weeks later, I realized he couldn't hear me when I was behind him, speaking softly. Since normally he had phenomenal hearing, I took him back to the doc and saw the other partner in the practice who said yes, fluid behind his ears to the extent that his hearing was compromised severely. It was cleared up by meds and I later discovered that my animus against the first doc was unwarranted as very early ear infections in young children often do not show in exam but are only apparent later.

This kid went on to the the boy who the teacher sat in the hall because he was so chatty and social and finally sat him next to a child with significant hearing impairment--which did not quiet him down but definitely helped bring the other child out of her shell.

He's extremely verbal, and verbally very witty and indeed, I am pretty sure his dream job would be stand up comedian. He's a lawyer instead.

It's good that the fluid was identified so early and likely it will cause zero issues down the road.

Oh, that son's favorite memories of his childhood are that we always read him books and that there was always music playing--sometimes classical but more often jazz and most often rock--but at decent levels. No loud stuff.

And yeah, I'm sure that when he's my age, he will regret all the loud concerts he has taken himself to. Note: he does wear some kind of special ear plugs that allow you to hear the music but not too loud.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
There is medication and then there is drugging up kids. It is important to be leery of just one of those things. The child psychiatrist had that "I've seen this 1000 times look with her', and the medication definitely works. I wish she could be on it all the time, because she is crazy impulsive. Unmedicated, there usually isn't a yes or no, it is a do. On medication, she thinks about yes or no on an action. Without it, not nearly as much. It wears after a while (years).

Don't sweat the speech until 3 years old, of course, read to them a lot and have lots of educational stuff for them to play with, but language can come early or late. And just because they aren't talking doesn't mean they aren't learning.
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I don't usually post in this thread, but I totally agree with Jimmy about speech. My son didn't talk until he was 3 and I was the one who had to teach him how to read, when his teacher couldn't do it, despite being an excellent teacher. He ended up graduating from college with honors with a degree in computer science and he still loves his work after over 20 years of coding. Point being, don't stress too much. I spoke in sentences at 13 months, but I'm a total idiot when it comes to technology and mechanical things. Everyone's readiness is a bit different.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
My wife is at the school with my daughter playing at the playground after school and she hears a few kids talking about our daughter and say she is "a little weird". My wife is a bit unsettled by this (she seems oblivious to our daughter's pro's and con's). I'm like, "yeah, she is". She is several standard deviations from the mean! But she is sharp, very intelligent, but a bit slower on the maturity, a lot due to her brain just being way too much for her to control. The medication has helped a lot with her behavior in class. In the micromanagement days of color for every student every day regarding behavior, she went from rainbow, but weighing more heavily towards naughty last year to generally being good, at worst. I had forgotten her medicine on two consecutive days, and her color score showed it.

But yeah, she is definitely absorbed in her own interpretation of the world. Barking at squirrels (she loves the Paw Patrol, though really outgrowing the show, though not the toys, which is fine) and just doing weird things. I try to tell my daughter that we need to get within 5 standard deviations of normal. I don't try to reel her in too much, because I understand this is about how she sees things, so for me it is about curbing wildly eccentric behavior (please stop barking) and accepting the rest.

Finally getting her into speech therapy. This year obviously was off on things, and was hoping her speech would improve, but it really hasn't and she continues making the same mistakes. Some of it is apparently oral issues with the tongue, others are her attentiveness for being too quick (the quick thing was a problem I had... she seems to have inherited a lot from me). Hoping with the speech therapy, her communication will help with the "weirdness" thing because if her peers can't understand her, yeah, that'll make them feel uncomfortable.
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Speech therapy will be good for her and will likely knock off some of the 'weirdness' that other kids commented on. But she sounds very, very bright and creative and there is nothing wrong with being 'weird.' In fact, among certain groups of kids, weird is a highly respected trait. As she gets older, she will find her tribe. I think that in today's world, we too often embrace the mass produced thing over what is unique. We praise average and mainstream over creative and unique. Of course, we all have to find ways to fit into our world, into society but it should not be at the expense of being an individual. And of course, we as parents always want to protect our kids, eliminate whatever obstacles there might be. Sometimes, though, I think we're better if we teach our kids to surmount obstacles and better, which to surmount, which to ignore, which to avoid.

You sound like an amazing parent and your daughter is lucky to have you. She sounds bright and imaginative and creative. Maybe a little weird but???? I do understand you not wanting her to attract negative attention and to fit in. Barking at squirrels sounds..funny, not weird, to me. But I do understand. One of my nieces used to like to wear dog collars and leashes and would go under tables at preschool and bark at kids and the teacher. She was a perfectly lovely child with wonderful parents and a loving extended family and is a wonderful young woman, much more on the quiet side, with a bit of quirk if you are lucky enough to know her, much like her parents who are very, very quiet people but smart and funny, too. Still, wanting to wear dog collars and leashes at preschool does send up some red flags. Fortunately this was outgrown rather quickly. (Yes, they had a dog at home who wore a leash and collar and was occasionally kenneled...The dog was there when she was born so maybe she was imitating her 'older sibling?' Who knows? It's just another weird story to tease someone with, just as we like to tease my older sibling who was pronounced upon her initial visit with the pediatrician to be perhaps mentally retarded because her head was oddly shaped --through the birth process. Actually she holds advanced degrees in physics and mathematics. My father snatched her off the exam table, dared the doctor to bill them for the visit and never took any of us to a pediatrician again. But it's a funny story. Now.).

To varying degrees, most of us are weird in some way. To me, what is weird is shaving off and grinding down all of the sharp edges and fluffy bits and curliques in order to fit into some perfectly shaped cube dubbed normal. Or, as Oscar Wilde once noted: Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. And to be honest, there is among some women, an entire movement and even industry on being your authentic self--letting go of unreasonable and undesirable expectations that are often placed on women.

But I understand: she has to get through school and hopefully make some friends and not distress teachers or distract them from addressing her academic and creative needs, which I would imagine are accelerated.

Since you mentioned chapter books, I'm sure you're already on to EB White's Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little and similar books that are well written and beloved by generations. Maurice Sendak has some funny books, but one which may or may not seem good for your daughter would be Really Rosie which has the benefit of being also a recorded musical.

The Hundred Dresses is excellent. So is almost anything Roald Dahl (although a bit scary/creepy), especially Matilda and The BFG. I myself was exceptionally fond of all kinds of myths and legends from all over the world, and of fairy tales, which are usually entertaining and often carry good lessons about kindness, diligence, faithfulness.

But I'm an old fart now and I'm sure there are many more modern books out there was well.

Speech therapy is a good idea but it's also not a big deal. Lots of kids need a bit of speech therapy at her age.
 
Getting her to read can be tricky. She devours Dan Pilkey material, but that isn't exactly reading reading, but it is still reading so she has almost all of those books. We have her on the reboot of Amelia Bedelia, Ivy and Bean, Doreen Cronin's chicken squad stuff. We've read Dahl stuff for bedtime (James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Currently on book three (The Horse and His Boy) of the Narnia series. My wife doesn't appreciate the Chumley like voice for Bree or the Jar Jar Binx-esque voice for Aslan. Daughter likes it though.

When I was trying the discipline angle for her poor behavior in school, I had her read The Little Prince (we have a wonderful pop-up version of it, unabridged still).
 
If you're one of the people connected to me on social media please keep any mention of this off of there for a while

So we're pregnant with our second and waiting the standard three months to make the news public, but I don't want to wait until October to talk about it so there it is. It's been an interesting experience this time around: we were a bit shocked that we got pregnant so quickly (I don't know why, but I genuinely thought it was going to take us a while). But my wife was late, started showing signs, and there it was. And as expected we're also much more casual about it now as we know the ropes, our house is already ready, and we have the majority of what we need. For my part I'm absolutely thrilled and excited for the first ultrasound and to go through the process again. My wife has had mixed emotions and one of her first comments was: I wish you could get a turn at being pregnant. This is what we wanted, but it's going to be a painful couple years with dividends later when our kids can keep each other entertained.

So now we have a couple projects on the go. Once we know baby is healthy we'll be converting our study into a second bedroom, buying a bigger car, and buying a new freezer that we'll stock before he/she's born. Other than that there isn't a whole lot to do besides attend the usual appointments. We have a car seat, stroller suited for two children, clothes, toys etc

My biggest concern is doing what I can to keep my wife from becoming miserable. I've read in a number of places that after having a second mom's happiness usually takes a dive. I do everything in my power to contribute and make sure that's not the case, but even with just one toddler she seems a bit stressed out at times. At the end of the day maybe there's not much to be done but push through it.
 
Super gigantic congratulations are in order! My wishes are that it's all smooth sailing.

And I'm not connected to social media so it's all good.
 
How old is the first? We had a 4.5 year age difference and that was crucial at the beginning for us not going crazy and for being able to help either the baby. The older one could be by herself for a bit without constant adult supervision. Now that they are older (first turns 10 in two weeks) I often wish they were closer in age but it really did help at the beginning.
 
Shadowy Man said:
How old is the first? We had a 4.5 year age difference and that was crucial at the beginning for us not going crazy and for being able to help either the baby. The older one could be by herself for a bit without constant adult supervision. Now that they are older (first turns 10 in two weeks) I often wish they were closer in age but it really did help at the beginning.
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Our oldest should be about 23 months when the second is born. So about perfect for being friends, but a bit of a challenge in the early days. The good news is our son is already pretty good at playing independently at 15 months. But he definitely loves mom's attention.
 
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