I suggest trying to find a six month lease at a good rate (like, whatever special the management team is offering for 1 or 2 year leases, but for six months). Then you have enough time to look around and decide if you want to renew where you are, or move to another neighborhood. Unpacking is mostly optional with a…

Awwwww BABY!!!! /squee Totally adorable.

I want to hang out with you. At my house it's spinach ravioli and MMO gaming with the boyfriend, but your night sounds much more interesting.

It can totally suck to wind up caring for a child/teen that's not your own. Otoh, considering that her dad can't even be bothered to provide financial support for your niece, please consider that you're the ONLY adult in her life who cares that she stays out of trouble and grows up right. I know she's a burden and a…

Hang in there. Your love for your kid helps you be strong enough to get through things you never knew you could handle, including keeping it together when he's losing his shit ... because you have to! You just have to do it, and somehow you do. I'm just glad we live in a time where school administrators and special…

Funny that breakfast food is mostly perfectly fine with my son too. Pancakes, waffles, french toast, pastries ... no eggs or bacon though. IHOP is his favorite treat in the world, because he can have so many different items there. Getting him to accept and enjoy grilled cheese was a huge milestone for our family. Your…

That's terrible. I can see picking up the three year old and setting him on the escalator step, but not just rushing ahead and then getting mad at my child for not understanding this crazy new moving floor thing on his own. >.<

I often find myself saying utterly ridiculous things to small children. My kids are kind of precocious because I've always talked to them like they're short adults, but their friends often give me wtf-face. When you're trying to explain things to a preschooler, it gets weird fast.

haha I was VERY unhappy. My ex and I are on pretty good terms so I was able to go to him and basically be like, WTF dude. He read her the riot act and pretty much cut her out of his life after that. You don't mess with our kids - something we've always agreed on.

Well if your husband can make it all the way to adulthood eating whatever it is that's on his approved list, I have more hope for my son! It can be rough, having to not only keep a separate supply of food in the house for one person (and tell my other kids they can't touch it, especially when some of his foods are…

You're right, it shouldn't be a big deal, and I'm sure your daughter will benefit immensely from the little freedoms and the trust you give her, but other adults can be nuts about allowing their kids to do even that much under supervision!

People are so judgmental of others' parenting tactics. It's like once you have kids, you've somehow tacitly agreed to listen to every random observation from strangers. :( I feel for you.

I know what you mean. My oldest child is on the autism spectrum and one of my ex-husband's girlfriends called CPS on me because I supposedly wasn't feeding him a varied enough diet. My son eats a very limited variety of foods due to his issues with texture. It was a deeply humiliating interview in which I allowed a…

It's weird, right? I must have been incredibly lucky or something.

Omg. I don't know how you managed to make it through that. I have three kids and I'm pretty sure that if one of them had a screaming tantrum about ANYTHING in public I'd just be like, "welp, I have other kids, kid," and walk off. That or I'd be a screaming crying puddle on the floor too.

Shopping with my kids is so much harder than shopping alone, but I try to think of the constant apologies I'm making on their behalf as social contact with new adults.

I know that feeling! "I'm so sorry, he's a smart kid but has ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE about personal bubbles. I'm SO SORRY."

Truth. I have three kids, ages 9 to 6, and my two boys especially have NO awareness of the adults around them in a public space. I am constantly pushing my kids (gently, of course) out of the way of oncoming adults in supermarkets and apologizing for them. Taking the kids with me to shop is exhausting. I keep trying…

I have a cat (an adult rescue) who is a real dumpster-diver. He's otherwise a GREAT pet but he cannot resist a garbage can. We wound up getting stainless steel trash cans with the lids that raise via foot pedal. The house is now free of trash spills, at least until he learns to stand on the pedal. :) Maybe you could…

My kids' laptop has a timer function on it. If chores aren't getting done or if my kids have somehow lost their privileges, I just reduce or eliminate the kid's login time. Ultimate leverage. Nothing makes my kids reconsider their life choices like lack of YouTube/Plants vs. Zombies time. Luckily they're pretty…