I’m due with Goober II: The Regoobering in 3 weeks. The original Goober is almost 4, old enough to meaningfully engage in discussions about what the future will be like. We’ve been keeping him involved in choosing a name (we’re still stuck on that), which he says he’s taking very seriously - this week’s name choice is…

My worst roommate wasn’t bad to live with, the problem was how she left. She went to a festival weekend a few hundred miles away. After a few days without seeing her, I got a phone call saying she has fallen in love with one of the musicians she’d met, and she was immediately dropping out of university and our shared…

So Jupiter is the social media planet... if you let BS spewing assholes get too close it’s bad for everyone?

The BBC reported this morning that babies in England are not even being registered at birth, let alone seeing their health visitors.

It sounds shallow, but yes bring a man-bag and at least a book. When my nephew was born, neither mum or dad fully understood how long labour can actually take. Dad caught hell for saying on facebook that the waiting about was getting boring - not well appreciated by his wife or her entire family and friends.

An empty bag is great - my advice is bring two. One for any hospital freebies, and a plastic one for any manky laundry! Even if you’re not staying overnight, you can expect sweat, blood and leaky boobs in short order. Your body will awash be a torrent of nerves and hormones; you might even experience what I did - a…

This is a lovely idea and I wish it weren’t completely against the rules here in the UK. A person can go directly to an approved destination - one hour of exercise, necessary groceries, medical care, key work etc - and recently revamped guidelines bluntly say not to use this as an excuse to stop and have a picnic or…

a court of appeal ruled in favor of giving a child born to a trans parent the right to know “the biological reality of its birth”

I used to work in a small 50s nostalgia diner, that eventually got shut down. The owner-manager only hired highschool teens and college-freshmen - no-one older than 19 - because we were all too inexperienced to realise how dire the hygene was and that she would blatently cheat us out of tips and wages.
Among the…

I hate my “smart” cooker. It has a glass induction top that spreads heat across the whole surface no matter which hob is on. Instead of knobs, it has touch buttons that are right next to the heating coils so they get just as hot. You have to press them as fast as possible while trying not to get burned, and you can’t…

My wife originally shared a character with our 4-year-old son, but once the Able Sisters shop opened he quickly exhausted every single bell she earned buying clothes and shoes (he’s a clothes horse in real life and changes outfits throughout the day). She wound up making her own character just so things could start…

My current neighbour is like this. We live in attached housing, with mirrored layouts so our staircases not only share the party wall they use the same structural support. The sound of each household walking up and down carries through, and this drives him insane. One night he came over, drunk, and aggressively let…

Not the worst, but I’ll never forget Loud Crack-head Phone Guy. I lived in a garden apartment complex during uni, two story buildings around a collection of cul-de-sacs. This guy lived in the next building over, and we never had any trouble with him - he was honestly the most considerate crack-head I’ve ever known.…

My three nephews’ school is closed, but the office never set up the administrative computer to recognize this. Now every afternoon their mum gets three text messages in a row saying they have unexcused absences. I hope one thing kids can take away from this is that technology is not a panecea and it’s not magic, it’s…

I’m so glad I’m not the only person who wants to eat everything on screen in that film. It all looks so real - I even love the low-key way the parents pass the mustard during their pig out scene. Oh yeah, gotta have mustard.

The giraffes at Chester Zoo have figured out how to signal visitors walking past a remote corner of the enclosure to yank out bamboo from alongside the path. When we go with out son, you can tell when someone is approaching the corner because the whole herd would suddenly book it across the pasture.
It sounds silly…

While in the UK we haven’t been told partners and support-people will not be allowed in at the birth, my midwife told me today that my wife can’t come to anymore scans or appointments. While I’m waiting for my appointments, I’m going to have to sit in a empty office or other private spot, I’m away from other patrons. …

Yes, do give it a try. It’s relentlessly pleasant, peaceful, and makes no demands on your time beyond what you’re willing to give it.

My son doesn’t understand either. He keeps asking me why all the sick people don’t just take cough medicine and have a pyjama day like he does.

Today my 3-year-old and I prepared a home office for my partner, who is expecting to be sent home sometime next week. The spare room is usually rammed with bags and boxes of stuff transitioning in and out of the attic (he calls it the Cat Room, since they have plenty of hiding places away from grabby hands). We played…