~~ Pregnancy Thread ~~

A latte costs ~€4 here. If I got one literally every day of the year including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I would spend €1460. If, instead, I put that €4/day into savings for a downpayment on a house, well, you need to get to 10% of the purchase price to get that mortgage, and the average house price here is…

Can you keep a “cushion” in your account but train yourself to ignore the cushion? So if your cushion is €200 (I have no idea what your expenses are like, so here’s some random numbers), if you see your balance is €980 you immediately go -€200 = €780. The cushion is constant and an easy round number. That way if…

What worked with that, before they’re old enough to understand an explanation? Taking it away? Taking them away? Firm “no”? 

Switching up shoes helps with general foot fatigue/pain, not just with hot-spots and blisters. Even just bring two comfy pairs and trade off. The strain is a little different in each pair, it’ll help. (Or if space is tight, you could even try bringing two different insoles and switch between them.) Also foot massages…

Probably also exacerbated by the hell that is America’s healthcare system. Like if that happened to me, I would call the National Maternity Hospital who have a 24/7 line (or a local one, but the National one happens to be my local one, or my GP, or emergency services), and they would probably send an ambulance, and…

We don’t have any of that! It’s not illegal to have an open container on the street, although you will get in trouble (usually either “moved on” or put in a cop car and driven home) if you’re openly drinking on the street and causing trouble or being obnoxiously loud or whatever, and a cop comes by. And it’s not…

Yes, there are considerable differences in food safety behaviour between my American partner & in-laws, who are used to big American grocery store food from big American factory farms, and me and my Irish family, who are used to local, fresh, traceable food from family farms. I’m used to eating things rare or…

Well my usual date is my partner, and he hates mushrooms, so this is going to be a Just For Me omelette. But I’m perfectly happy to kick it up a notch and impress myself! Thank you! 

My mam says this too. She remembers arranging to meet people and just having to .... wait, unknowing, until you have to give up and leave. She says she used to make very specific and thoughtful plans, because you couldn’t adjust on the fly, so you’d need very precise times and locations (and how to connect if you…

I am not chronically late, but lateness comes easily to me and I’m actively working hard to not be That Person.

Ha, that’s mad. I’m usually the one going “oh, two of us are ordering wine, let’s just order a bottle!!” because usually around here (Dublin, Ireland) the glass is not too much more expensive but it comes out a few quid more expensive to buy 4 glasses than to buy 1 bottle. And, I argue, if we don’t finish it, we’ll…

I’m backing up your observation with a single-household anecdote; my (American) partner and my (European) self usually end up serving my eggs out of the pan still gooey and continuing to cook his for a few more minutes till dry. We both really like tamagoyaki though so Japan is obviously managing some kind of…

You’re very welcome, and thank you! I actually just reread your How to Make Childbirth (Slightly) Less Terrifying today, when I was glancing back through Offspring to find the specific titles of the examples my most and least favourite articles. Although I am definitely now more terrified of bringing a newborn baby…

You don’t know why a teenage girl would cry after being confronted and accused of a federal crime by a (probably bigger, older) total stranger, and having her preferred method of paying then rejected by a cashier, in public? She was embarrassed, and maybe intimidated/scared. I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t cry if that…

Congratulations! (Also this is my third time trying to post this comment so this time I’m not including links, cause it keeps making kinja crash...)

Thank you for raising this point. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with the commenters who piled on you.

Yes, there are! Some not too expensive! I’m in the process of trying to get a shattaf-style bidet installed in my rented apartment in a manner that can easily be undone. I would prefer a Japanese-style one, but the shattaf makes more sense right now; it could attach to the easier-to-deal-with sink inflow pipe instead…

Sounds like your office needs to hire one more person, maybe even just part-time. Things shouldn’t be so close to the wire all the time that one absence makes everything immediately fall apart! As someone with a chronic illness who needs to take sick days (or weeks) on little notice, that kind of environment, where…

This is so fucking cute <3 I’m looking forward to the phase in my life where the kids really want a pet and my husband eventually caves and we get a kitten and the kids are bad at looking after it so it basically becomes my cat. (I’m allergic to cats but eh, that’s a minor issue.)