I’ve told this story here before, but I kept my last name and gave it to both of our children. My husband’s name came from his abusive adoptive father, so he was not attached to it. I love my weird, hard to spell and pronounce name, and I don’t have brothers to carry on the name. The only trouble we’ve ever had is the…

After being separated from his turtle friend (they were split up when the original owner went to college), my turtle Arnold got very depressed. Eventually he stacked rocks against the side of his tank and Houdini-ed over the glass. He then made it to through a gauntlet of 2 dogs and 4 cats to the other side of the…

I’ve been in a group for over 13 years now, a group filled with moms who had kids in June 2003. We’ve fought and shared and, most recently, supported each other after losing one of our members to cancer. You definitely do less of the “what do I do” posting the older your kid gets and more of the “can you believe the…

Or laparoscopic surgery. And when the dr tells your parents, they never tire of telling you you are full of shit.

I can’t tell if this article is serious or seriously badly written sarcasm. This girl sounds just like my roommate 1st year of college. That girl was definitely hot shit, especially when she passed out fully dressed in our communal shower and proceeded to urinate and vomit all over herself. I guess if seeing this…

Just remembered another: I worked at an Episcopal church camp as a counselor - we ran week long camps all summer for age range 7-18. One week the diocese rented the facility out to a Catholic church for their own camp, but all the staff stayed on to run things. Well, Catholics don’t let others take their communion, so…

This isn’t really sacrilegious, but it’s one of my dad stories that always makes me laugh. My dad is an Episcopalian deacon, and one of his jobs during service is to estimate how much wine they need for communion. Precision is important because you can’t throw out or otherwise store wine once it’s been consecrated…

Now I shall say, “Come the fuck on, Bridget” all day. Thanks for that.

Look, I know this is so not the point of the thread, but most people with RSD need pain control beyond Lyrical or gabapentin. There are different formulations of opiates that they should be switched to, much better than OxyContin, like Nucynta, that are effective and have less likelihood for developing physical…

Having pre-eclampsia with the first child = no increase risk of it happening again. I don’t know if I remember this 100% accurately, but I think she actually has less risk than she would had she never had it. (I had severe pre-eclampsia with my first and absolutely nothing with my second, but discussed it/researched…

So, this has been around for a while - I did it for my son with the first Surface, which runs Windows RT, not 10. If you create a “child account” for your kid, it’s associated with your Microsoft account, and yes, you get the reports (which showed very little back then, like nothing). I would disagree that “Windows 10…

Oh, the agony of choosing just one. There’s the time they convince my 10 year old best friend that potatoes had bones. Not Idaho potatoes, as they’d bred them out. But definitely the Montana baked potatoes we were eating. Her parents called later that night, quite concerned. Or the first date when Dad quite literally…

I’ve mentioned this here before, but you get to choose. And fuck anyone who doesn’t like it. (I am SO popular.) My kids have my last name, and no one looks at them funny. Ok, so maybe everyone assumes their father is their stepfather, but I did carry them. I think that the other way may still be most common, but I’m…

I’ve been at MS for over 7 years and have yet to see anyone penalized for taking maternity or paternity leave. MS is a good place for women, as long as you don't mind being the only woman in a meeting room full of men. (I previously worked at IBM, which has considerably better gender diversity.)

Yeah, IBM has encouraged remote working for more than a decade. It’s cheaper for them, particularly when you have a team with people on multiple continents. But there are times when you have to travel, to meet with customers or to build your team. IBM has done good things for women, don’t sneer when you don’t know…

My husband went the exact opposite way. My last name is German, while his is Welsh. Both kids got as celtic sounding names as possible. (We split the naming -since I got to choose their last names, my husband picked first and middle.)

Even when my husband was doing the whole stay-at-home thing, I was always the one dealing with kid shit. I don’t know, it just worked out that way, despite complaints. (Oy, I am such not a a good example of egalitarian parenting.) But know that I’m also kind of ruthlessly practical - we got married a year before we…

Our kids have my last name. A lot of reasons (my dad had no sons, my husband’s name came from an adoptive father he dislikes), but mostly because i’m the one doing most of the interacting with schools and doctors. And insurance is through me.

At a hacking thing a couple of months ago (200 devs in a room for two days), final presentations to the VP, who's judging (1st prize=lunch with the VP, it's a thing). The guy in front of me has 12 frigging slides and every single one highlights slides something his team did in response to a comment from the VP. So…

I grew up in Utah and tried for years to convince my parents to move (not Mormon, no other family there, my parents moved there in the 70s for jobs). No luck, they frigging LOVE it there. And to be honest, when I visit, I love it too. I just don't think that I want to raise my kids there.