The "what's On Your Mind?" Thread -2021

[KarenKat]

Feeling a bit isolated lately - my mom is throwing a baby shower for me but she doesn’t live in my state. So all the relatives are going to her house and I was having about 3 friends come to my house and we are planning a short zoom call before we break to the separate parties.

But two of my guests are the spouses of men that my husband was in an organization with and he just quit the group last week. I’m not sure how this is going to work or if these two are planning on coming now as there hasn’t been any communication. I think they are offended he quit.

I already had some anxiety to how this whole zoom shower was going to play out and now I feel stuck in limbo. My husband feels terrible if this affects the shower but it was the right move for him mentally to not be involved anymore. I just hate not knowing I guess.

 

[susanm9006]

I went down to put a couple new jigsaw puzzles in my puzzle storage chest(s) and realized I could do a puzzle a week for the next year without running out. There will be no more purchases for a LONG while.

 

[Elphaba09]

I'm pretty upset with myself. I was supervising J standing along the window ledge and she reached out to touch Sparkle on the back and since she seemed to be pretty gentle I figured I'd allow it, and Sparkle turned and hissed and swatted her in the face - thankfully claws in and J didn't even react, but there's still a faint scratch near her eye and I'm feeling guilty how much worse it could have been. Lelia runs away and will allow supervised gentle pets when J is calm, but Sparkle insists on standing her ground, so I guess I'm not going to try and foster any relationship between them right now.

It makes me feel like I'm failing both as a pet and human parent.

Aw! Lari! You are not failing at either! Pets and babies do things. Hex kids are always doing things! You are teaching J to be gentle, and that is fantastic and exactly what a good mama and pet parent should do. She is learning. So are Leila and Sparkles. I am sure things will work out.

I have a story for you. It may not make you feel better, but, then again, it may by comparison! Haha!

21 years ago when my son was 7 and my daughter was a colicky, cranky three-month-old, I was at my sister's watching her three boys while she went on a date with her husband. I had been trying to get my daughter to sleep for over an hour, but the four boys kept running through and making a lot of noise. I told them to go into K's room to pay until the baby was awake. They kept coming downstairs telling on each other. My son and his cousin M were the last two to come down. I said, in a rather stern voice, "You need to calm down and let her sleep for at least half an hour. The next one who comes down those stairs better be bleeding."

I think you know where this is going.

A few minutes later, I hear a yell, so I put H down and started towards the stairs. At the top of the stairs was my son bleeding. A lot. They had been jumping off the top bunk to the bottom bunk of one of those t-shaped beds. M had taken the cap off of the metal footboard of the bottom bunk. My son had landed in a way that it took a chunk out of his leg going from mid-shin to just below his knee. Thankfully, just as I scambling as to how I was going to fit a car seat and four boys ranging from 4 to 8 in my Ford Focus safely, my sister and brother-in-law came home because she had forgotten her inhaler. 20-something internal stitches, 30-something external stitches, and a skin graft later, he still has a scar. He also remembers it pretty well. He calls it the time his mother gave him a blood curse for waking up his sister.

At least you did not accidentally blood curse J! Haha!

 

[Lari]

Aw! Lari! You are not failing at either! Pets and babies do things. Hex kids are always doing things! You are teaching J to be gentle, and that is fantastic and exactly what a good mama and pet parent should do. She is learning. So are Leila and Sparkles. I am sure things will work out.

I have a story for you. It may not make you feel better, but, then again, it may by comparison! Haha!

21 years ago when my son was 7 and my daughter was a colicky, cranky three-month-old, I was at my sister's watching her three boys while she went on a date with her husband. I had been trying to get my daughter to sleep for over an hour, but the four boys kept running through and making a lot of noise. I told them to go into K's room to pay until the baby was awake. They kept coming downstairs telling on each other. My son and his cousin M were the last two to come down. I said, in a rather stern voice, "You need to calm down and let her sleep for at least half an hour. The next one who comes down those stairs better be bleeding."

I think you know where this is going.

A few minutes later, I hear a yell, so I put H down and started towards the stairs. At the top of the stairs was my son bleeding. A lot. They had been jumping off the top bunk to the bottom bunk of one of those t-shaped beds. M had taken the cap off of the metal footboard of the bottom bunk. My son had landed in a way that it took a chunk out of his leg going from mid-shin to just below his knee. Thankfully, just as I scambling as to how I was going to fit a car seat and four boys ranging from 4 to 8 in my Ford Focus safely, my sister and brother-in-law came home because she had forgotten her inhaler. 20-something internal stitches, 30-something external stitches, and a skin graft later, he still has a scar. He also remembers it pretty well. He calls it the time his mother gave him a blood curse for waking up his sister.

At least you did not accidentally blood curse J! Haha!

Omg, I feel squeamish just at the description!

I hope J figures out gentle eventually! I'll keep working at it.

My husband put up the baby gates we bought over the weekend, and while Lelia will leap over it, Sparkle will just sit there on the other side like it's a wall. It gives her and the baby a chance to interact without touching each other.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

My legs now have the heebie jeevies. And I'm really not squeamish.

I think every parent has a moment eventually where your kid gets hurt and you have that mom guilt. DS's biggest injury was needing 2 staples in his head when he jumped off a toddler chair immediately after I told both kids to stop jumping off the chair. He came running in the room doing his usual cry where he'd sob (usually over something minor) with one hand on each side of his temples. So my first instinct was not sympathy. Then he moved his hand and the blood ran down. He doesn't even remember it. He spent most of the time in the ER flirting with the nurses and the PA who took care of him. I know I shared that story here before.

I'm told boys really like sharing the stories about how they got the scars they have. So far he's not repeated his eyebrow scar story from last fall. He did say something about not doing that again at Aunt J's house.


I'm having to watch a transaction on my credit card this week. I have been a Proactiv customer for well over a decade and I used it as a teen too. As an automatic delivery subscriber. Apparently they are having MAJOR issues. I'm starting to wonder if they haven't had a cyber ransom attack and they aren't admitting it. I got billed for almost twice a kit cost this weekend and when I went to see why; I've discovered a nightmare amount of complaints on BBB, Facebook and an only semi-functioning site that has been in the process of an update since MAY if not before then!! I know first I need to make sure I actually get a product shipment before I contact my credit card company or them. But all the comments are making me nervous. So many people can't even get confirmation of cancellations. So far FexEx says a label was created on Saturday. So far they haven't recieved it.

 

[Lari]

It's almost her lunch, so here's Sparkle sitting sadly behind the gate like it's a brick and barbed wire wall while the baby is thrilled to look at her.

I probably should feed her before the poor thing starves to death. Skin and bones, that one.

 

[Elphaba09]

Skin and bones, that one

Yep! She certainly is just skin and bones. So neglected!

Omg, I feel squeamish just at the description!

My legs now have the heebie jeevies. And I'm really not squeamish.

I should add that my BIL had to fish out the piece from the tubing. It did not occur to them to look for it because my sister nearly passed out from the blood and everyone was in such a state that they just forgot that it was a possibility. That is until the "possibility" became a very real smell.

If you are brave, you can read about my nephew. This is a fair warning!

As I mentioned, my one sister has four boys. They are M, K, L, and G. L is on the spectrum for autism and does not feel pain the same as we do. When he was five or so, he cut the tip of his finger off because he had a splinter. He nicked the bone and now has a slightly stubby finger.

In one year--when he was nine, I think--he ran through a single plate glass door and broke his arm. For the glass, after he heard my sister screaming and M told him he was covered in blood, he ran to the house and hosed himself off to see if she would stop screaming. I pulled up while he was hosing himself off because I was dropping some stuff off to her. The hose shower did not make her stop screaming. He had to have reconstructive surgery on his face and almost lost his eye.

For the broken arm, he was playing with his three brothers in the yard and fell off the swing. My sister asked if he was okay. He said yes and went on playing. Because he was wearing a big coat and it was not his dominant side, she did not notice it was broken--or how badly--until he came inside for dinner. He lifted up his arm to pray and part of his forearm flopped over and his arm was bloody. You can imagine that scene! He did say that it hurt but not enough to stop playing.

I have not spoken to that sister in several years, but, as far as I know, those are the worst of his injuries. At least I hope they have been!

 

[susanm9006]

My son was a super active kid and he seemed to hurt himself a lot, by his teens I swear they knew us at the ER. He had a bad one once, cutting off the end of his pinky on an electric planer but was with his dad when that happened so he had to do ER duty. The worst I had to deal with was when he was about 11 and fell on a spike that went up through his armpit. He came in the house, not bleeding much, said he was hurt and we had to go to the emergency room. I demanded to see the wound first, which was a mistake because when he lifted his arm and I could see muscle and bone, I was barely able to stay upright to get to the car and drive him. That wound requires inside and outside stitches and was a slow recovery.

 

[Lari]

You guys are painting a grim picture of my future with daredevil baby...

It's a good thing we live less than five minutes from a hospital!

 

[Mamanyt1953]

MY TURN! Zac (Spawn 2) was about 6, not even a baby anymore. He and his brother wanted to go outside, and I cautioned them NOT TO RUN in the yard until I came out and cleared away some downed limbs and branches from a storm the night before. Grabbed my shoes to get started, and heard loud shrieks. They were, of course, running, and Zac had fallen face first on a broken branch, stabbing himself all the way through the lower lip and into his gum. I very calmly grabbed a beach towel and stabilized the branch, and we took off for the ER. I have to say, he was a trooper. They deadened everything (the worst part, he said), and got him stitched up. As soon as they were through, and said, "Well, that was close, but he'll be FINE!" I fainted dead away. Hadn't had time to, before. I'm good in emergencies, it's after that I fall apart!

 

[Elphaba09]

You guys are painting a grim picture of my future with daredevil baby...

It's a good thing we live less than five minutes from a hospital!

So, which daredevil are we talking? Or, is she going to be a mix of both?

 

[Willowy]

Speaking of things happening right after kids were told not to do it. . .once we were traveling and were waiting in an air terminal (some Air Force base somewhere, but I couldn't tell you where! Probably Yokota), and my brother and I were playing jump rope with the luggage strap. Well, I was pulling it taut and he was trying to jump over it, more of a high jump than jump rope, I suppose. Anyway, my mom told us to knock it off before someone got hurt, and we said "one more time!" so I pulled it one more time and he caught his foot on the strap and fell flat on his face and was bleeding everywhere. Only like the 17,000th time he smashed his face in childhood, how he has a face left is beyond me, lol. I don't even remember if we ended up at the clinic or if she just washed him up and we carried on; that's how often he smashed his face.

Pity my poor mom who had to wrangle a baby and 2 kids, traveling space-a on an unfamiliar base, who suddenly had a possibly badly injured kid to deal with.

 

[Willowy]

For another face mangling story: my mom once convinced my dad to take us out to play (if you're familiar with my past stories you know my dad is very uncomfortable around kids). I'm not sure what happened, I think a bike accident, but my brother smashed his face, as usual. My dad panicked, scooped my brother up, and---instead of running to the clinic, which was 2 blocks from the playground---ran up 5 flights of stairs with a screaming, bleeding 5-year-old to ask my mom what to do. He did end up at the clinic that time, not sure if he got stitches or not though. Whever he got stitches they had to wrap him up like a burrito because he fought them, and it would still take 5 people to hold the burrito down, lol.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

I’m told DH was running with a stick (I think around age 4) and impaled the roof of his mouth… His mother told me that story so I don’t know if he remembers it.

My cousin was one of those face smashing daredevils. He turned out to be a hockey player so maybe it makes sense.

 

[KarenKat]

Just an update - sounds like everyone is still coming to the shower, including the husband of one of the ladies which I wasn’t aware of lol. But we had a nice talk with them yesterday and I feel a lot better about the situation. Still awkward to have a hybrid party but I feel better knowing the likely guest list.

and because not everything is angsty here is a puppy picture

 

[artiemom]

KarenKat
I was invited to a Zoom Baby Shower, during the very early part of this year. The mom-in-waiting was in Florida, with guests in various parts of Massachusetts, Florida, and California.

I have to tell you, it was fun! There were about 16 - 20 people involved.
Family members were grouped together in family houses.
We did play games, which were good.

The gifts were sent before the shower, and were viewed all together, and individually, thanked.
This eliminated the boring part of watching them open and oohing and awing at all...

I really enjoyed it more than a real, in-person shower---which I find boring.

I am sure you will have a great time.

 

[Lari]

So, which daredevil are we talking? Or, is she going to be a mix of both?
View attachment 392113View attachment 392114

Feels like more the first for now. We'll see if she stays that way!

KarenKat I'm so glad things are working out for your shower. Covid has made the whole baby thing messier than it was before.

 

[KarenKat]

Yeah, my SIL had a zoom shower and they kept everything in the shipping boxes. It took a super long time to watch them cut all the boxes open. So we decided to open everything ahead of time and have a nice table to display everything and thank everybody. I think it will work out but it may be a tad awkward since it’s kind of a hybrid.

 

[artiemom]

Yeah, my SIL had a zoom shower and they kept everything in the shipping boxes. It took a super long time to watch them cut all the boxes open. So we decided to open everything ahead of time and have a nice table to display everything and thank everybody. I think it will work out but it may be a tad awkward since it’s kind of a hybrid.

It should not be awkward; it should be fun!

The one I attended had all the gifts grouped together. During the shower, they showed the area, and thanked each one for their gift. Some were taken out individually---really close relatives... and the rest were just thanked..
It was great!
Not awkward at all.. kind of free flowing and more intimate than a large shower.

If I remember correctly, they had another Zoom shower for the other side of the family. This way, it was smaller and nicer.
and friends had another one.

It was all very well organized.

 

[Katie M]

Mom is SO excited for this camper. Like I told her, "Now you get to decorate a new, tiny house!"