It’s horrible. I am really trying to do better. I have life threatening allergies to seafood/shellfish, and since having COVID and losing my smell, any meat other than chicken, peanut butter and chocolate all taste absolutely rancid. DH has a gluten allergy. DS11 will try anything, but hates cooked vegetables and spicy foods. He’d live on cheeseburgers, chicken and rice. DD9 has a sensory aversion to chicken. DS6 has severe sensory aversions to anything mushy, spongy(like mushrooms), or mixed like a casserole. He has a milk sensitivity as well, though he is okay if it’s cooked or a small amount. My sister, who stays with us frequently when she’s in NY, has an allergy to all red meat caused by a form of lyme Disease. We eat a lot of vanilla yogurt.

I live in a state where people are still able to access payment from the state for mandatory quarantines. People seem to test for every sniffle because it could be essentially a paid vacation without touching their PTO. It’s almost impossible to get tests because they book up so quickly(and then they come to the ER for no other reason than to get a Covid test, but that’s another story). And there’s still a lot of employers and other venues requiring a negative test, so people are testing whether or not they’re symptomatic. So with only 51% vaccinated I think it’s probably not just the vaxxed or we’d have more test slots open. My personal guess is that we had a Covid surge the last few months and that many unvaccinated people caught it then, so now they’re immune for the moment and it’s the vaccinated who having waning immunity and are catching it.

This is honestly a huge concern for me. I wish we had a better grasp on how virulent most asymptomatic or mild infections are, because I think they’re really prelevant. We’re havi!g a significant percentage of breakthrough cases here(124 positive on Wednesday and 71 of those were breakthrough cases) and people are getting tested and turning up positive with very few symptoms, but they tested because of an exposure. Daily testing is unrealistic, so I don’t have any idea who to combat this. Vaccinations are great and I am thrilled we have them, but not every breakthrough case is asymptomatic and even “mild” cases can be prolonged and miserable. I don’t believe people are willing to socially distance and mask forever. I don’t even think that’s ideal. So I don’t know what the answers are.

Do you think she’ll stick with it though? I’ve seen an awful lot of these types of agreements get modified/changed/not hold up in court when one party changed their mind down the road.

After reading this whole thread, I think you, your son and your husband are expecting way more stability and rationality out of this woman than she’s ever shown. I would not trust anything she claims to agree until it’s agreed to in court. And even afterward I would expect her to get her own attorney and find a loophole to change things. Especially if she’s already in some kind of relationship with someone in the military.

I agree—my county releases the breakthrough cases as well. 71 out of the 124 positives yesterday were fully vaccinated. While they aren’t going to die, I’m seeing fully vaccinated people who are still very sick and struggling(“mild Covid” to HCW and the CDC doesn’t mean what most people think “mild Covid” means) While I appreciate the transparency, I feel like a lot of people on the fence look at those numbers and their sick, double vaccinated friends and think why bother.

(don’t quote) Both of my sons have Robert as a middle name as it’s a family name. Well, we gave it to the oldest and weren’t going to use it again, but oldest was almost 4 when youngest was born and adamant that he needed Robert in his name too. Youngest has two middle names— first name Matthew Robert. I only use the double middle name when he’s in trouble.

Finally on a downward trend. I just checked the statistics and we’re at a 5.88% rolling positivity rate over the last 7 days. 50.1% of the entire population fully vaccinated with slightly more having their first shot. We haven’t had a mask mandate in New York since spring and I rarely see anyone masked, even in places like movie theaters. I know of one restaurant that still requires masks. I was hoping for more of a response to the pediatric vaccines, but the first clinic, with around 500 open slots, only saw 120 kids. Unless it’s required for school I don’t expect there will be a lot of kids vaccinated. Our hospitalizations are still up, though, with 39 hospitalized in the one hospital in the county. That may not sound like a lot, but consider that our hospital only has 20 ICU beds.

24 hours later and one child has had a sore arm. No other complaints from any of them.

My kids were all vaccinated yesterday. No complaints. The 6-year-old said his arm was sore; but he was also angling for a popsicle. I’m enjoying the nasty FB comments on how people will pray for my children(on a local news site because I’m dumb and posted how happy we were to get vaxxed). Strangely, no one is citing sources for their number of 30% of vaccinated boys develop myocarditis. Odd that they don’t have sources….

I can’t figure this out either—unless maybe people are passing it to domesticated animals that are then roaming around and coming in contact with deer? My cat roams the fields and probably comes into contact with a lot of animals. Fecal transmission? Infected water? I don’t honestly know. We are so overrun with deer that they’re allowing hunters to take more this year(or earlier, my husband was telling me but I was only half paying attention)—but I don’t know anyone who is up close and personal hanging out with deer.

You did great! sometimes I give myself time outs instead of the kids.

Honestly? I don’t know. But I know trans people who legimately believe and have said to me, “I was born into the wrong body.” They do believe their brain is distinctly one gender and their body is another. I am not trans, but I trust that that is how they feel. I personally have a hard time with this, because I have never felt either male or female. My body is female. My body also makes more male hormones than other females and not enough female hormones. So I take Aldactone to stop the male hormone production and supplemental estrogen and progesterone that my body doesn’t want to make. I am stronger than most females and could grow a beard if I wanted, but I also grew three babies. But honestly I don’t feel like my brain has a gender and my body doesn’t seem to want to take sides. I don’t feel the need to label myself non-binary or female or male; I’m perfectly comfortable as I am. I am really hesitant about medical transitioning. If DS6 grows up and wants that, it will have been a steady desire for his whole life and I will Support that, once he’s an adult. I’m hesitant before then. I have an ex boyfriend who came out recently as a trans woman. She was able to get on hormones within weeks and is now planning both top and bottom surgery, which she hasn’t had difficulty obtaining. She’s married to a woman and there was never, ever any sign(we seriously dated for two years) that she thought of herself as anything but a man. I do kind of think this is rushing it and she should take a few years to be sure that living the rest of her life as a female is a true desire. But my own feelings about all the meds I take, which all have side effects, colors my view. My biggest thing is that I don’t want DS6 to think he must be a girl because he loves dresses and glitter. His sister wouldn’t touch a dress with a ten foot pole, and I point out that some girls want pants and some boys want dresses and it’s all just a cultural construct.

I have a young son who loves to wear dresses and adamantly wishes he was a girl, so that he could do “girly things.” I am very careful to not give my kids the impression that there are things that only boys can do and only girls can do(obvious things like childbirth aside). I don’t want him believing rhat he must be a girl since he likes to do “girl things.” (If he feels strongly later on that he was born in the wrong body, that’s different) I do think that rigid gender roles can lead to gender confusion in some circumstances. But I also believe there are people who are genuinely born into the wrong body.

Holidays always hit home how scattered my family is. My parents come from families that had sixty people at Thanksgiving, and somehow coming from a big family I always thought it would be similar with my kids playing with their cousins like I grew up doing. Instead there’s a lot of distance, emotional and physical, and even before Covid, no one comes back to visit my parents or disabled sister who still lives at home. The one set of cousins my kids do see on occasion are in the middle of their mom’s(my sister) second divorce and seem to spend holidays with their respective father’s families. Obviously my kids don’t know the difference, but I do kind of feel sad that their holidays aren’t centered around extended family like mine were growing up. Seeing all the Ugly Christmas parties and Friendsgiving on FB kind of stings too. We really have very few friends and I don’t see that changing soon, so it always kind of drives my loneliness home.

Honestly? I wouldn’t make everyone change their Thanksgiving. I would have a couple vegan dishes for those who don’t eat animal products; enough dishes to fill them up, and a dessert, but I wouldn’t change the entire Thanksgiving dinner.

It’s likely because they’re swamped and understaffed. They also are probably in communication with the nursing home if she’s heading toward discharge. Call the patient advocate hotline. Legally thhe number should be posted in her room. Ask to speak to her case manager. That should be a nurse or social worker at the hospital. Also, contact the nursing home. It’s definitely possible they know more.

It’s taken years of occupational therapy just to get him to tolerate pants and a coat. He can’t deal with anything on his face, either a scarf or the cold air. I think cooking and food prep is a great idea. I hate cooking and I’m not good at it, but he’d love to cook with me. He’s happy to eat anything; the healthy food problem lies with me. I grew up cooking for a large family(cooking was my chore once I hit about 13) and we rarely had meat due to money. We ate a lot of beans and pasta casseroles, and that’s what I know how to cook. So I married someone who can’t have gluten and hates beans, but loves meat. I don’t know how to cook it so I just don’t. I need to work all of us eating healthier. I asked him what his favorite things in PE are, and going to the weight room at school was high on the list. I’m going to talk to DH about getting weights. He likes to weight train too and that might be a good thing for them to do together.

Not that I would ever, ever recommend going cold turkey off anything—but he had no ill effects. I plan to discuss that with his new psychiatric NP here in two weeks. All my kids, and myself, need to do better with exercising over the cold months. We’re pretty active when it’s warm, and in years past we swam at the YWCA a couple times a week, but the pool needs repairs they can’t afford and won’t open this year. I took the kids to the mall today to play Pokémon Go and walk, but I need to start thinking creatively this winter.

Also, to be fair I am also diabetic. But I am down to underweight numbers from not being able to eat thanks to Covid. It ruined my smell and taste and everything either tastes rancid or like sand. Highly processed foods seem to taste mildly okay. But they aren’t good for me either, and I have to figure that out too. DS11 is actually pretty adventurous with food, so that helps.

So—we do have a basement. While it has a concrete floor, it’s not finished. We do plan to finish it; but first we have to put a new sump pump in and that probably won’t be affordable this fall. We do have an unheated garage as well. We are working now on cleaning it out and heating it, and are going to hang an indoor swing for him. He loves gamified things. We have a Nintendo Switch; I’ll check out the Ring. He loves Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom, which both involve walking. I don’t think he’ll use a treadmill. Since running causes chest pain he gets all anxious about that now. I don’t think he’ll use a stationary bike either; he likes to ride his bike and look at scenery and enjoy the silence. He actually loves being outside, but the cold really bothers him. I knew about the weight gain with Abilify but not the blood sugar component. As the majority(75%) of people on my mother’s side became diabetic as teenagers, and my paternal grandfather in his 20s(most of whom were not obese) it’s a huge concern for me. I do question now whether the Abilify is worth it. He was off for about 8 weeks over the summer due to prescription errors and a provider suddenly leaving, and he was actually very pleasant to be around and not moody at all. He has an appointment in two weeks and I plan to bring it up. I am wondering if a low dose anti anxiety med would be better, as now most of his behaviors seem to stem from anxiety. I posted on here a while back about how negative he was constantly—his school did a functional behavior assessment and found every behavior, including the negativity, seemed to stem from anxiety.

DS11 is 4’10 and 135 pounds; the 99th percentile. He was always very underweight until going on Abilify two years ago. He’s gained 85 pounds in those two years. His new pediatrician is not concerned, he’s gained so rapidly that I am. Diabetes is rampant on my side of the family which is a concern as well. He has extreme sensory issues to the cold, which makes outdoor time in NY right now miserable. He loves to swim but we don’t have a Y close that has an indoor pool. He has autism and organized sports are never going to work. He likes to run but has exercise asthma and it gives him chest pain. He loves riding his bike, but the cold. This time of year he is on screens way too much, but we’ve moved to a smaller house and there’s not much running around room inside. We already eat diabetic friendly and gluten free, but since Covid a year ago I’ve been buying a lot of processed food because it’s all that tastes good to me now. He does not have sensory issues with food and is not a picky eater, so that’s good. I don’t want to tell him to lose weight or that I think he weighs too much, but I feel like I need to do something.

I have my kids scheduled for Tuesday. There is only one clinic doing pediatric shots in a three county radius. They have a ton of open slots, which probably means that there isn’t a lot of interest in pediatric shots. I’m hopeful that it’s just because people don’t know about it, but I don’t expect the pediatric vaccine locally to be gotten in huge numbers.

If she gets sick easily, and really wants to work with kids, I’d be looking at sick leave policies. My first real job was working with kids and I’ve always gotten sick easily—I wound up frequently sick and got fired for absenteeism. They didn’t care that I had a doctor’s note for every single time I was out sick and didn’t call in any other times. I was a good worker, but I also understood that having someone out frequently sick(2-3 times a month, even for a day, is probably considered excessive). It’s probably something she needs to look into until her immune system is more robust after working a few years.

Exhaustion. stress. Tudor history. Hary Potter. I have degrees in philosophy and creative writing but I’ve forgotten more than I leaned. Nothing very valuable lol.