Play dough with pipe cleaners and a daily pill organizer filled with buttons, large sequins, googly eyes, and wooden beads. So many monsters and fairies and people and buildings created! Daily pill organizer with themed erasers; we have Dino’s, cars, planes, jungle animals, and... bunnies? Cats? I can’t remember. Half sheet size laminated play mats for building worlds for the eraser critters. Magnetic tanagrams

Well, today was day one with the glucose monitor thing. Fasting blood sugar was 88, which I guess isn’t bad, but I’d like to see if I can lower it over the next week or so. I had 2 eggs scrambled with tomatoes and cheddar cheese, a cup of roasted broccoli, and a glass of milk. I think I need more fat or protein, but I’ll have to do some playing around with meal size to accommodate snacks. My one hour reading post meal was 96, so we’ll see. I was diagnosed Monday and managed to get an appointment with the dietician on Tuesday, so it’s been a little bit of a whirlwind. I definitely need to make a meal plan and a grocery store run! I don’t know if I agree with their suggested carb numbers, because I think if I eat 15-16 carb servings in a day my blood sugar would be even higher than it was before! There might be some battles, but I’m hoping to be able to squeeze in some research in low(er) carb pregnancy diets. Edited bc my autocorrect loves apostrophes.

Oh, I know. I'm just crabby about it right now. I'm annoyed with myself for not losing as much weight as I "should" have between babies. And I'm trying to listen to my doc, who totally concurs about the weight thing but is also pointing out that all my systems have been stressed this time. She's made it clear that if we're not done at four (I am!), she recommends waiting a little longer before the next baby to give my body a chance to recover.

Fourth pregnancy, and I'm hit with this. Ugh! Advice? Tips? Encouraging words? Lay it on me.

Nope, this one I don’t get. Airplanes, parks, grocery stores? No problem. Restaurants, museums, libraries, lectures or performances, church? Remove the screaming child. Sucks sometimes, but then so does parenting. Signed, Mom of soon to be 4 kids under age 5

Pregnancy insomnia just hit me this week. I'd been hoping to miss it out this time, but apparently no luck. I wake up between 2-3 am, and if I'm lucky, I'll fall back to sleep around 4:30-5:00. The kids wake up between 5:00- 5:30 am, so..... Yeah, I definitely took a nap at 9:00 this morning. Gotta gird my loins for the work week.

I think this is my problem getting started. I have my kitchen groove, and I can throw together most meals without a recipe. I can believe that the I'll get hooked on a pressure cooker in theory, it's just busting my rut and learning something new. Thinking about it right now makes me want a nap :lol:

I received an (unsolicited) Instant Pot for my birthday earlier this month, and it's still sitting in the box mocking me. I just haven't dug up the motivation to face the (perceived) learning curve. I'm a cookbook kind of girl, so cookbook recommendations are hugely welcome. Favorite websites/recipes/get started guides are also appreciated. I eat everything. Dh eats meat. The kids... who knows.

I love when I have leftover ginger-jalapeño sweet potatoes to make sweet potato black bean quesadillas. I love when I have leftover gourmet cheese from a party to make grilled cheese. I love when I have leftover brain space after my kids go to bed so I can read.

We're expecting number 4 in January. When she arrives, my kids will be 4 (a month shy of 5), newly 3 and 21 months, and I will be 36. We're done. There are many reasons, but the biggest is I don't think I can face another pregnancy, at least not without a break. Each time it gets a little harder to recover (I was on partial bedrest for unrelated reasons for #s 2 and 3), and I can't imagine that gets easier with age. I also love, love, love having itty bitty babies, but I don't love toddlers at all, really. DH is definitely done; he was on the fence about #4, although we're both pleased to be expecting. I think if I would have been happy with 3, he would have had no problem accepting that. I pushed for four, and already I can tell that, although I think we'll be fine, I'll be at my limit. I'm a little sad to be done at 4 kids, mostly because I imagined myself as someone who could handle a "big" family. I don't think of 4 as big. I can see maybe if I started in my mid 20s instead of early 30s and could have spaced things out a bit, or have taken a few year break and have a little caboose pair at my current age, I would have gone that route. As it is, I can't wait for this last little girl to join our family. I'm going to soak up all the wonders of last baby, but I don't think I'm going to mourn passing milestones. I'm really looking forward to watching my kids grow up, and I'm not sure I could see myself going back to the baby/toddler phase once we're out of it.

We love our wooden play kitchen. Super sturdy and durable (thank you, baby #3 who suddenly thinks it's also a jungle gym :glare: ). I even moved it upstairs into our kitchen (it fits in the space under our island counter). It looks better than plastic and gets played with every day. Win, win.

I love it. I actually love going to the grocery store, but sometimes having my groceries show up at my door is the most awesome thing ever. Going online for the first time is kind of a pain, but my store saves grocery lists, so repeat trips are easier. My absolute favorite is to have groceries delivered the evening after we get back from an out of town trip. No dragging my tired self to the store for breakfast milk and bread.

Manual control for sure. We have an electric dryer, because fitting our laundry room for gas would have been $$$. I air dry about 2/3 of my loads, so I'm probably not the best gauge there.

I'v actually had very good luck with grocery delivery and produce selection (and I've used grocery delivery in several states/with several grocery stores). Maybe one in 10 deliveries will I have something not up to par, but they always give me a credit. Those are about the same odds I have, frankly, when picking apples that look fine but end up mushy or the avocados that go from rock hard to overripe in 24 hrs, etc. I actually love going to the grocery store (even with kids in tow, I don't mind it), but when we've been out of town, in the last few weeks of pregnancy/newborn stage, or just when our week is packed, the pick up or delivery option is awesome.

I make a calendar annually, and then send consumables. Murray's Cheeses, Eli Zabar baskets, Dean and Deluca, American Spoon. This year I'm sending olive oil and vinegar combos from a local shop.

Some years. This year I'm going as crabby, tired, pregnant lady. It's shockingly authentic.

My must have other than turkey and mashed potatoes is my grandmother's cranberry salad. Fresh cranberries, green apples, oranges, pecans, celery, sugar, and marshmallows if you are in to that sort of thing. (I'm not, because leftovers are the best part, and marshmallows don't make great leftovers.) Last year we were on our own for Thanksgiving, and while I'd rather not do it again - I miss family and friends- I did love having my own turkey to play with; stock and soup and casserole and enchiladas! I'm contemplating sticking a turkey in my freezer for December.

Can we please stop calling things like bladder incontinence, diastase recti, painful intercourse, etc. normal? There is nothing normal about leaking when you sneeze. The word we want is COMMON. I'm just so tired of a medical model that treats postpartum recovery as a simple thing and women's bodies - especially after birth or menopause - as inconsequential or a necessary sacrifice. And our language - from doctors and other women - is helping perpetuate that idea. Yes, give someone a nice, reassuring hug or smile and let them know that their struggle is common, and they are in good company. But please don't suggest that's it's NORMAL and 100% of women can't do anything about the trauma their body went through during pregnancy and birth (or menopause, I'm guessing, but no personal experience there!).

You can't "give" a kid dyslexia. The biggest problem you might run into is a kid who is eager to read but not really developmentally ready, so is easily frustrated and upset. My oldest was dying to read at 3.5, but he really wasn't ready. We played around with apps, did AAR pre at triple speed, and read aloud a lot. Six months later, we started with WRTR phonograms and I See Sam readers, which he loved. He's 4.5 now and reading Frog and Toad type readers; his fluency is strong, but his stamina is not quite there. We read as often as he requests and stop whenever he's ready, no pressure. By contrast, I was reading Little House on the Prairie by 4, and my 2.5 yo daughter can't sit through a picture book yet. So I imagine I'll see a pretty broad spectrum across my own kids.

I would read either "open house" or "cocktails" as not-dinner unless otherwise specified. That said, I like to start my cocktail parties at 6, bc it gives people enough time to get home from work but leaves people time to go out to dinner (which is something I might do if I've gone to the trouble of hiring a sitter).

Always closed. Quieter for them, quieter for me. Darker for them = better sleep. My door is open, but that's because we lost part of the baby monitor and I've been too lazy to replace. It's harder to hear the baby with two closed doors. And the cat comes and goes, and I'm not getting up 27 times a night to let her in and out :lol:

Agility ladder, cones, rings, a tunnel, and sticks for hurdles. Lots of build your own obstacle courses happening. If you can install one while renting, a climbing rope suspended from the ceiling.

This year I'm having the party catered, because I'll be 35 weeks pregnant, and I just.can't.face.it. But in year's past, I have served mini rolls with a platter of sliced turkey, roast beef, mustard and cranberry sauces, and sliced cheeses. A cheese tray, a veggie and dip tray, and a fruit tray. If I'm feeling ambitious, mini quiches or similar. A tray of dessert things (cookies or brownies or truffles). I think the key is to have enough food to feel hospitable but not so much that people linger all night. If the food runs out and the alcohol slows down, people leave. My biggest problem is actually DH, who often urges people preparing to leave to stay longer. He's an extroverted night owl, and I'm an introverted lark. We make it work, but I always have to remind him that I don't mind hosting, but I do mind the evening not ending when it should.

First, I think it's somewhat misleading to think that elder care has not been a problem for millennia. Just because there were far fewer options for elder car than adult children in generations past did not mean everyone had a pleasant attitude about it or that elders were treated with kindness and dignity. I also think it's hugely problematic not to consider that the world has changed substantially in the past few generations. Not right or wrong, but different. We live longer, take MUCH longer to die (thanks to a medical model that is substantially required to preserve life at any cost), and we live in a society where two incomes are becoming a necessity not a luxury. We have created a culture of independence that hugely impacts aging; setting aside a person's desire not to become a "burden" on children, there is also a strong prevailing attitude that an elder's independence should be respected at all costs. I've seen that attitude create a huge problem for caregivers, even if the relationship is a wonderful one. This extends to elders that refuse to leave their home when it is dangerous or too far from care to be even remotely practical, refuse assistance from in-home medical care, drive well past the point of safety, etc. We also no longer live in a society of multi-generational families. Often an elderly parent is moving into a home at the point where he or she is no longer capable of taking care of personal needs. This can plunge families into the role of caregiver for someone with complex needs with little time to adjust to the situation. Also, at this point, there are often changes in emotional or mental capacity, which means that the very youngest generation is only seeing the worst side of their grandparents rather than enjoying a more complex relationship. In times where generations lived together or in closer proximity, the burden of elder care was not only potential shared by broader family relationships, but said relationships had developed in times of health so were stressed differently in times of need. For example, one of my dear friends growing up had her grandmother living with them. "Nanny" moved in when she was relatively young and definitely able-bodied, after she became a widow. She was an integral part of the household, so that mom and dad were both able to work full time when the children were young. As she aged, the financial burden was less, because the parents hadn't had to give up early careers to be home full time with young children. The picture probably would have been different if she moved in twenty years after she did, at the peak of being unable to care for herself. Finally, I don't think it is at all fair to compare raising children to caring for elders. The care of an 8 pound infant in your 30s is significantly different than the care of a full grown adult in your 60s or 70s. Elder care IS a burden and a sacrifice. (By the way, so is raising children!) That doesn't mean I don't believe personally that I have a responsibility to my parents as they age, but I think it's irresponsible to discount all the many complicating factors inherent in elder care and complicated by our modern society. Even in families where the relationships are wonderful and finances are secure, elder care is still a challenge. Like all challenges, it can also be a blessing or enriching, but it's not as simple as just grin and bear it. P.S. I don't believe all elder care facilities are terrible places where people get shoved to die inhumanely. I've known many people who thrive in a community where they can build relationships in old age rather than experience growing isolation, and where everyone benefits from knowledgable medical care to make daily life easier and, frankly, more dignified.

Mornings are fine, but after nap they are bears. My kids need to eat about 3.2 seconds after they wake up, which is great because they are usually up before 5 am. After nap the 2.5 yo wants to snuggle for 30 minutes, and the 17 mo wants to be held standing up for as long as I will let him. And pregnant me does not have a ton of patience either. Basically no one is happy for a while. Fun times.