The Parenthood Thread

[SBT]

Congrats Syndicate. Well done to Mrs. Syndicate too. He looks so peaceful resting there.

[JJBerk]

Oh congrats!!!!!!! I guess brunch is off So happy for all 5 of you!!!!

[lgtvf52]

...number three arrived tonight. He's a little early, but other than being a little small (4lbs 5oz) he is healthy and doing well.

 

Congrats on number 3 to you and your wife

[twisty]

congrats on number 3!

[RuskiTrombone]

Congrats on #3 Syndicate. I just had my third as well. They are the best thing ever (after you get through the first few months of no sleep).

 

http://s11.postimg.org/y7d3wgylf/1476662_10151841287784037_399170981_n.jpg

[twisty]

my 19 yr old keeps me up at night. she likes to talk. a lot. and, since she doesnt get out of school until 10pm, she will call and keep me up until midnite talking sometimes. i think its payback for her sleeping through the night at an early age. i dont complain much tho, at least she still wants to talk to me regularly, which isnt the norm for a teen that has left the nest.

[SBT]

That is really good to hear. Nice work Dad. Active communications, up-down-across, are the key to solid, well-rounded, relationships.

[laff79]

Congrats on #3 Syndicate. I just had my third as well. They are the best thing ever (after you get through the first few months of no sleep).

 

http://s11.postimg.org/y7d3wgylf/1476662_10151841287784037_399170981_n.jpg

 

Congrats. I'm good with two though. Three's a crowd in my book

[JJBerk]

Got to see her in concert today - live stream video sucked, but audio was fantastic. She's playing in a fantastic symphony. A little (OK, a lot) jealous 'cause cute boy drove down there this morning to see it live. They'll caravan home together Tuesday night. Can't wait to see them both!

[KartRacerBoy]

My 10 yr old daughter broke her arm at school Thursday. Fell practicing her tap routine for the school play. Metal taps don't mix well with a tile floor. Fell backwards and put her hand back to catch and broke it just above the wrist. Not severe but painful. This happened at 2 pm. We were out of the doctor's office by 5:30 with a wrist brace until she could get a cast the next morning. Still in pain, she wanted to still be in the school play and tap dance. We put the kibosh on the dance, but she went through with the play. At one point her arm hurt enough that she was in tears on stage, but finished the play. The show must go on! What a trooper.

[BarManBean]

Ouch. I had an arm break right above the wrist at that age as well--I'm pretty sure it affects me today since it was near the growth plate(s). Hopefully she heals through quickly!

[KartRacerBoy]

Ouch. I had an arm break right above the wrist at that age as well--I'm pretty sure it affects me today since it was near the growth plate(s). Hopefully she heals through quickly!

 

Thanks. She broke the opposite arm the left in kindergarden in nearly the same way.

[jkaszynski]

I got to take my youngest (4) to see his hero this weekend. He's obsessed with tractor pulling and his favorite puller lives in town where my parents are. I texted his daughter and said we were around, could we stop by. She replies "yes, he's in the shop...head right over". We get there and he starts talking to the little guy about the tractor he's working on for a friend and then before we go over to see his setup, he hands Bennett a plaque from a pull this year and his 2012 points trophy to take home.

 

Here's his tractor

 

http://www.hootersscooter.com/2009_0613tractorpulldansville0043.JPG

 

and Bennett taking it all in. On a scale of happiness, this to him was like most kids Disney

 

[SBT]

@ KRB - what a trooper, she sounds stubborn as all get out. Wonder where she gets that? . Fell similarly playing tennis - big lunging forehand and my feet slipped out from under me - thought it was just sprained. Finished the set, but each stroke was pure hell. "Rub some dirt on it, and walk it off isn't always the best advice."

 

@jkaszynski - that's really cool. I'm sure your son was thrilled and awed.

[KartRacerBoy]

Long day for my daughter, and I'm pissed at her school. Aside from when I picked her up last Thursday with the broken arm, they've said nothing to my wife or I. Not the principal or anyh of the teachers. And today she went back to school with her left arm encased in a cast from her palm to her elbow. I sent a note letting the teacher know she can't do anything yet with her left arm becz it still hurts to move her fingers, and asked the teacher to help her do things she couldn't do, like tie her shoes, zipper her coat. I also told them she was not to let her participate in gym or recess,especially since it's icy and she might slip, but also becz she can't get her winter clothes on with one hand. She was told she had to do both. She asked the lunch staff to help her stack her chair in the lunch room and the teacher told her she had to do it herself.

 

I am f*cking beside myself. Already shot the principal an evenly toned email (wife wouldn't let me get too nasty yet). Next I'm sending them the damn doctor bills to be paid by the school insurance. F*cktards.

[SBT]

Yeah - that would fry my grits too.

[KartRacerBoy]

Annnnnnnnd just got back from the emergency room with my daughter. Only 2 hours. Not bad!

 

Arm in pain after a 2 hour full costume ballet rehearsal. Screaming in pain by the end and wracking sobs from the pain in her arm. Doctor at ER said the bone looks great and it was a mild break. She calmed down soon after we got there and the doctor gave us stronger pain meds.

[BarManBean]

Annnnnnnnd just got back from the emergency room with my daughter. Only 2 hours. Not bad!

 

Arm in pain after a 2 hour full costume ballet rehearsal. Screaming in pain by the end and wracking sobs from the pain in her arm. Doctor at ER said the bone looks great and it was a mild break. She calmed down soon after we got there and the doctor gave us stronger pain meds.

 

Ummmm...you need to learn to say no to your kid As in, "no, you're staying home because you have a broken arm!"

[KartRacerBoy]

Ummmm...you need to learn to say no to your kid As in, "no, you're staying home because you have a broken arm!"

 

She's worked 15 hrs a week in her dance classes since July for this ballet. Went to classes when she was sick to watch for sometimes 3 hours. If she missed too many classes, she couldn't keep the parts she got in the auditions. And the orthopedist said it was a mild break and gave her no restrictions. The arm didn't hurt until she got home. The doctor saw no reason she couldn't still dance.

 

She has one more dress rehearsal that she has to attend tomorrow for 3 hours after school. She said she didn't want to dance in the ballet tonight but she was exhausted and in pain. We'll see tomorrow, but I'm betting that she will want to do the ballet after a full nights sleep. But my wife, a ballet instructor as well as lawyer, is putting restrictions on her for her arms. Mostly they want to get spacing right on the big stage since they've rehearsed everything at the dance studio before yesterday.

 

There are two performances on Saturday and she is supposed to be in both. Unless she has no pain between now and Saturday, I've already opined to my wife that she can do one performance only, but the dance studio may not accept that. Two show or none.

 

On an aside. the ER doctor noted that redheads like my daughter often have far higher tolerances to pain medication, and my daughter has often said the OTC meds we give her for headaches and such have no effect. She's also said the tylenol with codeine has not helped the pain at all. I'd never heard this but my wife had.

Edited November 26, 2013 by KartRacerBoy

[BarManBean]

She's worked 15 hrs a week in her dance classes since July for this ballet. Went to classes when she was sick to watch for sometimes 3 hours. If she missed too many classes, she couldn't keep the parts she got in the auditions. And the orthopedist said it was a mild break and gave her no restrictions. The arm didn't hurt until she got home. The doctor saw no reason she couldn't still dance.

 

She has one more dress rehearsal that she has to attend tomorrow for 3 hours after school. She said she didn't want to dance in the ballet tonight but she was exhausted and in pain. We'll see tomorrow, but I'm betting that she will want to do the ballet after a full nights sleep. But my wife, a ballet instructor as well as lawyer, is putting restrictions on her for her arms. Mostly they want to get spacing right on the big stage since they've rehearsed everything at the dance studio before yesterday.

 

There are two performances on Saturday and she is supposed to be in both. Unless she has no pain between now and Saturday, I've already opined to my wife that she can do one performance only, but the dance studio may not accept that. Two show or none.

 

On an aside. the ER doctor noted that redheads like my daughter often have far higher tolerances to pain medication, and my daughter has often said the OTC meds we give her for headaches and such have no effect. She's also said the tylenol with codeine has not helped the pain at all. I'd never heard this but my wife had.

 

"Kids being kids" has changed so much. I'm fairly young (not yet 30) and I thought that extracurricular activities were important. Kids nowadays (like your daughter) take it to a whole other level!

 

I'm actually going through a study now and the most recent topic involved defining success for your children. There are all sorts of different ways to define success, but so many of them are flawed and so many of them are imprints of our own definitions of success instead of those that may apply to our children. With Mom being a ballet dancer and a lawyer (obviously highly driven), it seems a pretty good recipe for forcing success in dancing upon offspring--not saying that's the case here, just making a point I guess and I'm certainly not the type to judge parenting via the interwebz. Something worth thinking about though, I think.

 

Never heard of the redhead thing...

[KartRacerBoy]

"Kids being kids" has changed so much. I'm fairly young (not yet 30) and I thought that extracurricular activities were important. Kids nowadays (like your daughter) take it to a whole other level!

 

I'm actually going through a study now and the most recent topic involved defining success for your children. There are all sorts of different ways to define success, but so many of them are flawed and so many of them are imprints of our own definitions of success instead of those that may apply to our children. With Mom being a ballet dancer and a lawyer (obviously highly driven), it seems a pretty good recipe for forcing success in dancing upon offspring--not saying that's the case here, just making a point I guess and I'm certainly not the type to judge parenting via the interwebz. Something worth thinking about though, I think.

 

Never heard of the redhead thing...

 

I don't think my daughter's dancing is any different than some young boy playing football or little league. She's not much different than what I did at her age. I was a ski racer (snow) and started in October doing mountain training until snow fell in Connecticut. We ran uphill and then ran through gates downhill 3 days a week after school for 3 hour'/day. And we had to drive an hour and a half to do that, there and back. Once the snow came, it was 3 days of training after school from 5-8pm, then drove to races in Mass and Vermont from CT for Sat and Sunday races. I sucked by the way.

 

But kids do seem more regimented today. I ran wild when it wasn't ski season. Went to see my friends on my bike, knew when to get home without being told when I was only 7. During the summer, my mother watched us go out the door in the morning and didn't expect to see us until dinner. Sometimes we even told her where we went, but not too often.

 

We unfortunately moved into a neighborhood with few kids close to my daughter's age, so unless we prearrange a play date, she often has no one to play with. And when we try to set up play dates, most of her friends are in swim leagues or gymnastics or something. Few kids did what I used to do during the summer. Just hang. I initially fought my wife about my daughter's dancing. I thought it would take too much time away from homework and friends. Instead, it forces my daughter to get her homework done so she can dance. If she can't get it all done and done well, she can't dance, and there have been times (last year) when we said she was slacking on homework and cut back on her dance.

 

And now most of her friends are in her dance classes rather than at school. That makes me sad but athletic girls tend to have the same disdain of dance that boys do. If they only knew it was athletic as soccer or swimming, just in a different way.

 

Why does my daughter like dancing? Her mother? Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a theater guy (to watch but not participate). My mother was in lots of civic theater shows and still is to this day. I grew up listening to Broadway music and love musicals and dance (I went with my mother to see Sound of Music 5 times at the movies, like I later did with dad for the first Star Wars). I can't do either but I love watching it. My daughter got the theater/dance geek gene from both parents.

Edited November 26, 2013 by KartRacerBoy

[KartRacerBoy]

BMB, didn't mean to imply my wife had been any kind of professional ballet dancer. She took it up in college and has continued to dance for fun. She can only really teach the younger girls, maybe through their 4th or 5th year of dance. Then the girls get handed off to the real ex-dancers at the dance studio.

[laff79]

you're long winded on the keyboard

[KartRacerBoy]

Don't read it then.

[FocuS]

Our daughter is only 4 and we're already having the talks about how to allow her to grow without asking too much of her. She is already coming down on herself for not doing things "right"...

 

My wife and I are trying to think of a way to keep her trying to do he best without guilting herself if it isn't perfect in her eyes! My wife went years with guilt about not living up to her mothers standards and neither of us wants that to happen with her!

 

Organized sports or practiced activities are so good in many ways but the drive to be "better" than others is hard to mold. I just want her to enjoy what she is doing...regardless of being better than the person next to her!

 

Perhaps I should encourage other activities once we are living in CA. Carting, surfing, cycling, music...

 

I enjoy competition but hate how it can make people so single minded and somewhat mean.