Pregnancy And Parenting

[LondonHMFC]

4 minutes ago, Peil said:

Aye, ended up having 3 kids, eventually, with my ex.  She got pregnant very quickly in that relationship, I got made redundant, she ended up living with her maw for a while after the first came along.

It will work out, never the way you expect, but it will. You'll be surprised at how it feels everythings going sideways and you still manage to get up every day.

Congratulations btw, and I hope Mum (to be) is doing ok.

I think that is the thing for me at the moment. Self admittedly, I am bit of a control freak and like to have a handle on what is going to be happening down the line, whereas this is very much out of my hands. She is great, very much taking it in her stride and probably giving me more reassurance at the moment. 

3 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

Have you informed Milky Gem of your news ?

Do you now keep socks and trainers on when playing 'hide the salami' ?

After having my phone snatched in London I lost all my contacts, so will need to reach out on LinkedIn or something to break the news! 

I do indeed, it's exactly what has got me into this situation. 

Thanks

Many Thanks

Yours Sincerely 

[RH33]

Early days but here's to a healthy pregnancy and a baby in 9 months time.

Only takes one swimmer to hit the target!

 

[ICTChris]

My son had a couple of his school friends over yesterday, first time he's seen them in more than three weeks after the holidays.  They had a good time but the other two both don't really know how to 'play', it's weird.  My son makes up games, pretends to be a dinosaur, pretends to be Harry Potter, pretends to be a Roman soldier or a cowboy or an ancient Egyptian and we play these games.  He has friends at school who he does this with but the ones who came round don't seem to play like that, they just kind of mess about with toys and wait to be given stuff.

We haven't opened my boy up to video games yet, I think he's too young (six) but both the others have iPads and play stuff like Roblox and Minecraft, which I understand are not video games in the sense most people in my generation would think of them but I still think that it's best to have kids just mess around and play without having to use phones or iPads and consoles.

Am I just being a boomer?

[carpetmonster]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

My son had a couple of his school friends over yesterday, first time he's seen them in more than three weeks after the holidays.  They had a good time but the other two both don't really know how to 'play', it's weird.  My son makes up games, pretends to be a dinosaur, pretends to be Harry Potter, pretends to be a Roman soldier or a cowboy or an ancient Egyptian and we play these games.  He has friends at school who he does this with but the ones who came round don't seem to play like that, they just kind of mess about with toys and wait to be given stuff.

We haven't opened my boy up to video games yet, I think he's too young (six) but both the others have iPads and play stuff like Roblox and Minecraft, which I understand are not video games in the sense most people in my generation would think of them but I still think that it's best to have kids just mess around and play without having to use phones or iPads and consoles.

Am I just being a boomer?

Maybe. My daughter's a bit older (just turned 10) so we got her a tablet during lockdown - so she'd have been about 6 then - so she could keep in touch with her little mates, cousins back in Scotland etc. She's since picked up Roblox and Minecraft, but most of the time she's playing it with them, while on a call to them, so it's still a 'social space' rather than being planked in front of a single player video game with no interaction with the world outside. 

[mathematics]

8 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

My son had a couple of his school friends over yesterday, first time he's seen them in more than three weeks after the holidays.  They had a good time but the other two both don't really know how to 'play', it's weird.  My son makes up games, pretends to be a dinosaur, pretends to be Harry Potter, pretends to be a Roman soldier or a cowboy or an ancient Egyptian and we play these games.  He has friends at school who he does this with but the ones who came round don't seem to play like that, they just kind of mess about with toys and wait to be given stuff.

We haven't opened my boy up to video games yet, I think he's too young (six) but both the others have iPads and play stuff like Roblox and Minecraft, which I understand are not video games in the sense most people in my generation would think of them but I still think that it's best to have kids just mess around and play without having to use phones or iPads and consoles.

Am I just being a boomer?

No. The kids are all wrong.

[Miguel Sanchez]

52 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

My son had a couple of his school friends over yesterday, first time he's seen them in more than three weeks after the holidays.  They had a good time but the other two both don't really know how to 'play', it's weird.  My son makes up games, pretends to be a dinosaur, pretends to be Harry Potter, pretends to be a Roman soldier or a cowboy or an ancient Egyptian and we play these games.  He has friends at school who he does this with but the ones who came round don't seem to play like that, they just kind of mess about with toys and wait to be given stuff.

We haven't opened my boy up to video games yet, I think he's too young (six) but both the others have iPads and play stuff like Roblox and Minecraft, which I understand are not video games in the sense most people in my generation would think of them but I still think that it's best to have kids just mess around and play without having to use phones or iPads and consoles.

Am I just being a boomer?

Roblox and Minecraft are, and I am not exaggerating, full of paedos. Avoid.

[Doctor Manhattan]

21 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Roblox and Minecraft are, and I am not exaggerating, full of paedos. Avoid.

It will come as no surprise to parents of a certain vintage that Club Penguin was shut down.

[thistledo]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

My son had a couple of his school friends over yesterday, first time he's seen them in more than three weeks after the holidays.  They had a good time but the other two both don't really know how to 'play', it's weird.  My son makes up games, pretends to be a dinosaur, pretends to be Harry Potter, pretends to be a Roman soldier or a cowboy or an ancient Egyptian and we play these games.  He has friends at school who he does this with but the ones who came round don't seem to play like that, they just kind of mess about with toys and wait to be given stuff.

We haven't opened my boy up to video games yet, I think he's too young (six) but both the others have iPads and play stuff like Roblox and Minecraft, which I understand are not video games in the sense most people in my generation would think of them but I still think that it's best to have kids just mess around and play without having to use phones or iPads and consoles.

Am I just being a boomer?

My 4 year old girl has one of those kids kindles, it's like a kids version locked inside a normal kindle so she can't buy stuff or download anything weird. She's actually had it since she was quite a bit younger, the idea was we'd install learning content and download some stuff she can watch during holidays / on flights. Gets used a lot now, with other games on it. Although, she's a really outdoors kind of girl and the garden is filled with stuff to play with. Sounds like the other kids are weird basically, but I seen no harm in kids having some sort of device to themselves. 

I don't know about you, but I fucking am absolutely done with summer holidays, both kids at home all day and me working from home is hell. Utter hell. Our son is a good bit younger then our daughter and can't get a minutes fucking peace to play with something on his own as she's constantly at him, I've come close to absolutely losing my shit with her the amount of times she knocks him over or pulls him to the ground or immediately starts playing with whatever he tries to play with, feel so sorry for him. No matter what we say, do or try and get separate things for them to do it always happens. Then there's some truly spectacular meltdowns from our daughter when she quite rightly gets told off and made to go to her room. Counting down the days until nursery re-opens. 

[ICTChris]

19 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Roblox and Minecraft are, and I am not exaggerating, full of paedos. Avoid.

Yeah, that is something else that we have considered.  I'm wary of being convinced there are paedos in every corner but sometimes there are.  One of the parents of a friend of my son said that he'd been getting weird messages from someone on Roblox but she 'told him to ignore it', which doesn't strike me as ideal.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Just now, ICTChris said:

Yeah, that is something else that we have considered.  I'm wary of being convinced there are paedos in every corner but sometimes there are.  One of the parents of a friend of my son said that he'd been getting weird messages from someone on Roblox but she 'told him to ignore it', which doesn't strike me as ideal.

 

Enjoy.

[ICTChris]

2 minutes ago, thistledo said:

My 4 year old girl has one of those kids kindles, it's like a kids version locked inside a normal kindle so she can't buy stuff or download anything weird. She's actually had it since she was quite a bit younger, the idea was we'd install learning content and download some stuff she can watch during holidays / on flights. Gets used a lot now, with other games on it. Although, she's a really outdoors kind of girl and the garden is filled with stuff to play with. Sounds like the other kids are weird basically, but I seen no harm in kids having some sort of device to themselves. 

I don't know about you, but I fucking am absolutely done with summer holidays, both kids at home all day and me working from home is hell. Utter hell. Our son is a good bit younger then our daughter and can't get a minutes fucking peace to play with something on his own as she's constantly at him, I've come close to absolutely losing my shit with her the amount of times she knocks him over or pulls him to the ground or immediately starts playing with whatever he tries to play with, feel so sorry for him. No matter what we say, do or try and get separate things for them to do it always happens. Then there's some truly spectacular meltdowns from our daughter when she quite rightly gets told off and made to go to her room. Counting down the days until nursery re-opens. 

We are lucky as my wife is a teacher so we are covered for the holidays.  I was off the first fortnight and then have started work late most days since so been able to take him out to do things.  

 

[Honest Saints Fan]

Our two have tablets that they mainly play kids games on and watch YouTube. In particular a bunch of lads that make secret rooms and I am fucking sick of it they have never played Minecraft etc.

My eldest has been getting up for the toilet at 10pm when I'm heading to bed. The other night she didn't get up but I noticed she had her bedroom light on. Turns out she's been reading in her bed until 10pm every night. Can't really tell her off for reading, can I?

[RH33]

1 hour ago, Honest Saints Fan said:

Our two have tablets that they mainly play kids games on and watch YouTube. In particular a bunch of lads that make secret rooms and I am fucking sick of it they have never played Minecraft etc.

My eldest has been getting up for the toilet at 10pm when I'm heading to bed. The other night she didn't get up but I noticed she had her bedroom light on. Turns out she's been reading in her bed until 10pm every night. Can't really tell her off for reading, can I?

Nah, plus it's the holidays so there wee bodies are all out of routine. She'll soon settle back into sleeping pattern when schools back.

[scottsdad]

We left work work this morning and my youngest pair were still in bed. 

It gets better when they get older, folks. 

Edited July 24 by scottsdad

[ICTChris]

Apart from times when he's been ill, I don't think my son has ever slept past 7am.

We let him watch videos on YouTube, generally via the TV.  I don't let him sit and choose videos himself on Kids YouTube because that stuff is complete brain slop.  He tends to watch Lego builds or animations of Lego Harry Potter or Jurassic Park.  He also, bizarrely, loves watching Pink Panther cartoons from the 1960s, loves them.

[Lex]

Trying hard not to be that iPad parent, my son’s two and he has never seen one.

But when he won’t sit still in a restaurant for more than five minutes the temptation to slap one in front of him to keep him quiet is huge.

Expect to cave in soon. 

[RH33]

Mine have had them for a while. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. My son got an Xbox at 10 I think.

We don't have many toys left and I simply don't have the patience to play board games etc.

This summer been first they've (girls, son still AWOL) not really been on booked activities. Wee one was north. 

I'm working full time from home and it is easier.

When you're on own as parent and they were younger, it was an easy babysitter to have a shit in peace! 

Off next week though. And they're away one night of it

[RandomGuy.]

My 2 year old has an Amazon tablet, which was used for about a week before he decided it was a really good brick and its currently somewhere in the living room unused for about 3 months.

He has a pretty open choice what he does at night and 90% of the time its run about mental in the garden and use his toys out there then come inside for a chill out half hour before bed. Naively hoping him making those choices (outside play over tablet/TV) himself at this age means he'll make those choices when hes older too, but I doubt it works that way.

[Florentine_Pogen]

On 24/07/2024 at 17:14, ICTChris said:

Apart from times when he's been ill, I don't think my son has ever slept past 7am.

We let him watch videos on YouTube, generally via the TV.  I don't let him sit and choose videos himself on Kids YouTube because that stuff is complete brain slop.  He tends to watch Lego builds or animations of Lego Harry Potter or Jurassic Park.  He also, bizarrely, loves watching Pink Panther cartoons from the 1960s, loves them.

Do they still have that brilliant pink car in the opening titles ?

ETA - Just found this !

 

Edited July 27 by Florentine_Pogen

[ICTChris]

I'd forgotten about the panther mobile, awesome.

 

Another parenting gripe.  I was out with my son and his friend at a park near his friend's house this weekend.  It's part of a big new build estate where our friends live, it's a nice enough park, good that they have one for the kids to go to.  While we were there a group of other kids arrived and one of them jumped ahead of thequeue for the flying fox, pushing past my son and his pal and having multiple turns - my son is six, his friend is five and these other kids were probbly about ten.  The mum of my son's friend went up and took the flying fox from the other kids and said that they had to wait their turn, one of the kids initially refused to let go and then lay down on the ground to stop anyone else getting a turn.  Eventually they moved but only just after they had a stand off with our friend.  Everyone looks back in time and says "these kids today" but I would never have behaved like that towards an adult when I was that age, unbelievable behaviour.  

Our friends who live on the estate say there's been a problem with anti-social behaviour from kids around there - a few cars have been damaged and there have been instances of houses being damaged when people have stepped in to tell the kids to behave.  Some residents have even moved out because of it.  There are some issues with the facilities - there aren't really any green spaces for kids to kick a ball out yet so they've been playing football and basketball near to where cars are parked and that has caused some cars to get dinged.  It's more the reaction that's pretty astounding, total defiance towards adults.

I thought about this video that I saw a few days ago - a parent complaining about the treatment of her children by their school.

 

My wife is a teacher and she says that this sort of thing is rife - defiance of teachers by children, who are then backed up by parents.  

What do P&B parents think?  Are we going to hell in a handcart?  Is it time to bring back the belt?