Thursday Updates

[mommyatty]

So what's up with everyone?

My only update is that it looks like DS has turned the corner on potty training. Thank goodness! I think what finally got through to him was a stick and carrot approach. He asks for a toy he sees on TV. We say "Not until you stop having accidents in your pants." Plus he watched his sister earn her doll, and he wanted to earn one too. We told him that he could earn it by doing all his pees and poops in the potty, no accidents, for a whole week. He has a sticker chart with 7 columns. He's two days away from a week with no accidents, yesterday he pooped in the potty at school (!!!!), and he's so excited talking about the Spider-Man toy he wants from Target on Saturday after he earns his last two stickers. So yay!

oh! And DD is back in pull ups at night. We gave up. 

[Covergirl82]

I got my DNA results back! Not too much surprising (I already knew I was a Western European/British Isles mutt), but it said I was 7% ancestry from Italy/Greece, and no one in my family has ever mentioned Italian or Greek descent. It also said I was 12% Scandanavian, and the only ancestor I know of who was supposed to be Scandanavian is one of my great-grandmas on my mom's side. (And it said I was 5% Irish and 3% European Jewish (I was a little surprised how low that was, especially since one set of great-great-grandparents on my mom's side were European Jewish), and I know about those ancestors.) So, now I want my parents to take the tests to see what their results are. DH's results should hopefully be in soon.

ETA:  I bought a 6 month membership to Ancestry.com to build out my family tree.  So far, I've been surprised by how many ancestors I've found who have been in America since the early colonial period.  I'll have to do more digging to see if I have any ancestors who came over on the Mayflower.

[campermom]

I have nothing going on to update about but I'm excited to have the day off.

So far we dropped the toddler at daycare and the 6 and 8 year old and I have had Dunkin Donuts (not in my food plan but worth it). They are cleaning up and we will decorate for fall, go to goodwill, craft store, costume store and orchard then the movies.

[twinmomma]

Covergirl82, I loved doing the ancestry.com dna test! We tested me and one of the kids. I'd love to also get DH tested (I assume both kids are the same. lol). I was impressed with the level of info they provided with the test results too. It was really fascinating!

My only update is that tonight is the first PTA meeting of the year. I'm attending. Pray for me.

[katrine05]

Still no tenants for our rental. The people we thought were interested never submittted the application even though they told us 2 days in a row they would. If you aren't interested just say so. We do have 2 showings this weekend for one od the suites. Vacancy rates are so much higher than they were 4-6 years ago.

DS's cold is slowly getting better. Only 3 wakeups last night instead of every hour.

[erinshelley21]

We had another meeting with the other agency yesterday. They are changing a couple things in the contract, mostly minor changes, then after we review it with our attorney on Monday we'll be ready to sign!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Signing might not happen until mid-October though because my brother and I are going on vacation and we are undecided on whether or not we want to tell the Asshole before we sign or after. Still dreading telling him. The other agency offered to let him come work for them for a bit too but I can't do that to them lol. My brother and I are prepared to offer him a pretty good deal to make the transition as smooth as possible for his clients, which are clients that he was given to take care of. I just know his wife is going around giving everyone a sob story about how he doesn't make very much money and there's no way he can retire. They are either very bad at managing their money or she doesn't know about his retirement from his old job. Neither would surprise me since he hasn't really lowered his standard of living (both are driving 2016 vehicles) and he used to go to the casino every weekend and not tell her.

As for me, my foot and ankle have gotten worse since the healthy living check in on Monday. I put an ankle brace on this morning to see if that helps. I think I've got some bone density issues from pregnancy/not having a period since my hand hurts as well. I'm falling apart.

[judyblume14]

Sept 21, 2017 7:48:37 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

Covergirl82 , I loved doing the ancestry.com dna test! We tested me and one of the kids. I'd love to also get DH tested (I assume both kids are the same. lol). I was impressed with the level of info they provided with the test results too. It was really fascinating!

My only update is that tonight is the first PTA meeting of the year. I'm attending. Pray for me.

Are your girls identical twins?  Because if not, the bolded may not be true.  I thought this was a really interesting (and quick) read from Ancestry:

blogs.ancestry.com/cm/whos-more-irish-you-or-your-sibling/

[sandandsea]

I got a call from school yesterday that ds1 fell and hit his head during recess. Within the hour I got a second call that he was nauseous and falling asleep in class so they suspected a concussion and that I need to come get him and take him to the doctor. I left work immediately and got him. He was a little out of it and exhausted when I picked him up so I had called his doctor and they stayed through their lunch break to see him. He threw up once there and they said he did have a concussion but he was doing okay and getting better then. So I stayed home to watch him all afternoon and thankfully he is doing okay. We had to wake him up every 4 hours last night and he seemed to be responding normally so he's going back to school today. No sports for a week and he has to take it easy, which is inherently difficult for a 5yo boy! I think I see some excessive iPad time in our future. But I'm so thankful it wasn't worse.

[phdmomma]

Sitting at the airport, waiting for the first of three flights that will get me to Santa Barbara today. All connections have under 1 hour layovers so hopefully they work out. Also it is 90 here, with record highs, Dd got too hot last night and wouldn't sleep, and then woke up for the day at 4am.....so tired.

[sandandsea]

Sept 21, 2017 6:45:28 GMT -5 Covergirl82 said:

I got my DNA results back! Not too much surprising (I already knew I was a Western European/British Isles mutt), but it said I was 7% ancestry from Italy/Greece, and no one in my family has ever mentioned Italian or Greek descent. It also said I was 12% Scandanavian, and the only ancestor I know of who was supposed to be Scandanavian is one of my great-grandmas on my mom's side. (And it said I was 5% Irish and 3% European Jewish (I was a little surprised how low that was, especially since one set of great-great-grandparents on my mom's side were European Jewish), and I know about those ancestors.) So, now I want my parents to take the tests to see what their results are. DH's results should hopefully be in soon.

ETA:  I bought a 6 month membership to Ancestry.com to build out my family tree.  So far, I've been surprised by how many ancestors I've found who have been in America since the early colonial period.  I'll have to do more digging to see if I have any ancestors who came over on the Mayflower.

I was surprised by my results too! I know my ancestors have all been in the us at least 7 or more generations but never knew where they had come from. Turns out it's significantly Northwestern European (almost 97%) with a tiny bit of west African, Southern European, and Ashkenazi Jewish thrown in.

I also was happy to hear I had no risk factors for the bad medical stuff they test.

[supertrooper1]

I might have overreacted some with DH's out of character night out last week. It's still strange in some ways. He said he needed a break which I believe because he hasn't gone out with friends for probably 6 or 7 years. He would rather stay at home. He never did go to the football game, which I never believed he was going to in the first place. He said that a group of male teachers met at a restaurant for several hours. I asked specifically if his widow coworker was there or if met up with her. He got a little defensive with the question, which in my line of work usually means the defensive person is trying to hide something. But I think the defensive attitude with DH was because he thought I thought he was lying and was a little hurt that I thought he was lying.

[twinmomma]

Sept 21, 2017 8:41:55 GMT -5 judyblume14 said:

Sept 21, 2017 7:48:37 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

Covergirl82 , I loved doing the ancestry.com dna test! We tested me and one of the kids. I'd love to also get DH tested (I assume both kids are the same. lol). I was impressed with the level of info they provided with the test results too. It was really fascinating!

My only update is that tonight is the first PTA meeting of the year. I'm attending. Pray for me.

Are your girls identical twins?  Because if not, the bolded may not be true.  I thought this was a really interesting (and quick) read from Ancestry:

blogs.ancestry.com/cm/whos-more-irish-you-or-your-sibling/

They are identical, so that's why we figured only spending money to test one of them was fine. But that article is interesting! I'd love to see how my siblings and I compare. I have pale skin, red hair, hazel eyes. They have dark brown hair, darker skin tone, and deep chocolate eyes. Our genes are definitely not the same split! 

[traveltheworld]

Relating to my open letter - DH talked to DS's kindergarten teacher to see what's going on - apparently DS finishes his work very quickly and then he walks around and tries to comment on other kids' work or tries to get them to talk to him. Some kids (including the girl that has been pushing him) really don't like that. According to the teacher, that particular girl appears to be very shy and doesn't say much, and instead of telling DS to leave her alone (which is what most of the other kids do), she just pushes him.

But as it turns out, we didn't need to be worried anyway because before DH got a chance to talk to his teacher at pick-up, DS had a talk with that girl, helped her with her work, and now they are "best friends". She even shared her snack with him. DS was very proud that he made another friend and talked our ears off with all the stuff he found out about her.

We did have a talk with DS about not disrupting other kids.

[k3am]

I'm still not sleeping. I think I fell asleep around 3 or 4, and I had a toilet dream mixed with a nightmare that my alarm woke me up from at 5. I'm functioning better today than I was yesterday, but that's really not a high bar.

(For whatever reason, I have recurring toilet dreams? Where I need to go to the restroom and there's a line. Or the toilets have no doors around them. Or they're just a hole in the ground. Or filled with filth. I'm sure there's some kind of deep-seated psychological reason for it, but it's annoying.)

DD is.. good. She REALLY wants to get a haircut, and can't understand why I won't let her... and she really needs one. About a month before her surgery, she got a really awful haircut. If I'd known we'd be keeping 98% of her hair, I would have had it fixed before, but since I didn't know that would happen, we didn't. But considering she won't let me touch her head without screaming, it's not happening anytime soon.

She is also really, really, upset about her JrK class. I wanted her with a certain teacher and in the smaller class and got my way... but not a single one of the girls she plays with are in the class, and she's not happy about it. I think it's for the best, but she's still struggling to make new friends. And it didn't help that she was only in the new class a couple days before we pulled her out.

[judyblume14]

Sept 21, 2017 9:41:48 GMT -5 supertrooper1 said:

I might have overreacted some with DH's out of character night out last week. It's still strange in some ways. He said he needed a break which I believe because he hasn't gone out with friends for probably 6 or 7 years. He would rather stay at home. He never did go to the football game, which I never believed he was going to in the first place. He said that a group of male teachers met at a restaurant for several hours. I asked specifically if his widow coworker was there or if met up with her. He got a little defensive with the question, which in my line of work usually means the defensive person is trying to hide something. But I think the defensive attitude with DH was because he thought I thought he was lying and was a little hurt that I thought he was lying.

but... you did think he was lying, right? 

[supertrooper1]

Sept 21, 2017 10:22:40 GMT -5 judyblume14 said:

Sept 21, 2017 9:41:48 GMT -5 supertrooper1 said:

I might have overreacted some with DH's out of character night out last week. It's still strange in some ways. He said he needed a break which I believe because he hasn't gone out with friends for probably 6 or 7 years. He would rather stay at home. He never did go to the football game, which I never believed he was going to in the first place. He said that a group of male teachers met at a restaurant for several hours. I asked specifically if his widow coworker was there or if met up with her. He got a little defensive with the question, which in my line of work usually means the defensive person is trying to hide something. But I think the defensive attitude with DH was because he thought I thought he was lying and was a little hurt that I thought he was lying.

but... you did think he was lying, right? 

I don't think he was telling me everything. Conversations since lead me to believe he's telling the truth about her not being there. But I'm not sure what he is hiding. 

[rere]

1 week of volleyball and 3 weeks of football left. Maybe I'll get my life back a little bit. I was baking a cake at 6:30 this AM, so I need some downtime.

Ds will then start his club activities, but that won't be nearly as much. Yesterday he claimed that he needed a club jacket. Basically they just wear them for national convention, which he's not going due to football and being a Freshman, so I didn't see why we needed to spend $55 for a jacket he will grow out of and need to be replaced. He pulled the old all of the kids but 3 are getting one, which is a sure way for DH to give in. His parents never paid for anything, including a class ring, or prom, or yearbooks, or encouraged any participation.

[callmekd]

I miss all of you! Last Friday I was offered a promotion so I've been crazy busy learning a new area of law for the last week / training with the person who is leaving. Such a whirlwind. And We leave for Disney in 10 days. October is going to fly by

[greenmonkey1]

sandandsea I am sorry to hear about your son's accident and glad he is on the mend. You might want to have your son go easy on electronics and reading for a couple days. It's possible the focusing could trigger a migraine/headache. I am not a doctor, but I coached a contact sport for years and was a teacher so I have some experience with concussions and schoolwork. Your doctor may have already cleared him for normal activity, but it might be worth asking if you have not done so already.

[sudokufan]

k3am, you are really not alone on the bathroom dreams. There was a FFFC confession once where it came out that a bunch of us have them. For me, it's usually as simple as I really need to go and my mind is doing its best to wake me up.

[186momx]

sandandsea, that so scary about your DS. I would also avoid the TV, Ipad, and book work too. I had a concussion early last year due to the car accident and any heavy concentrating made my symptoms worse and the last thing I wanted to do was look at flashing screens (TV).

School is starting to get boring for DD and I don't know what to do. Her teacher has only positive things to say about DD and seems to be really intuitive about the social stuff. She posted the math lesson earlier this week and it was adding 3+5=8 and I can totally see why DD is telling me it is boring. We were adding 15+15=30 kind of math over the summer. I'm hoping to see if they have a curriculum night coming up and open house is the 5th. We also get our first homework folder tomorrow so will see how that goes. I will say that ClassDojo is a great tool and I feel so much more connected to DD, the teacher, and school as the communication is wow. Lets just say I've gotten more info in the last 3 weeks than all of last year.

[2chatter]

I'm working from San Diego - watching a surfing class and updating a really boring database. Grabbed breakfast to go from an amazing coffee shop, had a mimosa with my friends, going for a run in a bit and then out to a fancy dinner after a nap. You guys, I am SO glad I did this. I only turn 40 once, and I can't think of a better way to (pre) celebrate.

DS is back at school today. DD is sick with suspected strep and the doctor is calling in antibiotics. DH is getting a strep test now. DH skipped DD's medicine, didn't send a snack for DS, missed DD's soccer game, didn't feed the dog, forgot to pay the pool guy and gave DD a double dose of ibuprofen by accident. I have been gone less than 24 hours. But none of these are the end of the world so I am
saying nothing. And am still happy I did this trip.

[k3am]

Sept 21, 2017 11:43:40 GMT -5 186momx said:

sandandsea , that so scary about your DS. I would also avoid the TV, Ipad, and book work too. I had a concussion early last year due to the car accident and any heavy concentrating made my symptoms worse and the last thing I wanted to do was look at flashing screens (TV).

This was the same advice given to my neighbor's teenager when she had a concussion. 

Anecdotally, I assume that DD's surgery was at least the equivalent of a concussion, and she was fine with all these things, whereas an adult wouldn't be. (Recovery for an adult for her surgery before they can go back to work? 6 weeks. Recovery for a 4 year old? a couple days) There's something about children that heals differently. If it's not bothering him, I'd go for it. If it does cause issues, I'd stop until he's able to handle it. 


sandandsea, sorry DS is laid up. I can't imagine trying to contain a ball of energy like that.

[Covergirl82]

Sept 21, 2017 9:47:20 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

Sept 21, 2017 8:41:55 GMT -5 judyblume14 said:

Are your girls identical twins?  Because if not, the bolded may not be true.  I thought this was a really interesting (and quick) read from Ancestry:

blogs.ancestry.com/cm/whos-more-irish-you-or-your-sibling/

They are identical, so that's why we figured only spending money to test one of them was fine. But that article is interesting! I'd love to see how my siblings and I compare. I have pale skin, red hair, hazel eyes. They have dark brown hair, darker skin tone, and deep chocolate eyes. Our genes are definitely not the same split! 

Although my kids are (obvs) not identical twins, I do think their genes definitely split differently too! My DS shares my complexion (medium brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin, freckles) and DD shares a complexion with DH (dark brown hair, "tan" skin, brown eyes, no freckles). What's funny is my kids' complexions are so much like my mom and her brother, and my grandpa (mom's dad) and his sister, split the same way by gender for all 3 generation levels.

[Covergirl82]

sandandsea, so scary, but glad to hear he seems to be on the mend. My DS had a suspected concussion when he was 4, and I remember it being hard to keep him doing calm activities. (We were on a trip, and a few days after the suspected concussion, we went to an indoor waterpark (against my better judgment, but DH overrode me), and then DS came down a waterslide before DH was ready to catch him, DS's mouth hit DH's knee and knocked a tooth out. Definitely not parents of the year that year.)

[justcheckingin73]

2chatter, is this a birthday trip? I’ve been a space cadet lately so sorry if I missed it! Have a great time. I went to San Diego for work twice last year and I loved it. And welcome to the 40 club!

[sandandsea]

Thanks everyone! He isn't light sensitive so the pedi said tv and iPad were okay but if he started to complain about it then take a break. Thank goodness. He cried about missing soccer and swim, I can only imagine the meltdown if there was no iPad. The horror!!

[erinshelley21]

I have mentally checked out at work. I have spent all afternoon snapchatting my 2 girlfriends.

[saraml13]

I start the new job on Monday! I've been busy this week working through my to-do list.

Question, after doing a job search, is it considered good form to give an update to your network? Through the whole process, I've been doing a fair amount of networking and asking people for advice, etc. However, this job I found entirely on my own through just a random job board posting. Should I do a LinkedIn post along the lines of "Excited to be starting in my new role at Company X. Thanks to everyone who's supported me in this process!". Should I send individual emails to people who were particularly helpful?

I don't want to necessarily highlight that I was out of work for those in my larger network who didn't realize, but I also don't want people who met with me to feel put off that I didn't update them. (I also am not particularly enthusiastic about writing a bunch of individual emails)

[twinmomma]

Sept 21, 2017 15:02:46 GMT -5 saraml13 said:

I start the new job on Monday! I've been busy this week working through my to-do list.

Question, after doing a job search, is it considered good form to give an update to your network? Through the whole process, I've been doing a fair amount of networking and asking people for advice, etc. However, this job I found entirely on my own through just a random job board posting. Should I do a LinkedIn post along the lines of "Excited to be starting in my new role at Company X. Thanks to everyone who's supported me in this process!". Should I send individual emails to people who were particularly helpful?

I don't want to necessarily highlight that I was out of work for those in my larger network who didn't realize, but I also don't want people who met with me to feel put off that I didn't update them. (I also am not particularly enthusiastic about writing a bunch of individual emails)

Just update your profile with the new job on LinkedIn instead of a post about it. People will see that update and/or a LinkedIn auto email about updates from their network.

I'd probably do emails to the super helpful people thanking them again, with the update.