The Parenting Thread • Page 91

We got my son a junior drum set that I know my wife wants to put together tomorrow night but the jokes on her because I’ll be drunk.

 

You gonna wake him up aren't you?

 

yes, gonna get drunk and start pounding on the drums at 2 am

 

I put together the major thing yesterday because I didn't want it to be Xmas Eve and getting irrationally angry because children's toys are too difficult to build.

 

What is it?

I'm putting together a playhouse tonight for my 2 oldest kids. It shouldn't be too bad because it all just snaps together but I'll still be outside so only slightly sucks

 

It wasn't super difficult but the stupid screws were like 3 inches long and didn't necessarily have holes so you had to break through the plastic.

 

Cleaned up and put mats down. We don't use this porch of anything so an indoor playground this winter is good use.

 

Damn that looks nice

 

I can’t wait for it to be summer. He’ll be 1 1/2, and I’m gonna make some little playground set up for him.

 

Last year I bought my son this whole construction site and the only way to put it together was by using toy screws, toy bolts and a toy screwdriver that came with it. Took me fucking hours.

 

One of the best parts of Christmas as a parent: eating hella fresh baked cookies as part of my Santa obligations

 

I got cupcakes instead of cookies

 

About to get the kids up for presents!

 

Congratulations on surviving Christmas my fellow parents!

 

We did a Christmas Eve flight with an ear-infected baby and he was perfect. A Christmas miracle.

 

I hope you sleep well tonight! I imagine your adrenaline was on high alert going into that. Wow. Congrats. And congrats to all the parents. We Christmas folk fuckin did it. best of luck to other holiday celebrating folk!

 

Who says we did?

 

We usually spend Christmas Day with one set of in-laws and Boxing Day with the other, but Dan it's been hard work with two kids this year. All the travelling around and disruption of sleep routines has been stressful, we're thinking next year we might host and have people come to us instead.

I mean it's been really lovely and the girls have had the best time, but man I'm tired.

 

Gonna transition the youngest out of our room finally. We almost have our bedroom back and I'm so ready

 

Hoping someone might have experience with this.

My wife gave birth back on 11/25 and has been on leave since then. She works as a pre-school teacher here in Massachusetts and we get our health insurance through her.

Her work does not actually offer maternity leave. They allow her to take 6 weeks via short-term disability insurance, and then she is can use PTO once that is up.

We have had a hard time finding affordable and available childcare so after much discussion she has decided to not go back.

She called her boss to give him a heads up, and he is saying that, since she isn't coming back, we now will owe the full health insurance premium for December and January, as they will no longer cover their portion. This is going to cost $3,400. On top of that he said that if the disability company finds out that she didn't return, then they could come after us for the money they did pay out.

It all seems a bit crazy to me. I understand having to pay her normal portion, but he's saying that he'd have to retroactively say that she left back in November.

Unfortunately the school has less than 50 employees so it doesn't seem like we're protected by FMLA at all, and the new Massachusetts law doesn't go into effect until next year.

Did anyone here not go back to work after leave? Did you run into anything like this? I'm already a little on edge financially as things are going to be tight with just my income, and starting the whole thing off with a $3,400 bill is going to suck.

 

That seems ridiculous. But, what if she just went back to work, and put in her two weeks? Surely they can't ask for the money back.

 

Who is her boss? He/She may just be speaking out of their ass. She should talk directly to her health insurance rep to get all the details. As a teacher, is she in a union? Perhaps she should also take it up with a union rep as well. This seems very fishy to me.

Also, I don't live in Massachusetts so don't know their laws but this may help: It looks that, by law, she should get at minimum eight weeks for maternity leave (link says employers with at least six employees must comply).
Maternity and Parental Leave Laws in Massachusetts

 

My mom is a teacher in MA, I'll ask her when I can and relay info back.

 

We just did this and it's amazing