The Parenting Thread • Page 102

My oldest (6) has never been jealous of our youngest (3) or the attention she received as a baby. Or at least, not that I can recall.

If anything, my 3-year-old gets super jealous and sad when my oldest gets to do more 'big kid' things like go to a friend's house (i.e. his cousin's house down the street) or does things with my parents with the other older cousins or goes on long bike rides with me. She always asks 'when am I gonna be bigger?'

I also feel really bad that my 6-year-old is involved in baseball, basketball, soccer and we have to drag my 3-year-old to all of that and she's super bored all the time and never gets to do her own activities (except Dance class, which just my wife takes her to).

 

Just had to pull one of these out of my 5-year old daughter's nose. She got it up there pretty good and then tried to blame it on her brother (who was downstairs in a different room at the time it happened):

 

My wife has been super sad lately. Two of her best friends are having kids (the second for each of them). We already have two wonderful, healthy kids - a boy and a girl. I was always firm in my desire to have two, she always wanted three. Mentally, especially after the last year, I know I can’t do a newborn again. I’m already terrified of the world we are leaving for the kids we have. But now, any time we see a newborn or she sees her friends picking out outfits online or bump photos, she gets incredibly emotional.

I want to support her, but I can’t have another child. Anyone else have this walk?

 

Not yet anyway. I’m in exactly the same place mentally. This is very much it for me. Sending virtual hugs

 

This is why I am very glad I got a vasectomy a few years ago. My wife and I both agreed it was a good idea (actually it was her idea originally) because we both just wanted two kids. Now that both the kids are older (6/3) she’s starting to say things like she would like to have another kid but always half heartedly because she knows we can’t. But I’m betting had I never gotten the vasectomy she’d be pushing harder for it.

 

It's been almost 3 years and I can still feel how much a soccer ball to the balls the vasectomy felt.

1000% okay being a girl dad to two girls. My younger brother has the last name going, so we were fine. Hell, we were fine after just our first kid. But... life happens. I grew up with two brothers, can't imagine raising three myself. Especially with how our (just about) 3 year old and 8 year old fight at times. We didn't think it'd be like that at times, but, man.... can our youngest be mean to the oldest.

 

Oh the vasectomy hurts? I was under the impression it was pretty painless

 

I think the procedure itself was pretty painless. But I'd be lying if I said there wasn't any pain/discomfort after the fact.

 

Definitely getting a vasectomy in the next 12 months. That was my plan for March 2020, believe it or not

 

Per the two kids conversation, kind of interesting overall as my wife and I are the same exact way. We talked about having three kids some day when we were dating. Held onto that when we got married. Then we had two. We love our daughter to death, but we’d both tell you it was just so much harder than the first go and the kids together are a serious handful. It’s exhausting and we both had several long discussions last year wherein we kept reaffirming to each other, “Yeah we’re done.”

That said, we’re still keen to the idea of adopting some day.

 

I've always wanted one, as someone with two siblings, I just wanted one. Now that he's 5 and up my ass all the time, I kind of wish he had a sibling to play with.

 

I've always wanted at least 3, my wife always wanted at least 2 so that there would be siblings. We are at 3 and constantly debate about another but can never fully commit one way or another

 

the actual procedure is pretty painless and quick. The worst part is the Novocain shot (especially where they shoot it...) After that you just feel pulling, pressure and tugging. Doesn’t hurt but definitely weird. Mine was done in like 15 min and the doctor just bullshitted with me the entire time he did it. I also drove myself there and home.

BUT...mine got infected, which is very abnormal and not common (my doc told me I was 1 in 50) but due to the infection I was in a LOT of pain for a while and eventually had to get an abscess drained. Truly an awful experience, haha.

Most people recover from a vasectomy in like 3-5 days, due to my infection I was more like 4 weeks.

 

Well fuck

 

Maybe I’ll just use the pullout method from now on! Jk that’s how we accidentally got pregnant one time

 

Damn... that sucks that yours had issues afterwards. I was pretty much back to normal by the end of the weekend (having done it on a Friday). Wife drove me there/watched (her facial reactions made it not fun for me) and I just had my own phone playing music and talked to the DR to kill time.

Was walking up and down stairs the next day after drinking some crown and coke with the vicodin pill I was supposed to take prior to the surgery (accidentally left it at home) and did the whole bag of frozen peas thing (buy two, so you can have one pack freezing cold ready to go with the one you're using gets to room temp).

 

Yeah, I iced 30 min on and 30 min off the day of for literally 13 hours (watched the entirety of season 3 of Love on Netflix that day). I remember feeling suspiciously fine the first 3 days but then day 4 started to hurt unbearably and knew something was wrong. I even saw my doctor two more times over the course of the next few weeks and he kept telling me everything was normal and that different people recover differently and then finally I called him a few weeks later and told him there was significant swelling and he told me it was likely infected and I had to go see him to get it drained. Spoiler alert: that hurt WAY WORSE than the vasectomy.

 

Go buy a lotto ticket! Oof

 

Most of the reason I wanted 3 also was due to people's comments on now having the "perfect family" and fuck that

 

We put our kids back in to in-person learning.

My son was doing kindergarten remotely for the first 3 quarters of the school year. He actually has done a phenomenal job and is reading at a 'spring 1st grade level.' He really enjoyed doing school online but we just wanted to get him back into school for the final two months/4th quarter. He started last Wednesday and couldn't be happier about it.

My daughter is 3 and is starting preschool today for the first time ever (no remote option).

Very excited for both of them.

 

My oldest 2 have been at in-person preschool since September and it has gone remarkably well. It's half-day, 3 days a week mixed age (3 to 6 year olds) and they are masked indoors, except when eating/drinking. It's a small school and there are only 10 people in their class, including the teacher, and they spend half the day outside. Even outside most of them are masked most of the time (we trained our kids well on masking early on in the pandemic).

It's 4 classrooms total and each has a separate entrance. Kids and parents are temp-checked each day and parents are only allowed right at the door for drop off. There have been a couple classrooms that have had to quarantine for a bit due to a parent or kid who later tested positive, but nothing has spread within the school.

 

this popped up on my FB memories today and made me think of your post.

 

Someone once told me that once you have three kids, there's no difference between having 3, 4, 5, 6 or more. It's all chaos after two.

 

Not far off tbh

Pretty accurate actually

 

3 kids is pretty insane right now, but they're also really close in age (5-year old twins and a 3-year old) plus the pandemic and we're prepping to move halfway across the country.

I can't imagine adding a baby right now.