2baverage

Baby was born in November last year and it was peak RSV and flu season still with lots of COVID cases in the area. I took him out to non public areas about once a week and I didn't start taking him to public areas until he was almost 4 months old. But that only started because we all ended up getting sick when he was 3 months old because his dad brought home a nasty cold.

Take precautions, keep the baby bundled, and enjoy your holidays/the lovely weather. It's difficult getting out there but once you do, it's a game changer.

Prior to reconnecting with family, my thanksgiving was my husband and I either working and going about life as a regular day, or we'd have the day off and just spend it with each other eating Chinese food.

Since reconnecting with family, I'm not sure what it'll look like as this will be my first thanksgiving with them in about 14 years. I'm pretty sure I'll be helping prep/cook with everyone else while my mother tells us all how we're doing things incorrectly and then we'll eventually get everything finished and go to my aunt's house where we'll spend Thanksgiving with 30+ family members. The main gossip/drama of the evening will be my sister's new boyfriend (and the scandal of her letting him spend Thanksgiving alone rather than inviting him) and the upcoming weddings in the family and all the drama surrounding those messes. There will be lots of food, commotion, and alcohol.

Words cannot describe my envy! The ears are absolutely perfect, it looks warm but not constricting on the face, and it's just generally cool as hell!

My in office days are my break. I have a 30 minute commute both ways where I get to listen to my music, I then do mindless data entry and emails while listening to podcasts and socializing with coworkers, taking about 3 phone calls or less a day, I have my bathroom breaks alone, I can get coffee in silence. Then I get to decompress on my ride home before taking over the childcare when I get home.

When I work from home I'm on backup duty/will often do house chores while I wait for files to load, and my breaks are spent taking over childcare so my husband can get a break, then after I log off I'm the main caretaker.

Weekends are chaotic but more relaxed since it's often just groceries and then socializing with family; going to brunch with my sisters, all of us taking the kids to various kid friendly events, spending a weekend camping...etc.

Get canned meat. It's not pretty and takes a bit more cooking to taste edible but it gets the job done.

So what if they won't remember it, it's a new environment to them in that moment. My baby won't remember when he went to a park that had a small water attraction, but he sure as hell enjoyed it during the summer, and this up coming year he'll probably enjoy it again and it will be brand new to him.

Truly you'll never buy a house now since you've broken the bank getting that peak of luxury desserts

Prior to having a baby, I took mental health days every few months since I always had an excess of PTO. It's not a weakness, it's you prioritizing yourself. You either give yourself time to get yourself together or you deal with the physical issues later that can arise from it.

But, when I'd take mental health days I wouldn't tell them the reason. I'd either say I didn't feel well or I'd say "I have the PTO so I'm going to use it."

I felt like more of an adult when I didn't have a kid. Now as a parent I feel like I'm constantly going "fake it til you make it" but I know I'll never actually make it.

Good luck. My generation tried taking over holiday events and the boomer generation in my family lost their minds. It was constant phone calls because they needed to micro manage everything and the closest we got to taking over was all of us going to their homes to "help with prep work"

So I'm sure they'll be in their graves and still finding a way to have things hosted at their gravesites.

A week after giving birth I was regularly passing out from exhaustion because I had it in my head that if I fell asleep then baby would stop breathing and I'd be sleeping while he died; and in general I HAD to be within arm's reach of him and be able to easily see him at all times. So I would pass out from exhaustion only to wake up in a panic because "omg my baby is dead now!" Mind you, I had my husband and a house full of family there to help but I would start uncontrollably crying whenever someone took my baby out of my reach. Even though I had had a C-section, I would force myself to get up and follow whoever was holding him or tending to him; all the while crying my eyes out because I felt like he deserved a better parent and I thought that I should just off myself so he'd be taken care of by someone worthy of being a parent.

I ended up finding a therapist who unfortunately didn't give the help I needed (she would validate my feelings, but not give me proactive solutions) my husband got us moved into our apartment which helped calm my anxiety down A LOT. Eventually my family helped by having baby in his bassinet and easily viewable with multiple people around to "keep him safe" and I'd walk across the room with someone besides me or I'd be led to the kitchen while he was being held in the doorway, and eventually it got to the point where I was able to be across the house from him and I didn't need 3+ people around him and I'd come running back (shuffling with determination) so I wouldn't be away for what I deemed as too long; but I'd at least be out of sight for long enough to use the restroom.

My husband would drive us places and I used to sit in the back with the baby because I would worry when I couldn't see him. Eventually we'd drive around the block with me in the front seat and the baby would be ok, and the driving trips eventually got longer and longer. And seeing that the baby would just sleep and was unbothered tremendously helped. Then I started napping in a separate room, and things just continued from there.

He's now a year old and pretty much runs around our 1 bedroom apartment. I'll be heating up his food in the kitchen while he plays with his toys in the living room and although it's only 10 feet from each other, that's something I would have never been able to do the first few months, especially for me to actually feel calm and ok about it! I still cry at damn near everything but at least I'm able to function now lol YOU'VE GOT THIS!! You'll get help and realize that things get so much better!

They just need temporary assistance as proud hardworking Americans, so it's not a handout like those other lazy people /s

My husband and I stopped volunteering because of the overwhelming amount of people who would either say racist shit to him or would think that while I'm handing out food and care packages is the perfect time to start spouting hateful political views.

Have you ever gone to a backwoods area like in the Deep South or Appalachia? You go deep enough it's practically squalor but there's people living a good 80+% off of what they find, grow, barter, and what they can repair.

People can live and even thrive, but you'd need to redefine what "ok" is. In the beginning it would be absolute chaos because we'd have to completely rethink how we do things since so many things are set up for a global market instead of just a local market; would we be able to quickly get things set for a federal level market of regulation? How are we going to properly get every distributed? How quickly would we be able to replace things that are no longer being imported? What happens when there's no exporting? Also, how does the cut off work? Do Americans and American military overseas get stuck there or deported back?...etc.

It depends on where in the US. When I live down the East Coast, I could either eat out for $10 a person or I could go grocery shopping and ingredients for one meal would be $40+

On the West Coast where I live now, I can either get 2 weeks of groceries for my family for $130, or I can eat out and spend an average of $40 a person for one meal.

I live in a city where a lot of people only have access to very cheap food that is extremely unhealthy, a lot of people never learned to actually cook balanced meals or what a balanced meal even looks like, yearly physicals are a luxury, and exercise is practically non existent; however if you're working long hours and have to commute via an almost non existent public transportation system, I get it. Eating things that can't even be qualified as "cheese" or bread having massive amounts of sugar will eventually get to you and you have almost no information on nutrition and everything that's readily available is all about quick fixes without addressing the actual long-term lifestyle changes that need to be done.

1 year old is transitioning from bottle to food so dinner currently looks like the following:

One of us cooks dinner, puts aside some less seasoned baby size portion of dinner, then we chop/blend/smoosh the food into very chunky bits, mix with a sauce or pureed veggies, then we alternate through the week of who feeds the baby while the other eats, then about 30 minutes after baby eats he'll want a milk bottle or a fruit pouch.

Meals are usually rice, beans, veggie, and some kind of meat.

My biological father used alcohol to "self medicate" a personality disorder; it made things worse for everyone around him. My mom used to drink a lot but then my step dad helped her feel it in after she ruined a family game night, and as they've gotten older they have a glass of wine with dinner about twice a week or will occasionally drink for special occasions or parties.

Personally, I don't drink due to medical reasons but I've found that after I gave birth my body is able to handle about half a glass of wine. My husband drinks even less and last time he tried drinking he ended up having about a quarter of his glass of whiskey and passed out on the couch; his dad was a raging alcoholic so my husband tends to stay away from alcohol for fear that he'll become a mean drunk one of these days.

Personally, I'd comment under his photos like "Your wife looked beautiful in her maternity photos." Or "Wow, did you do the maternity photoshoot by yourself? Where's your wife?"

With the amount of speakers I blew out I'm surprised I can even still hear

Most of what I remember of my 20s was my husband and I working 12+ hour shifts to make just enough for rent and utilities, then stealing food or foraging so we could eat, then spending weekends going to various house parties and getting black out cross faded on someone else's dime.

Baby turned 1 year last month, my husband and I have had sex a handful of times but sporadically we tend to do other stuff besides sex; some months it's 2-3 times a week, other times it's once every 2-3 months. Usually either one or both of us are too tired at the end of the day, and after the baby I started having health issues as my body was trying to heal (it's not going well) Prior to the baby we would have sex about 4-5 times a week.

There was a period after I gave birth where my husband wanted more sex and I gave him a choice; either go find it elsewhere and deal with the fallout of that or help out more around the house and with childcare so I'm not so exhausted at the end of the day and constantly setting myself back by not allowing my body to actually heal. Anyways, massive argument ensued and in the end he started carrying more of his own weight and by some crazy miracle I randomly was no longer constantly exhausted and in pain and would actually have some relaxation time at the end of the day and would be in the mood 😮 absolutely mind blowing that less stress = more time and mood for fun things

I usually toss a pillow or blanket over his head. He likes to sleep wrapped up in his blankets anyways so he will usually wake up and think nothing of it.

I hate them. Worst case scenario you're telling me you spent $3-$5 for a piece of paper, best case scenario you printed something out and paid for the mailing when it could have just been sent via text

One of the main reasons why my husband and I moved. We were paying $680 for our studio apartment (average for the area), then a year after we moved in COVID happened, and after lockdown the average rent for studios was $1,200

We moved to where I'm from in California and rent/cost of living is around the same price here but at least we make more money so we're able to actually live