First time camping with kids (6yo and 3yo) and we're starting small - just in the backyard this weekend. Got the tent, sleeping bags, flashlights. Planning to make s'mores. What's the one thing everyone forgets that makes the night miserable? Also my 3yo is still in diapers at night - do I just acce...
This might sound dumb but I'm genuinely excited. My son has been glued to screens for like a year and my wife and I were getting worried. Last month I bought him a beginner's rock climbing wall for the garage (nothing fancy, just one of those $300 ones from REI). Figured he wouldn't care but he's be...
We had to sit down with our 12yo yesterday and talk about online predators because he made a "friend" on Discord who kept asking personal questions and wanted to video chat. He thought it was totally normal. We logged in and looked through the messages - it was CLEARLY inappropriate. I'm not trying...
We're paying $2,400/month for one kid at a supposedly mid-range place in Ballard. TWENTY FOUR HUNDRED. That's almost 30% of our household income. I've heard horror stories about the in-home places too - kids getting sick constantly, owners who don't really care. Has anyone found a legitimate afford...
Found a cool wooden lure at an estate sale for like three bucks and it got me interested in old fishing gear. Now I'm down a rabbit hole of eBay auctions and vintage fishing blogs. My man cave shelf is getting full but who cares right? This stuff is awesome.
There's a summer camp in our area (Boston) that teaches Unreal Engine to 14+ kids. My 14yo is interested but it's expensive (~$2k for 2 weeks) and I'm wondering if it's actually worth it or if he'd learn the same stuff from YouTube tutorials. Anyone have kids who did these summer coding programs? Di...
My 5yo saw some weird puppet video on YouTube Kids (which is supposed to be filtered!) and now she's having nightmares. Like actually scared to go to sleep. We haven't let her watch YouTube much since but I'm paranoid about what else is on there. We switched to Netflix Kids and Puffin Rock exclusive...
I know some of you purists love your offset smokers and that's cool but man this thing has changed my life. Just loaded it this morning, set it to 250, and I'm smoking a brisket with basically zero effort. Went and played golf with the guys and didn't stress about temperature fluctuation once. Best ...
Following up on my earlier post where I was stressing about this. I finally did it. Proposed going 4 days/week starting next quarter. My boss didn't say no, which I guess is good? But he didn't say yes either, said he needs to "explore it with the team." Now I'm spiraling about whether I seem uncomm...
Quick win: We finally got through mediation and the new 50/50 schedule starts next month. Monday-Wednesday with me, Thursday-Sunday with mom, alternating holidays. Took forever and cost a lot but having a predictable pattern that's actually written down is going to change everything. If you're in th...
Third-grade parent-teacher conference. 2pm on a Thursday. DURING A WORKDAY. How is this still a thing? Why can't schools do evening conferences or weekends? My company gives us 'flexibility' but taking 90 minutes off to drive across town, sit in a parking lot, and have a 15-minute meeting about how ...
We're leaving daycare, she's half asleep in the carseat, just goes "I love you Daddy" all drowsy and sweet. And my brain was somewhere else (thinking about work deadlines like an idiot) and I just said "thanks buddy" and kept driving. Didn't click until I was at a red light what I'd done. How do I f...
Took my 6yo to what everyone on here raved about—"perfect for families, only 2 miles!" Spoiler alert: he complained the entire time about his legs hurting at mile 0.5. Then he found a stick and wanted to carry it the whole way. And of course it rained on the way back. We were soaking wet and miserab...
My wife thinks TikTok is fine if we limit it, I think it's specifically designed to be addictive and possibly bad for developing brains. Our 13yo obviously wants it. We're in an impasse and I'm curious what other families actually decided. Are you allowing TikTok? What's your reasoning? (Asking genu...
Got so caught up in work emails that I completely lost track. He was in his room playing on his iPad and I just... didn't check in. Found him at 6pm still on the same game. Now I'm second-guessing everything about my screen time boundaries. Did I mess up? He's not glued to it normally, this was just...