I am totally down for a thread complaining about how our hips hurt.
If a cheerful anecdote is any help, I recovered much faster from my second kid. Sally, I was all wobbly for weeks; Newt, I don't remember any substantial recovery period.
My hips are fine but my right knee has been getting progressively worse over the past year, moving from "hey, that's a funny sound" to "shit, that's really starting to hurt". I guess I'm going to have to give up and see a doctor. Also, I rolled my ankle (same leg!) this morning stepping from the front walk to the driveway and that's no garden party either.
Stupid body.
When my doula was pregnant with her second, she was holding her first born as she stepped off a stair, twisted her ankle, and when she tried to catch herself, she broke her other ankle.
Now nobody tell any grisly injury stories in this thread, please.
4. As you grow older, you begin to notice the increasing number of people a few yeas ahead of you who give you a pitying smile and say, "Oh, they never warn you about your knees, do they?"
To which you can, if not in too much pain, reply, "Well it was always open to you to do so."
re: hips - my doctor suspects I have a sports hernia [which isn't a hernia, it's just what they call a particular type of deep muscle injury in the hip-flexor area]. Anyway, it hurts, and I'm not supposed to do any exercise at all.
Oh my gawd, you guys, my lower back hurts so much today that I can barely walk, but I can't take a muscle relaxant while I'm primary parent. I hate telling Mara I can't hold her unless I'm sitting, but maaaan 10 days of lifting this 40-lb weight has done me in. I'm so glad she's getting more independent and needs fewer lifts, but I think we're going to have to have a conversation about my limitations before hobbling two blocks to the park. I can manage that and maybe she'll deign to ride in the stroller for once. But owwwwwwwwww, and that's not even counting all my tiny bruises from where she kicks me while falling asleep.
I'm amused the Mineshaft would rather talk about aches and pains than scandalous spying and cheating SOs. Unfogged got old.
I found out via the news this morning that sexting by kids is a freaking felony and conviction requires lifetime registration as a sex offender. (There'll be a bill before the Texas leg this session to reduce it to a misdemeanor.)
8: Oy, you have my sympathy. You'll figure out what you can and can't do with her without hurting yourself soon, though -- if picking her up hurts you, and so you stop picking her up when you're standing, she'll stop expecting you to really soon.
I'm just protesting your profaning John Prine's somber "Sam Stone" in the post title.
And Sammy took to stealing
When he got that empty feeling
9 posted without reading 8! Sympathies, Thorn! I just totally considered not going up a flight of stairs. Sigh.
13: I'm basically John-Prine-ignorant.
I can't take a muscle relaxant while I'm primary parent
Sure you can. Just wash it down with an energy drink. Better parenting living through chemistry!
10 days of lifting this 40-lb weight has done me in
Your mileage may vary, but I found it much easier to carry my kids on my shoulders than with my arms.
I'm basically John-Prine-ignorant.
John Prine is worth getting to know. Happy enchiladas!
I had kids that were really big, really young, and so I hardly carried them past infancy. What worked for me was being willing to invest time in letting them dawdle along, so long as they were on their own two feet -- it was irritatingly poky at the time, but turned them into respectably speedy pedestrians pretty young.
16: I think a lot of this stuff is easier if you start out with a smaller kid who grows into a 40-lb one than pick up at that place. She isn't needing as much holding/carrying now that she's settled in, but she's very insistent about preferring front-to-front positioning and we try to give her what she seems to need. I don't know that I have the strength for shoulder stuff, but she also wants to have her hands around my waist. We do now have an Ergo carrier that helps with longer trips, and she's pretty good at adjusting when she understands I can't do what she wants.
And for LB's (I think) curiosity about what she'd be like when doing normal 3-year-old assholic stuff, it took 3 hours to get a shirt on her this morning. I don't bother making her choose because she'll howl and yank it off, so I just tell her she can't go downstairs until she's dressed in clean clothes. At 11:00 am she finally decided the lure of cheese was worth a new t-shirt. At 11:45, she dripped water on her clean shirt while washing her hands and insisted on a change, which took about three seconds and caused no drama. So there's that sort of thing, plus periodic screeching and weeping. She really is a sweet, smart, good-natured child. It's been incredible to watch her language skills blossom. She now speaks in sentences more often than not, sometimes sophisticated ones.
18.1: Also, I'm really lazy. Give me a choice between getting somewhere late and hauling around a giant child so as to be timely? I'll be moseying along with the kid.
18: She can and will walk huge distances. It's been more about wanting comfort rather than being unable to do it herself. And we're trying to make an effort to give whatever comfort and support she seems to need just because of the nature and newness of our relationship.
This isn't a completely immediate solution, but if she's balking at the stroller, the first and last items here are likely to be much more enticing.
You give up to easily, LB. Imagine how strong you would be if you still carried them everywhere.
assholic stuff
Hi. My name is apostropher, and I am an assholic.
[In unison] Hi, apostropher!
I don't bother making her choose because she'll howl and yank it off, so I just tell her she can't go downstairs until she's dressed in clean clothes.
This sounds like you're handing things really well.
John Prine is worth getting to know.
Seconded!
And we're trying to make an effort to give whatever comfort and support she seems to need just because of the nature and newness of our relationship.
And this makes perfect sense -- I'm just thinking of how you can protect your back. Maybe just make a habit that if she needs to be held, that means stopping and snuggling wherever you are (barring in the middle of crosswalk of course), rather than trying to combine comforting and getting someplace?
23: Imagine how strong you would be if you still carried them everywhere.
I bet you'd be able to do 100 pushups.
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This family photo might just be the pinnacle of the genre. I guess there's one in every family.
You probably need a Facebook account to see the whole gallery.
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What worked for me was being willing to invest time in letting them dawdle along, so long as they were on their own two feet
Hell, I'd be happy to dawdle all day. Hawaiian Punch must be held when she gets tired, and I don't have any idea what to establish as a policy around carrying her.
So I end up holding her endlessly while rummaging around the kitchen, getting the mail, and other mundane tasks. Periodically sitting to rejuvenate. I don't want to randomly start enforcing a poorly-planned policy, but I don't have any good ideas either.
(The exception being when there's a clear, proximate reason I can't pick her up - like my arms are full. So that will work to an extent when the next one comes along.)
Well, if it's not hurting you to pick her up, there's no reason not to -- you don't need a 'no carrying' policy unless there's a problem with it, like Thorn's back. I had a 'no carrying for transport' policy pretty young, but that was mostly because they were just so darn big that trying to get any distance carrying them was miserable, and it was easier having a 'never' policy than it would have been to be willing to haul them one block but not two. But I picked them up and carried them around the house all the time.
Mostly it's fine and not hurting or anything. The only reason it seems like a problem - I think - is because it coincides with toddler tiredness and general crankiness, so it's symptomatic of times when everything is wearing thin, and I'd be moving a lot faster if I had two hands available.
So that will work to an extent when the next one comes along
Now tell me again why you hate your younger sibling? Your mother stopped holding you after the new baby's arrival? Hmmm...
Fortunately Jammies is still her favorite by far. So there, Future Therapist!
30: Ahahah. CA has some elementary school pix that are all-too-like the tallest boy in the back row.
33: Yeah, that's just having little kids -- when they need attention, you're not going to be moving fast. It's a choice between giving the positive attention they want, or trying not to and then having a maddeningly distraught toddler on your hands. Nothing to be done but accept that you're going to be moving slow.
(Do I sound like a hardass in parenting discussions? I was very willing to arrange things for my convenience, and to figure that I could make things work the way I wanted by being more patient than a toddler, but that doesn't mean I had any way around the fact that they need you pretty much all the time.)
My hip flexor stopped hurting right around when my knee started hurting. When my knee stopped hurting, and my hip flexor started again, I knew it was time to get back to running.
Hip flexor stretches just before running helped me a bunch, Stanley.
38.2: Yeah, I got good advice for stretches from a friend who runs for serious. I think I just underdid the stretching today.
As for making children quicker, the answer is obviously Heelys for all!
13: I'm basically John-Prine-ignorant.
Don't tell me that you don't follow the links.
(actually, searching for that I see that John Prine has been mentioned a number of times in the archives).
Is this the parenting thread? If so, can I relate a nugget from the 3 year old yesterday morning?
Her: "Daddy, what's a word for a really mean daddy?" Me: "??? Uh, a really mean daddy???[where is this going]." Her: "No, Daddy. A really mean daddy is called a 'tyrant.' I want to be a tyrant when I grow up." Me:[relief/horror]
I do the picking up and carrying thing a bunch, but constant holding while standing would be tough. In related news, I decided to impose a pretty strict "no stroller" rule about a year ago that seems to have improved walking skills, but who knows if that was a good idea or not.
Also, John Prine is awesome. Saw him live a few years back which was a real treat.
In related news, I decided to impose a pretty strict "no stroller" rule about a year ago that seems to have improved walking skills, but who knows if that was a good idea or not.
Totally was. You invest a year or so in dawdling, but you end up with a much easier time getting around if you get the kid used to getting around on its own two feet young.
Kids will move faster if you feed them candy and espresso. Fact.
Can't you carry HP and have two hands free if you use some nifty baby carrying technology?
She's unfortunately outgrown most nifty technology, since she likes to get up and down and up and down.
she likes to get up and down and up and down.
I predict a future in Motown.
I was still frequently carrying my (skinny - she's super fussy about food) daughter about when she was four or five. I think a large part of it was that it made conversation easier when out of doors, what with ambient noise. Also, she tired easily and you'd just get there quicker. It only ended when she started school and realised that the other kids would read being carried to the gate as a lack of sophistication.
11: Hey, they've noticed my hometown! Leeds University, Leeds Met, and Leeds College of Music. No-one else can claim such an honour. Manchester only lost the Royal Northern College of Music.
I fucked off and now I'm a founding employee of a start-up in Shoreditch. Last week David Cameron came over to say how great we all are, and asked BT to put in free WLAN over the whole area. Not that there'd be any money like. Just said they might do it, and while they were at it move BT Research from Martlesham to some unknown site here. Jus'like that, as Tommy Cooper would say just before getting the milk over himself.
Fuck everyone. Currently in Bob Mode.
re: 48
Fuck yes, re: Bob mode. Our government are a bunch of know nothing short-termist philistine vandals.
"Bob mode" is the new "wired in".
Bob mode
In keeping with house style and tradition, I'd like to formally register my request that we call it "bob-style".
As for making children quicker, the answer is obviously Heelys for all!
This had me really, really confused for a second.
Can't speak to hip flexors, but that's got to be in the running for best post title ever.
Rather than tell tales of my dislocating patella, I just want the lawyers here to know that one of the recent lawyer-talky threads actually provided me an actual useful angle on a case. And now I look smart!
re the OP: while it would almost certainly be bad if this technology was more widely used, I sure wish *I* could use it. finding out people's private thoughts/dreams/insecurities usually makes me treat them better and like them more, not less. so as long no one else finds out, where's the harm?
wouldn't it make George Bush more relatable if you found out he/she had a secret emo livejournal?
Browsing at the U -- not billable, but recordable.
um, just "he", unless the secret livejournal is more lurid than I'd imagined.
Don't think so. The OP is a modern form of gossip with a commercial intermediary-- repeating what was overheard or otherwise snooped is not new. The main differences are greater distances and speed, only that's new. The technologies (fb, SMS snooping) are adaptations that have clear precursors in 18th century literary culture.
The biggest difference now is that the snooping can in principle be automated and done in bulk, impersonally. Just as it's possible to illegally purchase call records of an arbitrary number, or presumably for a sufficiently authorized agency to listen to a recording of any international voice call, so it will in principle be possible to purchase access to anyone's electronic secrets. I am waiting for the first political scandal rooted in these kinds of records; didn't the Appalachian trail governor or maybe his friend have a problem? I think that was just password theft though, rather than compromised communication records.
48. There's almost a delicious irony in privatising the LSE, for anybody with any sense of history whatsoever.
But fuck 'em all. And there I thought NuLab were a bunch of ignorant Gradgrinds. (They were.)
re: 59
I don't think future historians are going to look very kindly on this period.
"So, you let a bunch of public school educated thick toffs wreck the entire fucking place, on a flimsy pretense that a 10 year old can see through?"
re: 61
Point.
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Which reminds me, I need to donate to the twitterjoketrial bloke.
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re: 63
Yeah, done. I'll look into writing to the CPS later.
(For the benefit of non-Brits, 62-64 refer to a guy who arrived at an airport only to find it closed and tweeted something to the effect of "If this airport doesn't open again soon, I'm going to bl** it *p." And was duly charged with a terrorism offense and convicted. If you feel like contrinuting, the link's in 63.)
Somebody call housekeeping. Apo put a blog in the sink.
66. Been done, better than I could. It would be nice if this was better known around the world though. The guy's appeal is going on at the moment.
Blip it 2P, yo. Dude's bigtime into the 8bit scene.
You people might be even wimpier than we are.
And they've prosecuted the wrong person, even on their own stupid terms. It should be the guy who sent the message to the airport.
71. This is fairly untypical, except that British minor legal bureaucrats have a constitutional inability to stop digging when they're in holes, never mind the collateral damage.
The right person to prosecute would be nobody.
74, yes, I see from the longer version, that the earlier part about how the message got to the airport was incorrect. And yes, this is astonishingly stupid.
i fixed my hip flexor pain by not running up hills anymore. i actually liked running up hills (not down), but experimentation confirmed that the hills were giving me that searing-hot, electric pain in my right hip. now i only run on flat trails, and all is well.
76: Hm. Duly noted. And after reading your comment I did notice it more walking up a hill at lunch.
That Jack of Kent post makes it extremely hard to understand why the guy was prosecuted at all. If even the cops came to the conclusion (brilliant work, too) that it was facetious, who thought, well, let's prosecute the guy anyway?
I was going to run a marathon on saturday, but bad hip pain shut down my training. Doc said it was either labral tear or hip flexor problem.
So, I rested it for 5 weeks and am going to run the half marathon on saturday.
Maybe I sent my bad, old man, hip flexors to Stanley.
Probably all that hip-snapping you were doing.
80: That's how you work those mouse buttons.
Also, I love John Prine's music.
Storm windows. Speed of the Sound of Loneliness. Spanish Pipedream. Hello in There. In Spite of Ourselves.
79: You said that it was books. Medical waste costs more to ship.
Swimming is so much better than running. Except you get to follow a bunch of cute booties when you run.
In my last race, my son said "Just get behind a cute, fast, butt and follow her!"
Wait, maybe that was Apo.
I wasn't running in your race, will.
pfft. I saw all that red hair. And like I wouldnt recognize that butt.
