I have an 8yo and an almost 10yo. My 8yo has “big feelings” and has had a hard time making close friends at school. She had one last year that was mostly good, but they also clashed a lot and the other girl was constantly trying to distract my daughter in class, so they’re not in the same class next year. Learning in school doesn’t come as naturally to my daughter as other kids (including my son) and she has to work at it so the distraction is a real problem. We also think she is dyslexic — the school district “won’t label it” but will give accommodations based on assessment results and private tests are f-ing expensive. So we also have an (expensive) outside tutor to try to help her. It’s so hard. She’s so extroverted compared to everyone else in the family and struggles so much, and it’s hard to know how to help her without also burning ourselves or our son out.

Meanwhile my 10yo is the “easy” kid and just has attention issues, which he totally gets from his dad, but it doesn’t seem to line up with anything clinical so we’ve never bothered to get him tested. He’s just daydreamy. If he’s engaged, we have no issues.

I’ve seen this one already. It’s a remake of the one with the lady judge.

The nearly endless campaign cycle seems tailor-made to wear us out. Wouldn’t it be nice to have it for two weeks max and then vote and be done with it? Everyone already knows how they’re gonna vote, don’t they?

I’m 41. As a college going-away gift I suppose, my dad bought me a basic screwdriver where the bits can be flipped for larger and smaller Phillips and flat heads, all stored in the shaft. It’s got a floral handle. That thing is both my husband’s and my favorite screwdriver despite having acquired many more tools in the interim, and it probably cost four bucks back in 2001.

I have said and continue to say that wouldn’t it be nice if both parents could work and support a household financially on 20-25 hours a week each? Both could have careers outside the home and have plenty of time for the rest of stuff, or one parent could choose to work more hours and the other (presumably) choose to be at home like they did in the 50s. But it wouldn’t have to be that way if jobs weren’t automatically 40+ hours.

We thought about going to that. I wonder how it was? (The drone show I mean.)

Firstborn was “bird.” Second born was “mama.”

Aaah yes, thank you, so much clearer! I appreciate that the Green Party is actually green, ha. Also I am gonna be tripped up by the red blue dichotomy if I understand Labour vs. Tories correctly since it’s kind of the opposite here in the states. We need some different colors over here too.

Sorry—I thought they were all separate parties? Like Why are the Green Party the same color as the Conservative Party? Or are those different colors actually? Ignorant American over here just trying to understand a bit better.

Do the colors mean anything?

And we love you for it.

My dog does one solid poop on walks, followed by one loose poop, and then she continues to try to go and manages to squeeze out liquid shit if I let her try. I’ve stopped letting her slow down after the second one. What is up with that?

I’m the primary driver in our household and I don’t have good parking spot luck. Meanwhile, my husband has excellent parking luck. It’s gotten kind of funny actually. Before we really recognized it, he wondered why I didn’t like going to a particular grocery store. It’s because the parking lot is terrible. “You mean you don’t just park up front?” Uh, what? How would I do that exactly when none of those spots are ever free? But on the off chance that he’s driving, there is always, always a spot close to the door. It’s gotten to the point where if we’re going somewhere where the parking is going to be difficult, he drives.

Honestly, it has never occurred to me to try any canned fish. I don’t even like seared ahi. As soon as it’s cooked at all, it tastes like the nasty childhood tuna. Fully raw sushi tuna is okay though, thankfully.

Canned tuna. Childhood daycare food. Both my brother and I can’t stand it. It never made me vomit but it was a real challenge to get down, and I think he threw up from it once. I’m not sure what she did to make it so vile but there was a lot of mayo too and I couldn’t handle mayo for a very long time.

Also still accurate for a lot of people, sadly.

I have one of those too. Due to lack of space, my desk is next to the tv and couch, and she gets pretty demanding when she thinks it’s couch time but I’m working.

I wasn’t actually so mad at first. They bought back our smaller cheaper car and we felt very compensated. But for the second car, which was much bigger and more expensive, they only offered a “fix” which they said wouldn’t affect performance (yeah right), and a small amount in restitution. It felt like a slap in the face. In hindsight I would have gone about things differently but let’s just say that I have little to no faith in the way our justice system works anymore due to how we decided to proceed after that, and we will never buy a car from VW ever again.

Meanwhile, we actually replaced those cars with Teslas. And now we feel like we’re kind of back in the same place, having given money to a company that is pretty shit. We try to vote with our wallets as much as possible but there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, after all. It’s just really depressing and disheartening and makes me not want to buy anything anymore.

Please tell me about any sewing-related communities you’re subbed to because I want to make sure I am also subbed to them! (I love linen)

I’m in the opposite camp. What are the reasons you don’t like Rivian? (I don’t like VW because we had not one, but two vehicles caught up in Dieselgate. They’re dead to me. Which is a shame because I really liked them.)