#joys of parenting

[sunshinebunnie]

(Talking to our 9.5 y.o. the other night and explaining that he’s going to start CCD so he can make his 1st Communion.)

Me: So, you’re gonna start CCD soon…

9.5 y.o.: Why?

Me: well, so you can make your Holy Communion.

9.5 y.o.: What’s that?

Me: Well, it’s a sacrament because you’re Catholic. If you’d stayed in Catholic school, you would’ve already made it.

Husband: yeah, you already have one because you were baptized, but you’re, like, 2 behind.

9.5 y.o.: 🤔🤔

Me: Daddy’s right. Normally by now you would’ve already made Reconciliation and Holy Communion. There are 7 sacraments and Daddy and I have already received 5: baptism, reconciliation, holy communion, confirmation, and holy matrimony because we were married in the church.

Husband: we won’t get the 6th one for awhile because it’s last rites. You get that when you die.

9.5 y.o.: 🤔🤔

Me: we won’t get the last one though. That’s holy orders. Daddy would have to become a priest or I’d have to become a nun to receive that sacrament.

9.5 y.o.: 🤔🤔

9.5 y.o.: so, why don’t you just become a nun for a day so you can get the achievement and then just quit?

Me & husband:

Me & husband: It’s doesn’t….work…like that. They’re not achievements like in a video game….

9.5 y.o.:

9.5 y.o.: but why don’t you just become a nun for one day, get the thing and quit?

Me & husband: 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

9.5 y.o: i don’t want to be Catholic.

[achos-laazov]

Parenting with a migraine is not fun.

B"H for bein hazmanim

[cursesformostoccasions]

Miracles

[ungiorno-nellavita]

Thankful Tuesday: Heartwarming Moments of Parenthood

Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃 Hope you all had a wonderful one. 😊 We had another great year of celebrating Halloween with our little one. She had so much fun trick-or-treating with her cousin. We went around their neighborhood and both of them got a pretty good stash just like last year. 🥰 It was a joy watching them walk around holding hands and helping each other. It was so cute! 😍 They played…

[swottydoodler]

Swotty's DH headcanon no.4:

The Malfoy line has a couple of differing curses.

1. Being able to produce only one son in a lifetime (because of something that happened hundreds of years ago) to prevent any bastards. Draco having a kid with Hermione somehow broke that because his blood disowned him for procreating with someone of Muggle decent—this one was placed by a scorned Malfoy wife.

2. The kids having the signature Malfoy hair and eyes as to know if the wives have bedded another man—done by some Malfoy patriarch along the beginning of the branch.

[dogboyklug]

the woes of parenting

[senseearly]

For a moment, imagine yourself in Mithrun's brother shoes.

Your brother - stronger, prettier, more charismatic, but also distrustful and disdainful of everyone especially you - is to be sent to the Canaries. It is the rule, it is the duty of all noble houses. But you know what goes on there, Mithrun knows what happens there. Yet you see him off, bidding a temporary farewell as you do, because someone from the House has to go and it won't be definitely you. Mithrun knows this, you know this. And you wonder, very briefly, if Mithrun hates you now more than he does already.

Your brother - powerful, agile, a good soldier just as he is as an heir, if he could only be an heir - suddenly disappears. The unit he belonged to suddenly disappeared. And you're speechless because - how? why? No one wants to answer you; they will instead try to bring back a body, they promise to you. But that is not what you want. You grieve for your brother. but your own family doesn't grieve with you. Wasn't Mithrun family too?

Then you found out: MIthrun is alive.

Your brother - now weak, despondent, his eyes always looking for something that is not here nor there - is to be sent home where people can take care of him. It is not your first choice, you want him home. But he is - sick. Not quite there. He needs someone who can look after him and you look at yourself - your gait, your constitution - and you know it can't be you. So, you follow the advice of your family and pour out all your resources to find him the best of healers and caretakers. You ask yourself, almost daily, if Mithrun would ever return to who he once was.

Your brother - strong, pretty, uninterested of anything and anyone else aside from what he calls 'the demon' - is now better. He can walk on his own now, eats without throwing up on himself. The color on his skin is back and the scars of his injuries have faded into thick bumps and discolored skin. But he still isn't quite there; still needs help and probably will for the rest of his life. And you can live with that. You can provide that. Just as long as he comes home.

But doesn't. Your brother - now a husk of his former self, and you hate thinking of him that way, but you can't help yourself, the Mithrun you knew is gone - runs straight back to the Canaries. His mission is not over, he says. He doesn't care how long it takes, he says. And you see him off, again, because someone from the House has to go and it still can't be you. Mithrun knows this, you know this, and you can't help but wish, very briefly, if things would've been different if you went instead of him.

[thoughtfulchaos773]

Recap of Carmy being clueless...

He gets it right sometimes

Hopefully he gets it right by the end of the series.

[myartsing]

When your dad cant be cool and forces you to get your Portrait painted all dolled up so he can brag to his collegues

[punkstylerecovery]

Sometimes I forget, with all the big issues in my life, that the little issues make a big difference too. I get so distracted and overwhelmed because usually, I can't do anything about the big issues. But one of the reasons I'm so overwhelmed is usually because I also have to deal with all those little issues and I'm fighting to ignore that discomfort.

But when I focus more on making a difference with the little things, I feel like I'm much more in focus and living my life despite it all. Those little things pile up and even if it seems like such a small thing to change/address/ect, it's still me trying to change things in my life for the better and reminding myself there ARE things I can fix.

So for the rest of y'all, if you're feeling overwhelmed or stuck on an issue you can't seem to fix, try to eliminate or work on some of the smaller problems you deal with.

Clear your plate a little. Maybe you're just giving yourself a little more room to breathe, maybe you're doing that and giving yourself a new perspective on it all. Just like little joys matter, little annoyances do too; be aware of them.

[ryllen]

[achos-laazov]

I don't think I've ever had a two-year-old be a two-year-old as hard as Atara did this morning

[zahri-melitor]

Hmmmm. Having so many more thoughts about "Damian's stories are about what Batman can do for Robin, while Tim's stories are about what Robin can do for Batman" as a concept.

And look this is partly me simplifying things way way down. Because ofc there are stories for both of them in the other direction, and I can name a bunch of them off the top of my head. But I'm looking at overarching themes.

Because!!! I think part of the divide in whether people feel particularly close to Damian's stories or particularly close to Tim's comes down to their identification over which fantasy and story they want to overlay the concept of Batman and Robin with. Do they want a fantasy about the strength and change a child can bring even to the adults around them? Do they want a fantasy about how a child can grow and be forgiven by adults for everything, even the dark parts of themself they hate?

"Can I fix others" vs "can others fix me" are both deep concepts people identify with, whether or not either impulse is a healthy one.

For instance. I will fully tell you that part of my problem with Dick and Damian as Batman & Robin, apart from the amount of it being written by Morrison, is that in the stories I have read, I see very few that give me a satisfying answer to 'what benefit is Dick getting out of this relationship', and as someone who helped coparent her own much younger sibling to the point my mother rewrote her will during that period to request that I got custody of my brother, not my father, should anything happen, reading a narrative where I'm supposed to celebrate Dick's sacrifices in taking on Damian is one where I want this situation to be rewarding for DICK. Because I know the suckitude of the situation where everyone is telling you how noble you are for making this sacrifice, and I know the joys you find in it, but by god is it hard and it is work that you can find yourself resenting and it is something where I see myself in Dick and I want a fantasy telling me that this was all worth it and the narrative is entirely uninterested in giving that to me.

[peridot-tears]

Ficlet:

Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing outlive Li Lianhua by decades. On the twentieth anniversary of the day he finally succumbed to the bicha poison, Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing park the Lianhua Lou by the East Sea to visit his grave.

They are about to leave when the ocean mist clears, and they see smoke in the distance. Perhaps a raided village? Judging by how thin it is, it has been burning for some time. Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing are not as spry as they used to be -- gray streaks in their hair -- but they are prepared to investigate when they hear a cry.

The current washes up a baby in a basket, like an offering to them both. Fang Duobing rushes to pick it up, and when they finally make it to the village, they find that a local family has been massacred, their manor burned to ashes.

They raise the child as Li Anle, but call him Xiaohua or Huahua as a nickname. For the child is precocious as he grows, taking to martial arts as if he was born to carry a sword. When Di Feisheng first teaches him to spar, he rams the wooden sword into his chest as if he could see the spot where his scar is. When Fang Duobing brings home a dog, Huahua insists on a list of increasingly outrageous names, beginning with Qilin and ending on Hulijing.

The first time Xiaohua hears Di Feisheng call Fang Duobing by his milk name, he giggles and sings out "Fang Xiaobao!" the rest of the day, careless and unfilial. Fang Duobing does not have the heart to chastise him. And when Xiaohua begins dueling with the neighbors, he always uses his winnings to make Di Feisheng chicken legs for dinner. They try to convince themselves that it's because they miss their friend, that they're old and sentimental, but they're terrible liars, even to themselves. So they watch the child skip rocks along the East Sea, and when he turns around, they catch the sharp and clever glance of someone who did not merely wither into the earth, but like a lotus, transformed.

[ghouljams]

now please ignore this if you're busy or are not feeling it but if you do have the time and the inspiration could I please ask how my babies Keegan and Angel and their babies are doing because I miss them and it's honestly a little embarrassing and concerning how often I reread the stuff youve written about them

Not embarrassing at all! I love Keegan, I love writing for him, and his relationship in the fae au is so cute <3

You stretch your arms over your head, press a hand to the small of your back in the hopes of cracking it. Your little monster is getting too big to be carried around. At least too big for you to carry around. Keegan swings them up easily. He tosses them in the air like they're weightless. You've seen him with them over his shoulder, holding onto their ankles as Ainsley giggles and smacks their hands against his back. It's really his fault that the three year old is still eagerly making grabby hands to be held. Not that you've ever been able to say no to your child.

Keegan holds the little monster's mouth open, inspecting their teeth as they sit on their play mat. Ainsley is holding a brightly colored toy car in either hand, and holding dutifully still for their father. Their starry eyes glance over at you, and you laugh at the way Keegan's serious expression pinches. He sighs and sits back.

"Alright," He stands, scooping Ainsley up over his shoulder like a potato sack, "Let's go to A&E." Your laughter turns to concern in the blink of an eye despite your child giggling and kicking their feet against Keegan's chest.

"What? What happened?"

"Monster swallowed one'a those little wooden things." Keegan sniffs, grabbing his jacket one handed. You balk.

"The little people?" You ask, Keegan nods, you look at your grinning toddler, "How?"

"With my mouth!" They helpfully supply.

"Right on little monster," Keegan grumbles, you're not sure if he's proud or exasperated. You suppose it's probably a mixture of both.

"Daddy- um- Daddy says I have big teeth," Ainsley chirps. Keegan bumps them up off his shoulder and catches the fit of giggles in his arms, blowing a raspberry against their cheek.

"That doesn't mean you can eat your toys baby," You wince. Keegan glances at you, blows another raspberry, slightly half-hearted. Something about it makes you have to purse your lips to avoid laughing.

"That's right," Keegan agrees with you, "We don't eat wood."

"Mummy doesn't eat wood," Ainsley nods. You narrow your eyes at your boyfriend. You wonder what he's been telling your child they can eat. Keegan's eyes panic dart to you, and you cross your arms.

"We don't eat wood either," He tells his child more seriously, "which is why-" he looks at you, "-we're going to a&e."

"They're gonna give us a punch card at this point," You sigh, grabbing your coat. At least the kid didn't swallow your keys this time. You still grimace every time you grab them.

[teenytraveler]

Inprnt | Instagram | Twitter

In which Loid finally gets his well deserved sleep 🥹

(...casual meg rambles in the tags like the madman that i am :”D)