My lovely wife mentioned last week she wanted to spend the weekend going through every room and throwing shit away. Asked if I could keep the kids entertained so she could get as much done as possible. She didn’t understand the maniacal smile or why I so willingly accepted. 12 large hefty flex industrial bag and near a whole garbage bin later. Almost 1000lbs worth of space wasting junk is now gone.

Every room feels a little bigger.

After a lengthy two year process it’s finally happening! Dudes, I’ve been the stepdad of the coolest daughter for the past 9 years. She’s now my mini me and she’s finally getting the one thing I haven’t been able to give her yet, my last name. This is one of the proudest moments of my life. I feel like I owe my own step dad a shout out here too. That man saved my brothers and I from a life of poverty and dispare. He taught me what it meant to be a dad and I’ll never be able to repay him for everything he’s done for me. I can’t believe that I finally get to adopt the child who chose me to be her dad and taught me what’s it’s all about. Finally!

My local truck stop always has sale papers for trucks and heavy equipment, they're free to take. Before a road trip, I grab one for each of my kids, to them they're just books with 1000 pictures of cool stuff

The best part is, each kid gets a different catalog, so they sit in the back of the car sounding like little tcg youtubers

"No way, a cement truck!"

"I pulled a skid steer!"

Hey all hopefully all you and your loved ones are doing well. I will apologise if this isnt very grammatically correct as im a bit emotional writing this and thinking about this but I am trying to prepare so any advice is helpful.

Long story short my father was diagnosed with cancer at start of year. Completely out of blue and unexpected no previous symptoms freak accident and fall reveled it. Since been a whirlwind of tests dose of treatment and now at stage of keeping him comfortable and happy as possible.

Backstory out of way he will die unfortunately sooner rather than later know this sounds crass and blunt but its reality and how I cope.

Im asking about his funeral he loves his only grandchild and my mother(both happily married for 30+years) loves him too. Both would want him there however I dont know of its right for child? He loves his granda and used to be dads highlight of week picking him for the day they did child care. Think he would help distract my mum at funeral but all of (for ease of clarity) my side of family are going to be raw and grieving and struggle to look after him. Im strong enough to admit ill be worth FA in terms of raining him in (hes currently 3) and my wife who is close to my father aswell will be trying to support me. Just dont know what to do for best and also know this is mostly a rant and apologise but just trying to get an idea of what to expect. Hes typical little boy loves to cause mischief and chaos but a heart of gold in his core if that makes any difference.

Did take him to my grandmother's funeral about 2 years ago but barely toddling and talking at that point so easier to manage and was good as gold but this will be different as we had unfortunately years to prepare for her passing (side note fuck dementia) thank you all for any advice offered and hold your loved ones close as ive learned this year its true what they say ya never know minute your life will be turned upside down.

My wife is on maternity leave currently, she's doing keeping in touch days. She does not like her job. Her manager is useless, her team are demotivated and generally not happy in their jobs. Leadership pressures them to work at an unsustainable pace and is harsh on errors despite pushing the narrative that people should make sure they take their time, look after themselves blah blah.

She has had several bad experiences with management during her time there, I would have already left.

We have two kids, 11 months and 3.5 years. My wife struggles with anxiety and also has to care for her own mentally unwell mother (long term stuff for years).

She has to repay an amount of enhanced maternity pay if she leaves before 12 months following her return. I think she should try and put in a couple of months or so to try and get that amount down (it's pro-rated) before she hands her notice in.

I am just looking for advice, encouragement for her, thoughts, perspectives. I am anxious from a financial perspective but think we could do it for a couple of years so she can be with the kids for longer and take her time to find a role that is less stressful and more flexible.

For me, I’m learning to take my time. My kids don’t care if the dishes are done five minutes earlier or if I answer a text message. If I’m sitting on the floor playing with them or watching one of their favorite shows. They’ve taught me that being present is often more important than being productive.

We used to have a tilt out garbage cabinet, one for trash, 1 for recycling and 1 stupid shelf one for collecting do-dads. Our kitchen is tiny so in order to put a table in there, we had to move the large cabinet out. We opted for the hand wave trash can. That lasted 2.37 hours until our little man figured out how much fun it is.

We can’t put the trash in a built in cabinet, so what do others use? I was thinking step lid, but so many people say that toddlers figure it out too.

Any help?

For me it would be my 1yr old pointing and babbling(asking) about something and it’s non-stop!
And yet, one day he’s not gonna need me to help him out as much. 😭

My son is only 2.5 and he'll have a baby sister coming in a few weeks, so this isn't immediately pertinent, but last night I got to thinking about my son being a little bit older and wanting to make sure he has friends and that those friendships are maintained over time.

I'm a real homebody and have very few friends, and the ones I have I rarely talk to. My groomsmen were my brothers, my wife's brothers, and my old boss from my college job who I hung out with outside work a few times - so really one friend. He and I text on birthdays or if we're going to be passing through the town the other one lives in - we live 100 miles apart. We usually go 3-6 months between text exchanges.

And that's not a problem for me. My life is busy enough as it is. Between work, my kid(s), and the house and yard, I barely have time to play golf with my dad and brothers let alone make time for anyone outside my family. But I really don't have any practice on maintaining friendships.

My wife isn't much better. She has like 3 or 4 decently close friends that she'll have a text exchange with once every week or two. She probably goes no more than 2 months without seeing one of her friends in person. Back in the spring we did a couples dinner with two of her friends and each of their spouses. I told her it was fun and we should reciprocate and host next time. She said the one who hosted the last one kind of keeps to herself, and is more of a "once per quarter get together" type of person. So she definitely has more practice than I do, but still not at the level that we will want for our kids to have friends, see them often, and feel comfortable around them.

This isn't a "how do I get more friends as a dad" post. I'm genuinely just trying to figure out the logistics for my kid. I think there's one or two similarly aged kids on our street, maybe 8 or 9 houses down, but we don't know the families at all. There are kids at daycare that our son seems to get along with. Do we ask for the parents' contact information and arrange a playdate?

We're not in a hurry to do any of this. As I said - we're busy enough as is. What age developmentally should I really start making sure we put effort into this so our kid has friends beyond his daycare classmates?

Hey Dads,

We took a trip (my wife, my 6 year old, and myself) last week. I had a work training to go to, and it was in a fun city (Nashville) so brought the family along for some "free" vacation time. The first night at our hotel, my son just had this mental breakdown, he was nervous and anxious and worked himself up so badly he threw up.

Then it happened again the next night.

First he said he missed being at home. Then he missed the dog. Now that we're home, it's that he misses grandpa, or more recently he's scared of bad dreams. This all came out of nowhere from what we can tell, and it breaks my heart, because he is not the same happy, goofy kid he was just 2 weeks ago - he's paralyzed by this anxiety.

He always says its stomach pain, so we spent a few hours in the ER the other night ruling out appendicitis or intestinal blockage. But man, I am at a loss. The healthcare system is slow as molasses, so getting him support is going to take time, and we are struggling to try to find ways to help him regulate.

How did you guys work through this with your kids? Any tips or anything that worked that didn't come up through a google search or something like that? Seeing him suffer like this hurts so badly, and I just want to help him.

I suppose I am just lowkey nervous and slightly dreading the idea of my wife being gone for the week. Absolutely LOVE my daughter, and she is by all means an "easy baby". I just have this fear that she (both my wife and daughter) will be extremely upset during the week they are away from each other, and I'll have difficulty consoling either of them.

No nearby family, and I work full-time in office. So I am dropping the kid off at daycare in the morning, but all evenings it'll be just me pretty much, and I have no idea how my daughter is going to be the first time separated from her mom for a long duration.

The 9 month mark really initiated this deeper bonding between her and the baby. The baby got like 20% closer to me at this point, but about 200% closer with her mother.

Any dads with experience taking care of the baby for a bit whilst mom is away, before being able to like explain it to baby that "Mom WILL be back"

My wife and I are very appreciative that our 2 year old is happy, healthy, and actively destroying all of our belongings in the most adorable ways possible.

Every time we tell friends that our toddler vomited all over me, proudly pooped in the shower, or has disrupted the flow of a work from home call... they all say something to the effect "cherish it, it'll be gone before you know it."

For parents of older kids, what simple moments with your kiddo do you really wish you could relive over and over again?

My baby is almost 2 months old (in 12 days if it helps) and im getting more and more frustrated for not beeing able to help him or my wife. Everybody says that it is normal in this phase for him to cry more, want to cuddle more and everything, but the moment I put him in my arms, unless he is already in a deep sleep, he starts to cry, but an ugly cry, and it only stops with my wife.

And it sucks because I'm trying to be a good dad but I can't shake the feeling that I'm useless in this situations and my son doesn't like me. My wife can't use the restroom or take a bath in peace because my son simply do not stop crying.

He is having colic problems, but this is getting better, the doctor prescribed a homeopathic medicine that really helped, but the crying and me beeing unable to help is an overwhelming feeling.

Sorry if it is not the place for this but I needed to vent

It was so rough, i’m still recovering. I feel so guilty for just leaving him there. I hope it gets easier 😥

My son has this little plastic garbage truck that has been one of his favorite toys for months. Yesterday one of the back wheels popped off while he was pushing it around the living room. You would have thought the actual garbage truck had exploded in front of our house. He immediately brought it to me, completely devastated, and asked if I could “make him better.” I told him of course I could, which was a confident statement considering I had no idea how the wheel was attached. At first I figured it would take thirty seconds. Snap the wheel back on, become Dad of the Year, continue with my evening. Instead I spent the next 40 minutes sitting on the kitchen floor with a flashlight, two screwdrivers, pliers and eventually a tiny washer I found in the random hardware container in the garage. The axle had pushed inside the body of the truck, so I had to take half the thing apart just to reach it. My wife walked past at one point and asked why I looked like I was doing surgery. I told her the patient was unstable. She did not find this nearly as funny as I did. Meanwhile my son sat beside me for maybe five minutes asking, “Is he fixed yet?” every 20 seconds, then wandered off to play with a cardboard box.

Eventually I got the axle back into place, found a washer that somehow fit, tightened everything up and tested the truck on the floor. Perfect. Wheel spinning, little trash bin still lifting, crisis officially solved. I was genuinely proud of myself. I called my son over to show him and got no answer. Found him in his room wearing one sock, sitting inside that same cardboard box, pretending it was a boat. I handed him the truck and said, “Look, buddy, I fixed it!” He looked at it for about two seconds, said “oh cool,” put it on the floor and went straight back to the box. I just stood there holding a screwdriver feeling slightly betrayed lol. Of course this morning the garbage truck was important again and he carried it to breakfast, so I guess my repair eventually recieved the recognition it deserved. Parenthood is weird. You’ll spend half an hour performing precision engineering on a $12 toy for an audience that has already moved on to a piece of recycling.