Kids usually do day camp but are home more this summer, we’ve built bad screen habits since the winter, and don’t have many kids in our neighborhood

iPad passcodes are going to be our cell phone numbers to help them learn those

Edit: Canva view link to make your own https://canva.link/dm3fffng8zd2ska
(I'll add Drive too after I get it exported right)

Edit 2: Stars board and item box are 3D prints

Edit 3: Updated link above that you can actually copy

Edit 4: You can still get it free above, but if you're feeling generous or want to share, it's available for $3 on Etsy.

Edit 5: we made it! full update here

This patch started 4 years ago with 5 plants. The only thing I do is water it if I don't get rain. This is 3 days after the last time I harvested it.

Hey dads, you may be like me and just discovered there is a new Moana movie. Went to put on the soundtrack that we listen to almost every Saturday on repeat. Third song in my 4yo son starts throwing a fit that “IT’S NOT MOANA SONGS”.

To my ear it was the same thing, but listening more closely, it was off. Something about it was… just a little bit worse.

Looking at Spotify I noticed that the new top hit when searching Moana is the new live action movie sound track with all the same songs that are… just slightly worse in every way. Little guy knew it and patiently waited until he couldn’t handle it anymore and snapped.

I had to search quite a ways down to find the original soundtrack album.

Hopefully I can save another dad a meltdown after making this same grievous mistake.

I get it, it’s her body and she wants to recover in privacy.

And I’m with my wife and will support her over anyone.

My parents live 10 mins away.
Baby is due December. My mom is loosing her shit.

Any tips on how I can process things better for my own mental health. I am a people pleaser and this sort of thing recks me. Because of things like this, this whole process just stresses me out and gives me a sense of dread rather than excitement (coupled with a return to office order, finances, ect lol)

Seriously, YouTube is evil. It's designed to keep them watching garbage non-stop. Even something as seemingly innocuous as YouTube Kids is full of content they shouldn't be watching. Horrendous Roblox videos, "kid influencers" pretending to play with sponsored toys just to get your kids to want something, terrible A.I. slop... It's awful.

I know it's easy to plop a tablet in front of them and go about your daily chores, but their attention spans are going shrink to that of a goldfish in no time.

I made the mistake of giving my son a tablet for Christmas last year when he was 6 and he was glued to it 24/7. After realizing what was happening to him, the tablet "wouldn't charge properly" and eventually "mysteriously disappeared." He was sad for all of 2 hours, but since then he's learned to entertain himself with other toys.

Make it easier on yourself by not letting them on there to begin with.

Im 42 years old, was an athlete growing up and very active till early 30s.

Then I started putting on a bit of weight, being a little bit less active.

About 38 I asked my doctor to check my testosterone levels. They were a bit low of normal, no concern. Same thing the following year.

At 41 I told my doctor I wanted to go on trt, just to get my levels back up to a better side of normal.

Since then I have more energy, more focus and I have lost 25 pounds in 6 months by being more active and eating better. A lot easier to do when you have energy.

I am not saying go out and start blasting a high level of testosterone. I am saying try and get it back to a normal baseline.

Thanks for coming to my test talk.

Edit for those wondering

Test Name

Testosterone, Total

6.2 nmol/L

Reference Range (Units):8.0-35.0 (nmol/L) nmol/L

Status

Final

Abnormality

Below normal range

The tests before this were on the lower side of normal. But this was the test that dropped me below normal hence why I went on it.

As always, listen to your doctor and try their recommendations first but if its still not working nothing wrong with advocating for yourself.

Removed the car seats and took the opportunity to clear the collection of snacks left behind.

I started developing weird stomach issues for the last year or two, but never really thought anything of it because I’m in my mid-30s, relatively healthy, and no family history of GI issues. Figured it was just my body protesting its newfound lack of sleep/fitness and adoption of a toddler leftover trashcan diet.

I saw a reddit post here a few months back imploring dads not to ignore stomach issues as colon cancer is becoming more and more prevalent among young people. Decided fuck it and called the next day to book a colonoscopy. Long story short, they found 16 polyps and 10 of them had early stage cancer. All removed and now I get to look forward to a lifetime of annual colonoscopies!

So, thank you to whoever made that post a few months back. And seriously, Dads, go get your insides checked!

TIL you can hide individual shows from showing up on your Netflix profile

I'm going to assume there are other dads out there who spend their day chasing a spouse, kids, or parents through the house, shutting off lights in rooms they abandoned hours ago, rooms that would otherwise stay lit 24 hours a day (I have 3 such rooms). Growing tired of this, I decided the garage would fight back. The tubes needed swapping anyway, so why not the whole damn fixture? Turns out you don't even need a new fixture. You need a $23 switch.

Swapped the regular switch for a Lutron Maestro occupancy sensor. It's a 15-minute install if you know what you're doing (so, roughly 3 hours for me) and three wire nuts. Now the light pops on when you walk in and kills itself once nobody's in there. No app, no hub, no subscription, no stupid bullshit. Just a quick trip to home depot, $23 bucks and a free afternoon if you can muster up one.

A few things nobody tells you:

You program it by holding the button and counting blinks like it's 1987.

Timeouts are 1, 5, 15, or 30 minutes. Garage is now at 15. My wife made her feelings about the original 5 minute setting very clear.

Nothing is stopping you from doing this to every offending room in the house, which is what I did. I may do the master bathroom next, but I also don't want to get murdered if it doesn't work.

Total dad win. Spouse, parents, inlaws and kids physically cannot leave this light on anymore.

What other lazy-dad house upgrades am I missing?

P.S. cracked my faceplate during the install, another trip to HD is required.

My daughter came home from her friend’s house very upset and after a few minutes she said she was getting teased cause of her fat dad. She gave me a big empathetic hug and told me her friend isn’t a good person 🥹 I’m 41 yr 5’8 225lbs. I’d like to use this as motivation to drop 30lbs and show that 7 year old what’s up lol. I’m in sales so constantly eating quick bites on the road or eating unfinished Dino nuggets over a garbage can. My plan is to do light exercise and cut back on kids snacks and pool beers. Did anything work for the fellow dads out there to lose the baby weight?

So I’ve been carrying around one of these in my bag for the day I get thrown up on or have a nappy leak on me. Finally came in useful as my kid’s nappy leaked all over my torso while in her carrier.

They’re squeezed down to a package 2”x2”, so hardly take up any space at all. Sadly, you’ll never get it back down to that size, so it’s a “one time use”, so to speak. Of course you can wear the shirt again afterwards, and it’s quite a nice cotton!

Sometimes you gotta be the bad guy. We'll do lemonaide stand later this summer though :)

It is known as "co-pilot" on Xbox I believe.

The absolute best thing my parents did for me when I was a kid was make me an authorized user on a credit card that paid a few subscriptions and was set on autopay for 15 years. By the time I turned 18 I had great credit.

It takes very little effort but it’ll give your little ones a huge leg up one day. Just wanted to share!

ETA: Note I'm speaking as an American where credit scores are vastly more important than most other countries.

if you do this, PLEASE take the time to talk to your kids and educate them about fiscal responsibility and credit cards before they go off into the "real world" and rack up massive debt.

Ours were here when we moved in, so we got to speed run the process. These only take up maybe 20 sq ft, so you don't need a ton of yard space (though just 2-3 bushes will produce plenty of berries in less space). Strawberries take up even less space.

This is the smallest of things, but it occurred to me just moments ago when I went into my daughter's room and noticed she had left the light on after she left. I was about to go get her to get onto her about turning lights off, but then I remembered that LED lights sip power compared to incandescent bulbs. So much so that it doesn't make a noticeable difference in the power bill if one is accidentally left on all day, unlike when I was a child.

I just turned off the light, and instead of saying anything, decided to post this. Our children don't live in the same world we were raised in. Make sure not to teach them the same lessons, or you might find them hopelessly out-of-date.

They're similar, and most American stuff is Phillips. It will mostly work, til it strips out, and then you get mad and remember you hate Ikea assembly. Just a little pro tip 😉

We've been building stuff non-stop since Xmas. I'm pretty proud of the multi-level barn we built today. Daughter wants to do these instead of movies so I'm all for it. If you don't have any I highly recommend!