I know it's a cliche, but it's not less true for the repetition. Kids are just the worst.

Given your assumptions: when you have one typical, healthy child, you can hand the baby to the other parent, and for a short time it will be as if you are without a kid again. And scheduling one tiny person -- when they're at their activity or their thing, you're free again.

When you have two, that just doesn't work at all. Last week I swear the Calabat and Pebbles were trying to kill us with sleep deprivation by alternating being up all night with colds.

On the other hand they are currently playing Cars with each other so there are some benefits.

Multiple kids sounds like a lot of work, but when it comes time for them to bury you or put you in a home, it's going to be a huge relief for them to have siblings with them.

she's a bit out-of-sync with the house style here

That's a really nice was of putting that.

We were just discussing, what is the number where one more is (shrug emoji) no big deal. It's certainly not three or four. People with three can't imagine our life, and we would be insane with another. I'm thinking around six or seven, when you can't subetize them any more and have to frequently take attendance to make sure you haven't lost one.

Three people in my high school class were from families with double-digits of children. Two of them, you just never saw their parents. Older siblings would bring them to places and such. One of them had a car that was rigged so that it would start without a key so they didn't have to deal with remembering who had the car keys. Once we found out, people would move their car.

I hope I haven't offended anyone.

I thought it said something sad about this blog, and/or commentary on parenting, that you felt the need to say this halfway through a post that so far had been very milquetoast. Getting to the end, I can see some potentially offensive bits, but still, it was funny at that point in the post.

I two friends whose vehicles could be started with a popsicle stick. We definitely moved those rides around more than a bit.

I'm not saying having one kid is an intermediate state between being a parent and not being a parent
You have kids and no kids.

Pregnant at 46 - wow. I'd be interested in the link. Can you e-mail? Address is linked.

I'm super curious about who it is too. My husband and I finally have a permanent jobs (yay!) although his is in the US and mine is seasonal (but with Canadian feds). Which means we can start trying. lolsob. Yeah I'm super old and basically sacrificed my potential children for an academic career that I didn't get and didn't really want. So kids and pregnancy is very fraught for me these days. Also my sister is due to give birth to her second any day now and we've been trying longer then them. But I have a super cute local niece (and we moved back to be near them) and more distant super cute nieces and nephews. Anyway, once my medical benefits kick in, I've been thinking about going to therapy for this issue. Anyway, 46 gives me hope (dangerous dangerous hope)!

Anyway, my sister has three daughters ranging in age from like 2 to 8. She seems really busy and has a minivan and a tall, bearded husband who seems much calmer than I could every manage around that much noise.

Related: I have no idea who decided on the name "Doc McStuffins" for a kids' toy, but honestly they should have put at least a little effort into how hard it is for me to not make buttplug jokes about something called "Doc McStuffins."

Having one kid is pretty sweet. Yeah, there are moments but most of the time it hasn't really been that hard.

On the other hand, it would be nice if he had some siblings to play with.

I'm 47 now. I have trouble imagining the energy needed to deal with a newborn.

To be clear, I mean to care for one. I could take one in a fight pretty easily.

It's just a lot of work even if you aren't the one that has to deal with it bursting through your chest cavity to free itself from the womb.

Or however that happens. It's been a while.

12: Over 35 the recommendation is get help after 6 months. Over 40, it's 3 months. I hear about this stuff a lot, because most insurance in MA provides coverage for IVF.

A lot of the older women doing iVF are using "donor" eggs. That's part of why I'm curious, given her age.

The OP sounds kind of like not that situation.

My mother had my sibling and I in her early forties, which left her dealing, at retirement age, with our respective dropouts crises and periods of long-term unemployment. Given the overall trajectory of social mobility I'm thinking prospective 40yo parents should be thinking pretty hard about that.

Also, how do twins compare with singletons on the getting-your-life-back scale?

Twins have their own language, so it all depends on if they use their secret link to bond with each other or to try to kill their parents.

With triplets, it's like with cats. If you fall unconscious and they can't access other food, they'll just eat you.

Dogs and singletons will wait at least a day.

That's part of why I'm curious, given her age.

This was definitely an unplanned pregnancy. I know at one point, in a previous marriage, she had wanted kids and had some miscarriages, but I think with the current spouse it has mostly been the plan not to have kids.

Also, how do twins compare with singletons on the getting-your-life-back scale?

Probably more like siblings.

I thought it said something sad about this blog, and/or commentary on parenting, that you felt the need to say this halfway through a post that so far had been very milquetoast. Getting to the end, I can see some potentially offensive bits, but still, it was funny at that point in the post.

I think I was worried that someone would feel like I was trivializing their parenting and saying they were only doing half the work or something. Whereas I was really just saying their kid is only half a kid.

"You call that human reproduction? You aren't even trying."

Half-kids must be so annoying to take anywhere, what with the hopping.

There's also a few blogs of Catholic families I read where the parents seem like normal people but they are on their 7th or 8th babies and show no signs of slowing. Just constantly announcing they're pregnant, or they're pregnant, or they're adjusting to the new baby and BAM pregnant again. It boggles my mind.

We were just discussing, what is the number where one more is (shrug emoji) no big deal. It's certainly not three or four. People with three can't imagine our life, and we would be insane with another. I'm thinking around six or seven, when you can't subetize them any more and have to frequently take attendance to make sure you haven't lost one.

I think it has to do with spacing and number: having enough kids that you have one nearing high school, but never got a break from having very small children, so that at a point you're just swapping them out.

Like: if you had 3, 7, 11, and 15 year olds, I bet tacking one on wouldn't break your spirit.

I mean, if you desired a fifth. It would break my spirit 100%.

Just constantly announcing they're pregnant, or they're pregnant, or they're adjusting to the new baby and BAM pregnant again.
I have no idea what it would be like to read about someone like that.

31: The Catholic school in my hometown charged by the family, not the kid.

35: heh. To my credit, I haven't announced a pregnancy in five years!

All this goes out the window if you don't have two active parents, or if there are health/mental health/other extenuating circumstances.

This sounds right to me. Except you don't necessarily know when going into it that this is going to be the case. I did, and there have still been times when the circumstances have gotten to be almost more than I could manage. We're in a good patch right now, but I never quite trust that to last.

Thorn!

I can confirm that being a parent of a 4.5 year old, even as a single parent with about 70% custody is pretty easy. Those first few years, though, I completely disappeared.

Probably not effective for single parents, but kids that age usually go to bed pretty early and sleep through the night. Makes it easier to go to the bar.

Cassandane had Atossa at 44. So there's another data point for becoming a mother in the mid-40s. It can happen.

28: Speaking on behalf of all parents everywhere with only one kid, I can reassure you, no offense taken. Cassandane and I periodically boggle at the people with more and wonder how they're doing it. One is hard enough for us.

I take offense, actually.

Another Weasley.

I'm not the British mythology you're looking for.

They took out all the incest and moved the interesting bits to Scotland. You should give the new myths a try.

That's supposed to be an advertisement?

The legend says you'll return when your country needs somebody who fucks his sister and isn't in an episode of Midsomer Murders.

We have an eleven-week-old baby, and she's been a remarkably good baby so far. I figure we'll pay the price later, when we find out she's a Republican or a Cubs fan.

ISTR the easiness/difficulty of babies is a really good predictor of how much trouble they'll give you when they're older.

I still haven't forgiven my oldest nephew for the summer of colic, and he's almost 5. It was brutal.

50: Do not fucking jinx me.

Take it up with the psychologists.

I had the easiest kids (and in six months will have an empty nest. Newt may end up in Canada -- I wonder if selfeffacing politeness will rub off on him or if he'll be found mysteriously drowned in maple syrup), but even with easy kids, I'd agree that two kids is surprisingly more than one.

Parents with one kid seem to be able to kind of integrate them into adult life in a completely different way. Once you have two or more you're behaving systematically like a Family with Children, not a couple of adults with a sort of immature roommate. (I mean as Heebie said, it's still work, you're still parents, people just seem to be able to make the logistics work differently.)

We also have two easy kids.

I think the oldest kid in is usually the best one because if the first one is great, you're more likely to want another. Conversely, the youngest is usually the hardest, because why else stop then.

After you and all your siblings are launched but before your parents are too old, you need to ask them which one of you really was the favorite. If you wait too long, all you have is guess work and cruel speculation.

56 is the opposite of our family but maybe that's just because the youngest haven't had a chance to become difficult yet. Mental health issues manifested around age 10 in oldest.

56 was maybe just me being an oldest child.

Whereas youngest was and is super easy and everyone loves her (family, friends, teachers) but she had life threatening illness at 9 months, and is perfectly healthy since then-had her first ever sick day from daycare/school just last month. So maybe we got it out of the way.
(If you recall, that illness caused me to miss an unfoggedcon, but I've forgiven her.)

One of my friends has a theory that having one kid is probably a good decision because lots of people have a kid and then decide to have another, but having a second kid may well be a mistake because most people who have two kids don't want another.

At some points the parents may not see the difference between one more kid, but usually that's at the point when they're making the 12-year old be a full-time parent and so that's who is feeling that difference.

I can't even make a 12-year-old stop reading until midnight, let alone care for another child.

Evolutionary psychology teaches us that babies need to be extraordinarily cute, else they would get strangled in the crib. The Missus is a SAHM, and was nearly driven insane by the little bastards up until they were age 5 or so.

And we've been very lucky, kid-wise -- they weren't unusually awful, just the normal amount of awful.

And yeah, the difference between one and two kids is more than double. My parents had eight, and I think diminishing awfulness returns started to kick in around 5 (which is to say, me).

My sports columnist cousin says "going from two to three is when you stop playing man-to-man and start playing zone."

Three kids is a key development for a parent couple because at that point they outnumber you. You can no longer say to your partner "I'll take care of Amelia, you take Manuel" because that leaves little Caligula running free.

Going from 1 to 2 children also introduces the complication of their interaction with each other. As parent of 5, it's been interesting to watch how the dynamic among them change over time, which ones get along best, who does what with whom. Also how they pass friends around - friend of kid B at say age 10 develops into great friend of kid D at age 20.

56 is genius.

65: I've heard that triplets are terrifying in ways that are orders of magnitude greater than twins.

I don't know when life stops feeling upside down with two kids, roughly. Based on my friends, I'd say when the younger kid is in late elementary school, in the 9-11 range.

Chiming in to say this is exactly spot on in my case. My kids are almost exactly two years apart, and when they hit 12 and 10, it was as if life suddenly stopped needing to be continually organized around them. "No longer upside down" is exactly right. They became just two young people living in my house, who need help with transportation logistics and etc. but are otherwise just sort of normal parts of the family.

(And now that I've just started to fully enjoy that change, I'm about to move in with someone who has 2-year-old twins, because I'm insane, I guess.)

Excellent. Take notes.

Good luck.

Congratulations! Be sure to live-blog.

Right. I missed the clear implication. Congratulations.

Congrats urple!

56 et al.

Agree, and my generalization of the phenomenon is that many people with n kids think n-1 would be the ideal number.

Pretty much how it happened with us; 1st was a relatively difficult infant, 2nd was extremely easy (we chalked up to our improved parenting skills...), and the third was for a time known as the Baby From Hell. The being outnumbered thing certainly added to it as well.

How things go with the kids later in life is a whole different kettle of fish in our personal experience. And still changing even with all of them being adults. I find there is some truth in the maxim: "You're only as happy as your unhappiest child." Although not necessarily emotionally healthy for either the parent or child....

69.last: I see the possibility of controlled child food consumption experiments in the blogs' future.

I'd the unhappiest child was adopted by all unhappy families, all unhappy families could be unhappy in the same way and that smug Russian fucker would be proved wrong.

Agree, and my generalization of the phenomenon is that many people with n kids think n-1 would be the ideal number.

A natural corollary of being promoted to the level of your incompetence.

I find there is some truth in the maxim: "You're only as happy as your unhappiest child."

I have never heard this before, but my world is now rocked.

Honestly, that seems like a ton of pressure on an unhappy child. It's easy enough to make sure your spouse is the unhappiest person in the family.

Neglecting an adult isn't even a crime.

Mostly.

A friend got married a few years ago; both were happy proponents of childfree living and nearing the end of their reproductive era. Of course fate decided to throw a curveball, and they accepted it... and it turns out that they're really go0d at being parents. (That part's little surprise -- they're the type of people who do great at whatever they decide to do.)

It's been quite a change, but their son has a charmed our whole peer group, and is good at being included or self-entertaining with trains in a quiet corner. We'll see how it holds up as he ages.

All this goes out the window if you don't have two active parents

Oh man, I can't begin to express the difference between half-time single parenting one kid versus full-time single parenting two. At 14 and 11, Noah and Cassidy are old enough now that they are *somewhat* self-managing, but still it just never ends.

We always planned to have either two or four kids partly because we knew a lot of messed up middle children in our extended families. I can't tell you how many people assume we kept going until we got one of each sex. "Finally got a girl, eh?"
Along with the sexist, "She's never going to be allowed to date when she's got three older brothers!"

"I guess we're just not into incest like your family."

Oh man, I can't begin to express the difference between half-time single parenting one kid versus full-time single parenting two. At 14 and 11, Noah and Cassidy are old enough now that they are *somewhat* self-managing, but still it just never ends.

I think of you often when I talk with people about to go through divorce. Divorce is the best for getting a break. Full time parenting two kids by yourself, um, not so much. Sending good thoughts your way.

That doesn't work as well if it's your cousin or parent or other relative.

We had dinner with friends who said they went from "we're not having any" to "whoops we're having twins." I am so unable to imagine the part of the thought process that goes like "well, ok, sure then." I think I tend to assume that people are either in camp Definitely Not like me or camp BRING ON THE BAYBEEZ like I imagine most people to be. It's hard to imagine it as a maybe.

Divorce is the best for getting a break.

As I said, my children were easy, and they were older when Tim and I split, but I certainly didn't get any parenting time off out of it. 50-50 joint custody might be good for getting a break, but you need an ex who's local and interested for it to work.

89: This article is about a Calfornia doctor that travels to Texas once a month to provide abortions.

One patient's ultrasound shows twins. The doctor has found that women often back out of the procedure when they learn there are two embryos, a discovery that transforms the pregnancy from an "it" to a "they."

That really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?

http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-col1-abortion-doctor-20190124-htmlstory.html

It's hard to imagine it as a maybe.

I kind of don't get that either, but I think it's pretty common. I was in the 'of course, obviously' camp, and I'm not dead sure why, but it was clear. But I've known a whole bunch of "Nope, never" that turned into "Yes" later. Which is of course why people get so irritated about it -- it's easy to assume people who aren't planning on children will change their mind because lots do.

If I had a nickel for every woman or couple I knew who had kids but used to say they didn't want them, I'd have like sixty five cents.

We're in the maybe camp. Yes, we want kids, in theory. In practice, it seems daunting enough to wait--until we're wiser, have better management skills, are more financially stable, are in places where we can put careers on hold a bit. I'd imagine, in an ideal world, we'll be mature enough around the time we're 60ish (and as long as we're talking about ideals, let's assume we live to a nice healthy 130). Alas, biology has other ideas. And of course we've heard all the horror stories, and it'd be nice to continue the fun years of young adulthood, when you can go out and have fun and travel or take up further education, just a bit longer--although enough other responsibilities have creeped in that that isn't happening so much now anyway. So we dilly-dally, but (fuzzy) deadlines are coming. Perhaps that a different sort of "maybe" than was meant, but we can still imagine our lives going either way.

My son asked me in his mid thirties why people wanted children. And I didn't know what to say back, since when you haven't got one you can have no conception of the difference they make to your place in the world. It really isn't the sort of decision that can be made from an informed weighing of the alternatives.

He does know that I love him very deeply, and he loves me back. But he can't know *how* I love him until he has a child of his own.

You see my problem with this arrangement.

95: We read a book about this! Does anybody remember?

No!

Something about vampires?

99: Yes! It was about how becoming a vampire is exactly the same thing as becoming a parent. At least that's how I remember it.

Debt, the first 5000 years?

Parenting is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) vampires who broke from Count Dracula in Transylvania in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's coffins.

I'm trying to stay open to the possibility that my son might be able to love any kids he has better than I love him. I feel kind of lazy about some things.

I'm trying to stay open to the possibility that my son might be able to love any kids he has better than I love him. I feel kind of lazy about some things.

Becoming a parent is something you can't appreciate until you have shapeshifted into the form of an interstellar mercenary leader who already has kids. And killed him.

92: I wonder if 'maybe' is sometimes just 'we're cool with it if it happens but not aggressively pursuing it.' We wanted at least one, and the Calabat was such a wonderful baby that we figured we were OK with a second kid, and decided that we'd "not try not prevent" and if it happened, awesome, figuring that since it took a while to get pregnant the first time odds were good that at 36 I'd have a harder time. (It turns out that was not the case.) But I think we would have said 'maybe', as we weren't prepared to seek out fertility treatments, etc.

95 is really hard to read when you are at the point where the only option left for having a child might be adoption.

94: It isn't just women who have biological clocks. But if you discover that there is male factor infertility when the woman is older it is harder - or even impossible -to proceed with fertility treatments. That is when the option offered by the doctor is to buy another woman's egg.

I love not having kids, and am so glad Mr. Robot has been on the same page. It was still a little weird to transition to biological children not being an option even if I was interested, but at least I had made my decision before it became an issue.

I think it's probably easier to have a "maybe" opinion as a straight man. I was always a "maybe", in that I didn't have a strong opinion and assumed that my partner would have a strong opinion. I'd kinda figured in the abstract that a hypothetical partner would probably have a "yes" opinion, but in reality ended up with a partner with a strong "no" opinion and I'm very happy with that. But looking back and treating my old perspective from a more critical viewpoint, I think that kind of "maybe" opinion only works if you assume that the partner with a strong "yes" opinion would also be doing most of the work.

Do you mean as a heterosexual or as somebody who sets up punning opportunities?

decided that we'd "not try not prevent"

This was also us. I've since learned a wonderful euphemism for this approach: "pulling the goalie."

That sounds like the kid will be Canadian.

"You're only as happy as your unhappiest child."
My parents are indeed pretty goddamn unhappy.

Maybe send them some pears? About four years ago, my dad asked me to send some pears to friends of theirs who did them a solid. Ever since then, Harry and David send me at least one email a day. Periodically, when the pears get cheap enough, I send them to whatever relative I think most needs expensive pears.

Who the fuck are Harry and David?

People who sell fruit on the internet.

Do they turn the fruit into brandy first?

Maybe try Mogen David for that.

95.2 It's been really great watching my daughter embrace motherhood.

111: watch out for the empty netter?

Lower the deflector shields.

Sending in the infantry with no air support.

I TRIED.

Setting your PIN to '1234'.

pulling the goalie

But when a team does this, they're desperately trying to score on the other team. What, precisely, is supposed to be going on here?

Anyway, 3 and 54 get it right. One is easy, and more than one is a long-term play.

Canonically you only pull the goalie during the third period.

Canonically, when you pull the goalie out, you stop having periods.

If the Penguins are going to the Stanley Cup again, they need a good uterus.

100: I guess heebie is saying that having only one child is like being a vampire that eats salads now and then and enjoys an occasional afternoon at the beach.

I don't know how you knew we'd started Bunnicula as a bedtime story, peep.

We just started Holes. It's a much more pleasant narrative voice to read out loud than Harry Potter.

You can go to the library here and get Harry Potter read by a professional. Just hide the speaker and lip sync.

I fear her performance might be less than convincing, even were her syncing to be flawless.

You can get the ones by the America guy who didn't have a show with Young Dr. House.

Well certainly one can.

For the actual books, we have the British version. I think because I found the implication that I didn't know what the philosopher's stone was to be insulting.

Rest assured, I would never condescend so to a Geeblet.

132: oh for SURE. Then we play it at 1.25x speed and it's totally engaging.

I don't mind HP but it's the worst to read outloud because there's too much dull filler.

It's not filler. It's a crucial camping trip that had to take half of a 700 page book for sound reasons of narrative.

It only seems like filler because it's boring and not necessary.

Unlike Tolkien, for instance.

You just need to learn to skip all poetry if you're going to read that.

I always felt the camping trip was unfairly shat on.

Camping wizards can just vanish their shit, but muggles need one of these.

Desolation. Despair. Loneliness. Failure. These are the fruits of fantasy quests concocted by manipulative vigilante wizards in default of organized governmental response to public safety issues.

Canon.

|| > Lovely people on this thread, might you have recommendations for books for a not-yet-very-verbal two-year-old? Bonus for beautiful artwork. She is fascinated by the moon.

Would she like to say goodnight to the moon?

Also, Hippos Go Berserk is good.

How did I know you were going to say that? She already has "Goodnight Moon".

Press Here is so much fun to read with very small children. (I found the spin-offs a little tedious, though.)

I despised Press Here with every ounce of my being, so of course fucking Ogged sent me the spin-offs. The kid loved them, though.

Perhaps this is a little bit older than age 2, but I have liked everything we've read by Kevin Henke. Egg might be good for a 2-year-old.

I really liked Chris Haughton's books (but not his most recent). Shhh, We Have a Plan is great, as is Little Owl Lost and Oh George.

Just as a pointer, you can type almost any kid's book into YouTube and find someone reading it aloud. So if you want to see the book before you get it, look for it on YouTube.

Yeah, I'll recommend the Haughton books.

I like The Numberlys by William Joyce for the art. It's a very pretty book, and an interesting enough plot to be neat for a few years. Older and simpler, easy to read without a lot of silliness or having to do voices, anything by Robert McCloskey (Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal). Nieces and nephews also like Dragons Love Tacos and The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra.

Lord Has Haw?

Haw Haw. Stupid phone.

OT: If you pay people to commit a crime, you aren't supposed to pay them by check, right?

It's fine. As long as they don't bounce.

Hippos go Berserk is one of the great literary works of the 20th century.

She is fascinated by the moon.

Whitey's on the Moon, also a great literary work of the 20th century.

||

Many miners, long-distance drivers and shift workers mix narcotics -- smoking meth to keep them awake, and injecting heroin to bring them down.

||

State media painted an inspiring picture of patriotic students braving harsh weather, eating frozen rice, and ignoring supervisors' worries about their health in order to work harder on the huge building site.

The work of Margaret Wise Brown generally. The Runaway Bunny, Little Fur Family.

Lovely people on this thread, might you have recommendations for books for a not-yet-very-verbal two-year-old? Bonus for beautiful artwork. She is fascinated by the moon.

A children's book thread! My favorite.

HUGE recommendation for Barbara Helen Berger's absolutely gorgeous Grandfather Twilight. Spoiler: it's about the moon. (Don't pay attention to the ugly online illustrations. The real ones are truly lovely.)

Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet, by David McLimans

Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson

My Friends, by Taro Gomi

A Color of His Own, by Leo Lionni

And if you can find any of Christopher Wormell's picture books, highly, HIGHLY recommend. Just stunning colorful woodcuts. It's a an absolute sin that they're not in print in the US (or UK??) any more.

If she's mature enough to not rip pages (the books above are almost all board books), you might also try Jerry Pinkney's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Jane Yolen's Owl Moon, or maybe even Regards to the Man in the Moon by Ezra Jack Keats.

Sorry those are so boy-centric, btw. I'll try to think of others. But Owl Moon is about a little girl, at least.

"The weather was so cold the rice were like ice cubes, but we didn't want to waste a single precious second heating it up. I thought of our anti-Japan revolutionary martyrs while chewing frozen rice,"

These all are for Fosco, obvs.

124: OMG, besides the obvious Space Balls reference, have you seen Killing Eve? I was enjoying that show for a while but it drove me nuts when that was an important password. The only excuse I can think of is that the plot depended on the character acting uncharacteristically stupid in that scene in the first place, so they gave her a stupid password to lampshade it.

147: Max and the Tag-Along Moon seems appropriate. Also Harold and the Purple Crayon. Sorry those are boy-centric. There are a ton of neutral or girl-centric books but I can't think of any where the moon figures prominently. There's a big Goodnight series, with a local version for every state, some major cities, and the more cute industries like farms. Art quality varies. For a girl-centric book, although it might be a bit too old for her, My Name Is Not Isabella is good. And Clifford is a male dog but his owner Emily is a girl, so there's a girl's viewpoint there.

My mom sends me kid books that are the absolute best for illustrations. The two that come to mind are:

Wave by Suzy Hanson, which has just magically simple watercolor, and Round Trip by Ann Jonas, where all the pictures have two interpretations, depending on if the book is right-side-up or up-side-down.

Oh: EVERYTHING by Graeme Base. Intricate, beautiful pictures and the kids get absolutely immersed finding all the hidden details.

These last two are for slightly older kids, though.

It wasn't an obvious Space Balls reference. It was an artisan-crafted Space Balls reference. I never saw Killing Eve.

Girl-oriented book with pretty pictures: What Color is a Kiss?", Rocio Bonilla. (Originally Spanish, I had thought it was originally French until I looked it up for this.) Atossa likes it.

I had Round Trip as a kid! Such a great book. And I think it can work for even very young kids, although of course they'll get different things out of it as they get older.

Many Moons! Thurber is terrific.

I can't remember if there's much moon in Stellaluna beyond the title character's name, but it's an excellent fruitbat book.

We went to a fruit bat sanctuary the last time we visited my parents, and now I realize that they're adorable flying puppies, not cute flying mice.

Also, while these are not obscure, I am incredibly fond of the illustrations in The Snowy Day and the other Ezra Jack Keats books.

Flying foxes, at least in Samoa. They're really impressive when you run into them outdoors -- very big wings.

They did have cutie little fox faces, actually. That's a fair point. They really are big, though. We got to pet them with toothbrushes.

Completely unrelated to little bats, IIRC -- the whole flying mammal thing evolved twice.

178: that the megabats (flying foxes) and microbats had evolved flight independently - there's anatomical evidence that hints it might be true but the DNA evidence suggests otherwise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_primate_hypothesis

Flying foxes came from whales, flying mice came from dolphins.

IApparentlyDon'tRC. Drat. I liked the idea of complete separate flying dogs and flying mice.

Megachiroptera, large bats which mainly feed on fruit, also known as flying foxes or fruit bats. Microchiroptera, smaller, use echolocation, mainly feed on insects, hence also known as cricket bats.

181: I'm sure you do RC it's just that you're Ring C from a while ago and the science has moved on.

Is it really a sanctuary for them if tourists come to gawp at them?

They do get the toothbrush head-scratching out of it. Which also seems to be a big thing for owls -- there's a whole genre of owl-getting-head-scratches videos that I find compelling. The owls seem to enjoy it so much, but also to be hostile and upset about the fact that they're enjoying it.

Oh, the pair Little Owl's Night and Little Owl's Day by Divya Srinivasan are both gorgeous.

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. But get the full version, not the abbreviated board book version.

Oh right! That's worth noting. The board versions may be cropped from the full-size books. If the art is important to you, check that you have the version you want.

That board version is missing more than artwork. It leaves out about half of the text as well.

Boards are really suboptimal for making pages if you need more than a few pages.

This is too old for a two year old, but perfect for a four year old girl who doesn't like scary stories. The Tea Party in the Woods, by Akiko Miyakoshi. The art is lovely, and the pacing is nice for reading out loud. Harry the Dirty Dog is in the vein of Harold's Purple Crayon.

Owl Babies illustrated by Patrick Benson, one I really liked.

Aw, Hawaii and I had a big ongoing thing about spotting holes in little places and saying, "Owl babies must live there!" when she was maybe three. I have a soft spot for that book. And the illustrations are pretty.

Which doesn't have much to do with the book, to be clear, besides the words "owl" and "babies".

193: Eno River State Park here in Durham has one spot in the river called Bobbitt's Hole where I used to take the kids pretty frequently when they were little because it's a good swimming spot. We had an elaborate mythology about the bobbitts that lived in holes in trees along the banks.

Really, it's just where lots of men got their penises cut off.

And now those live in holes in trees along the banks.

We had dinner with friends who said they went from "we're not having any" to "whoops we're having twins." I am so unable to imagine the part of the thought process that goes like "well, ok, sure then."

I was genuinely... whatever is one stop short of terrified, when AB was pregnant with Kai but it was too soon to know if he was twins. If Iris had been twins, OK, curveball, but we'd be done with things at least.

Endorse the OP. We obviously have two, but they're over 4 years apart, and we were kind of on the cusp of having normal lives with minor coordination issues when #2 came along. As parents of two (who never, ever played nicely together), I'd say that the big change was actually when Iris could first stay home alone, then stay home alone with Kai. The first was 10-ish, the second was 12-ish. Since the latter happened, we're basically childless but boring. That is, we get out/do less than we did back when, but that feels much more like age than anything to do with parenting. Maybe we'll be more social once the kids are gone, but honestly, even that would probably have more to do with no longer having roommates than anything else.

This week we had a long-planned movie date*, and then another interesting thing came up the night before or after, and it was just, Nope. These are weeknights, to be clear; we're not that lame on weekends. But point being, it had zero to do with the kids, at least for me (AB expressed some feelings about not wanting to miss a family dinner, when that's almost literally all we see of teen Iris these days).

*Beale Street, completely amazing. I don't know if/when it had played here otherwise, but it was part of a film festival, so we made advance plans to see it.

182 is excellent.

50-50 joint custody might be good for getting a break, but you need an ex who's local and interested for it to work.

OK, so check this: one of AB's best friends (and a friend of mine/ our families are close) is getting divorced because her husband is basically letting toxic masculinity destroy his life*. He's a tugboat captain in Chicago, meaning a 3 weeks off/on schedule (commuting from here). He was immovable on 16 weeks of custody a year, meaning she gets to move from being a single parent 26 weeks to 36 weeks. PS, her kids (8 & 11, maybe?) are a handful and stress her out.

Now, I get where he's coming from: 16 weeks means, basically, 2/3 of every shore leave, while 50/50 would mean that he's always either on a boat or a single parent. But, you know, fuck him. There's no third parent to watch the kids while you're fucking your way through Tindr; you're just burdening your ex, who hasn't done a fucking thing wrong.

*convinced himself that she was having an affair, went insane (to the point where the alleged affairee quit his job and left the state!), continues to insist there was an affair, and has generally embraced being an asshole in all this. He was always a weird one, but the weirdness was kind of interesting, but for whatever reason he went full asshole.

102 makes me so happy.

200: Every accusation is a confession with some types.

Is she working? If so, yes that's totally ridiculous. If not, it doesn't seem like a totally crazy split (36 is 2/3rds of 52).

I can't say that I specifically predicted this news, but I've definitely been ahead of the game on saying bad things about the Patriots.

201: Thanks!

he's always either on a boat or a single parent

I do not have much respect for my sister's ex, but he does want his boys every minute that he is not working (on a tug boat, week on, week off).

Why does he take a tug boat between his week off and his week of work?

Don't fat shame.

Thank you to Moby, Heebie, Megan, yndew, lourdes, Witt, Cyrus, LizardBreath, apo, and lw. This is a wonderful array of recommendations and I'm still working my way through them. Who knew there were so many moon books? Not to mention fruitbats and beserk hippos. And thanks to Moby, Spike, and Mossy for comic relief and for putting up with my threadjack.