Brooklyn Elise Countdown Is Over - She's Here!

[feministxtian]

18 hours ago, LawsonBatesEgo said:

I'm guessing because help was probably more at hand in a large family and it doesn't completely mirror being a mother with a small family? Chad works outside the home, so it is just Erin at home with Brooklyn and Carson during the day. In a home with 10+ people, you could go lock yourself in a room and nurse while someone else watches the 15 month old, while Erin can't really do that when she's on her own. 

They knew babies are work, they changed enough of their siblings diapers to know that, but if Alyssa wanted to brush and dry her hair at home, there was someone else to watch the little kids while she did it. Jessa was used to jurisdictions for cleaning, now she is responsible for cleaning the whole home herself while also being pregnant and having to keep an eye on Spurg. It's a bit different and I can see why it is an adjustment for them. 

I did tons of babysitting (no younger siblings) and having my own was nothing like that. These girls weren't really responsible for small children, a home, a husband all on their own. They shared the work with other siblings and even their parents. Being 100% responsible for all of it is culture shock and it gets harder and harder with more kids (says the woman who had 5 kids both bio and step that had an age gap of just under 8 years from oldest to youngest)

[LawsonBatesEgo]

2 hours ago, feministxtian said:

I did tons of babysitting (no younger siblings) and having my own was nothing like that. These girls weren't really responsible for small children, a home, a husband all on their own. They shared the work with other siblings and even their parents. Being 100% responsible for all of it is culture shock and it gets harder and harder with more kids (says the woman who had 5 kids both bio and step that had an age gap of just under 8 years from oldest to youngest)

I don't have kids, but I found it difficult to adjust to the level of housework demanded when I moved out of my family home. I was used to just being expected to keep my own room tidy and do a few little things to help out, like unloading the dishwasher, wiping things down when I was done with them, giving the house a vacuum once a week etc. But all of a sudden, it was my job to do everything for myself. I had to do all the cleaning, all the chores, all the washing, all the ironing all the meals, all the car-washing etc etc. All if it was MY job. And it was a hard adjustment and I didn't realise just how long that kind of stuff took. 

It's been a few years now, but I know my boyfriend and I still struggle with it a little and we've been living together over a year and are 29 and 24! 

[feministxtian]

Just now, LawsonBatesEgo said:

I know my boyfriend and I still struggle with it a little and we've been living together over a year and are 29 and 24! 

We've been together almost 20 years and we STILL are sorta slobs. The kids are long gone and we live in a small apartment, but...between school, studying, housekeeping and cooking, it seems like there aren't enough hours in a day to get it all done. I think we're the only couple in town that can generate 4-5 loads of laundry before we do laundry...then it sits in baskets for another week. 

I still don't get how I managed to keep a house, raise/homeschool kids, churn out 21 meals a week, etc. when I can't seem to fix dinner for the two of us and clean up afterwards. Clean dishes sit in the dishwasher until the sink gets full of dirty dishes! 

 

[MsSaylor]

For real. I have 3 small kids and keeping house is incredibly hard for me. Lord knows I try but it just seems impossible. I also work full time but if I'm honest the stretches of time where I stayed home were not any better. My mom is one of those people who kept the house spotless despite being a mostly single parent of 3 and working like 50-60 hours a week. So she doesn't understand it and I can't explain it either. I just can't seem to keep the house above a very basic level of "acceptable".

[bewilderedandbemused]

Yes!  Adulting is hard!  (And I don't have kids).  Hyperbole and a Half did this amazing cartoon called "this is why I'll never be an adult" - http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html

It's probably my most favorite cartoon ever, I identify with it so much.  

As she says, "It's like I think that adulthood is something that can be earned like a trophy in one monumental burst of effort and then admired and coveted for the rest of one's life."

If only.

[GreyhoundFan]

7 hours ago, bewilderedandbemused said:

Yes!  Adulting is hard!  (And I don't have kids).  Hyperbole and a Half did this amazing cartoon called "this is why I'll never be an adult" - http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html

It's probably my most favorite cartoon ever, I identify with it so much.  

As she says, "It's like I think that adulthood is something that can be earned like a trophy in one monumental burst of effort and then admired and coveted for the rest of one's life."

If only.

I LOVE Allie's cartoons. My favorite of all time is the sneaky hate spiral.  My friends know to get out of the way if I say "the cheese triangles don't go like that."

Back on topic, I'm sure it is a bit of a shock for the sister moms when they are out on their own. At least when they are in the family home, they have their sisters to support them, but once they are married, especially if they move away, they have to handle everything. Chad seems nice, at least he's edited that way on TV, but I could see him being very picky about the house being "just so".

[RosyDaisy]

I definitely get a bad vibe from Chad. They are trying way too hard to make him the sweetest, most loving spouse ever. It seems over the top. I call that a red flag.

[Natalie22]

12 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I LOVE Allie's cartoons. My favorite of all time is the sneaky hate spiral.  My friends know to get out of the way if I say "the cheese triangles don't go like that."

Back on topic, I'm sure it is a bit of a shock for the sister moms when they are out on their own. At least when they are in the family home, they have their sisters to support them, but once they are married, especially if they move away, they have to handle everything. Chad seems nice, at least he's edited that way on TV, but I could see him being very picky about the house being "just so".

Personally, I love the cake one.  It just exemplifies your thought process as a small child - or at least mine.

 

[TShirtsLongSkirts]

Love the HHAAH chat. I like the dog one. The depression one is so horribly sad but excellent for describing to others how it feels.

Quote

Trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. 

 

 

[Exjw2015deed]

They just posted some new pictures of Carson who is so tanned. I cannot stand when people do not put sun block on babies. It's my personal pet peeve. I think people find it cute to have a one year old with a tan, to me it's one step to a first degree burn. 

Just my opinion. I'm black and once my best friends son had a tan and has a little bit of sun burn, when he was two.  

[jacduggar]

1 hour ago, Exjw2015deed said:

They just posted some new pictures of Carson who is so tanned. I cannot stand when people do not put sun block on babies. It's my personal pet peeve. I think people find it cute to have a one year old with a tan, to me it's one step to a first degree burn. 

Just my opinion. I'm black and once my best friends son had a tan and has a little bit of sun burn, when he was two.  

Even putting sunblock on them, they get color if they are outside. My kids all have olive skin (from their dad), and they all got dark outside despite the fact that they NEVER went out without SPF 30. We just spent a ton of time outside. None of my kids got a sunburn when they were little, either. 

[Melissa1977]

16 hours ago, RosyDaisy said:

I definitely get a bad vibe from Chad. They are trying way too hard to make him the sweetest, most loving spouse ever. It seems over the top. I call that a red flag.

You may possibly be right. Michael does the same about Brandon and sounds somehow fake. But maybe Bates girls just compare their husbands with Gil and then feel sooooo lucky that they need to post it.

[JillyO]

10 hours ago, jacduggar said:

Even putting sunblock on them, they get color if they are outside. My kids all have olive skin (from their dad), and they all got dark outside despite the fact that they NEVER went out without SPF 30. We just spent a ton of time outside. None of my kids got a sunburn when they were little, either. 

Agreed. I just tan really easily. I wear sunblock whenever necessary and I still get really dark in the summer (especially on vacation, when I'm not sitting in an office all day). I was always super-tan when I still had six weeks of summer break and would spend most of my time outside, and I never got sunburnt. Looks like Chad and Erin's kids tend to be a little on the darker side naturally, if you look at this comparison of Brooklyn and Kaci:

I'm just glad Carson seems to spend a lot of time outside (and he doesn't seem anywhere close to sunburnt). Too many fundies keep their kids cooped up inside (looking at you, Erika Shupe!)

[feministxtian]

I don't "sunbathe" at all...and I get tan from just walking from the parking lot to the building at school. I rarely if EVER burn either. Even my glow-in-the-dark, normally makes milk look dark son tans from just seconds of sun exposure. Its an upside of being Latino. 

[Melissa1977]

12 hours ago, Exjw2015deed said:

They just posted some new pictures of Carson who is so tanned. I cannot stand when people do not put sun block on babies. It's my personal pet peeve. I think people find it cute to have a one year old with a tan, to me it's one step to a first degree burn. 

Just my opinion. I'm black and once my best friends son had a tan and has a little bit of sun burn, when he was two.  

I don't see him sunburned. My 2 year old is blonde and white skinned in winter but now he's very tanned after a whole summer in swimming pools and beaches, despite avoiding high-sun hours and using skin protection. Some people, kids including, react easily to sun lighting and get a natural tan. It's not bad at all, in fact it's a natural protection and gives you a lot of D vitamin. Of course, a kid must be indoors when sun is high but it doesn't avoid tanning if you have this kind of skin.

[feministxtian]

Living here in the desert, there's virtually no way to avoid sun exposure and any SPF less than 50 is not going to be terribly good at blocking the sun. All the kids I see here are tanned in the summer and there isn't a single one of them outside during the hottest time of the day. Heck, nobody is outside much when it's over 105. 

[Thorns]

I don't think Brooklyn is tan, I think she is icteric (and if so she needs sunlight :p). Carsons tan might just be a filter, or he has the type of skin that turns instantly tan just looking at a ray of sun! Or no sunscreen, there really is no way of knowing. 

How tiny she is next to Kari! And people in the comments asking for an adress to mail gifts to...

[Timetraveler]

I don't know what's worse. The horrible headbands or the nailpolish on Kaci's toenails.

[FundieFarmer]

I'm as white as they come, but I have the skin that tans when I set foot in sunlight. I use sunscreen now as an adult, but as a headstrong child playing NHSAA/NCAA sports, I'd yell "YEP MOM PUT IT ON" when I hadn't and dart out onto the course to rock my farmer's tan without so much as a speck of suntan lotion anywhere on me. I'd get a bit of a burn occasionally, but mostly just had insanely embarrassing tan lines whenever I wasn't wearing polos and shorts. Perks of being a Floridian, I guess. 

[wikinggirl]

22 hours ago, Timetraveler said:

I don't know what's worse. The horrible headbands or the nailpolish on Kaci's toenails.

Why would you put nail polish on a baby? Whyyyyy?!?!

[imokit]

32 minutes ago, wikinggirl said:

Why would you put nail polish on a baby? Whyyyyy?!?!

Its very common for parents of identical twins to pain toe nails and assign a colour to each one until they've had time to get to know their babies and can tell them apart on their own.

If those parents are allowed to do it, its only a small step to doing it for fun.

While I wouldn't paint a kids nails until they were old enough to ask (unless I had the twin issue, I don't know what I'd do then), nail polish is better than piercings which I've also seen in newborns.

[ladyaudley]

My mother always made sure we wore sun screen every day and I still tanned so much I looked dirty - but never had sunburn. Tanning is your body's natural and correct reaction to increased sunshine - there's nothing wrong with a tan. But definitely necessary to use sunscreen!

[nastyhobbitses]

37 minutes ago, ladyaudley said:

My mother always made sure we wore sun screen every day and I still tanned so much I looked dirty - but never had sunburn. Tanning is your body's natural and correct reaction to increased sunshine - there's nothing wrong with a tan. But definitely necessary to use sunscreen!

Yup. I slather on that SPF 50, but I still tan (and my hair gets way more blonde) if I just step outside. Perks of inheriting a lot of the Italian genes, I guess. Meanwhile, my sister is ludicrously pale and burns if she looks at a picture of the sun. We joke that she's secretly a vampire.

[eandre31]

I agree that the fact that Carson is a little tan doesn't mean Erin forgot the sunblock.

I'm very fair skinned with dirty blonde hair, but I tan so fast in the summer even with sunblock and my hair turns almost platinum blonde. My son also looks very pale in the winter and fall months, but during summer has a deep tan. This is with sunblock and reapplying every hour. 

I hope people haven't been judging me based on my son's easily tanned skin...

[wikinggirl]

3 hours ago, imokit said:

Its very common for parents of identical twins to pain toe nails and assign a colour to each one until they've had time to get to know their babies and can tell them apart on their own.

If those parents are allowed to do it, its only a small step to doing it for fun.

While I wouldn't paint a kids nails until they were old enough to ask (unless I had the twin issue, I don't know what I'd do then), nail polish is better than piercings which I've also seen in newborns.

RE: assigning colours to twins, there's a Norwegian mommy blogger with identical twin girls that's still doing the colours. The kids are three! One is always pink and the other is always purple. I feel sorry for them.