We Will Make

Just doing my best

[mellie-mp3]

🐛

thats me

🌭🌮🌯🥪🥨🍕🍔🍟🥐🍩🍪

thats all the food i wanna eat rn

[mellie-mp3]

and uhhhhhh yeah. im going to eat a little hole through each one. 😏😌

[wewillmake]

Where are the fruits and vegetables, my many footed friend? And the cheese?

[wewillmake]

Just discovered that costume cards are a thing… how FUCKIN BIZARRE?!? Humans are such strange collectors and cataloguers of our interests? And they do them for shows that have been over for YEARS like Xena and Star Trek and Charmed… this is probably going to be weirdly devastating for historical records cause so many costumes are getting pieced up for collectors… even though they’re all contemporary costumes now, they’ll be harder and harder to find soon! I’d freaking love if someone put something back together by collecting all the pieces and restoring it hardcore. Probably impossible because of all the wastage?

[wewillmake]

There is nothing like the solidarity of a sideways glance from woman playing mahjong on her tablet with clacking pink acrylic claws, and me, hand gripping my darling’s, trying to shield them so the drunk shouting men (Unpredictable) behind us don’t start something. I fully believe that mahjong granny would’ve clawed them in our defence, so fierce and disapproving was her glare.

[sayitasyoucan]

My Valentine Cards

[timidsketch]

It's still so strange to me how apparently taboo it is to like a post on someone's Instagram from a month ago when there are posts still circulating on Tumblr from 1550 BCE

[roolsilver]

If he didn't want it circulating in 2022 he should have sold better copper

[handsomeboymodelingschool]

I heard they're adding woodwind players to the LGBT acronym

[victorianchap]

[vintagemen1800s1900s]

c. 1890 Postcard

[plenilune]

HAPPY NEW YEAR GO INTO THE SOUP

[poboh]

Little Girl Looking Downstairs at Christmas Party, Norman Rockwell. (1894-1978)

[kaalbela]

Either Way. Michael Carson, 1972 / Illustration by Andy Virgil, ca. 1960s.

[chocolatecakecas]

its auld langing absolute syne

[guooey]

One of the most important things I have learned today..

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

Thinkin about how as kids parents told us to clean our rooms without having ever shown us how to themselves, taught us any organizational skills, spatial management, or any other knowledge necessary to know how to efficiently tackle a mess without getting overwhelmed and then got exasperated when we as ten year olds didn’t just……figure it out

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

This is not a dunk on my parents for the record. I had wonderful parents growing up and still have an amazing mom. I think this is just one of those smaller and common things of parenthood that I think addressing would be monumental in reducing a very common household stressor. If parents led their children in cleanups and helped them reason out plans to manage their time and stuff, especially neurodivergent kids, the entire household would be a lot more calm, streamlined, and overall happy I think!!!

[tractorgoth]

I’ve got one 7 year old perfectionist (possible ADHD) and one sweet 5 year old hurricane (DEFINITE ADHD) and me (also brain full of cats, despises prolonged supervisory things). Here’s some things I’ve learned specific to that that are also generally good for teaching kids to clean. (Or yourself.)

1. If you want a kid to clean, first you have to teach them to even see mess. They don’t! But it does stress them out.

“Okay, let’s look for something out of its place. If it’s on the floor, it’s out of place. If it’s on your bed and it’s not a blanket, it’s out of place.”

2. Go by category, it’s easier to find stuff to put away if your search engine has a specific target, and it’s more satisfying and efficient to put away a big chunk of mess at once.

“Got something? Ok, are there other things like it? Let’s find all the BOOKS. I will HELP YOU.”

3. Important!! Don’t walk away from a kid with focus issues expecting them to instantly learn a task and finish it! You are setting them up to fail! The first several times you need to be there for the whole process and demonstrate by helping. That motivates them. They feel less panic that you’ll bail and they’ll be stuck alone not knowing what to do next. Narrate what you’re doing, too. Help and supervise less as they seem to need you less.

“I’ll get the books on the floor, can you help me get the ones under your bed? I can’t fit!”

4. In my experience most kids, but especially kids with ADHD would walk to the fucking moon to help you, they just need a clear plan, keep the criticism light, short, and to the point, and ffs PRAISE THEM when they do things right, cause we’ve all (I hope) seen the statistics on how much more negative interaction they get compared to other kids (and rejection sensitive dysphoria is a motherfucker). But more than praise you need to show them how what they did was good for THEM. Do nooooooooot take this opportunity for an ‘I told you so’ or a ‘finally’ or you will suck out all their accomplishment.

“Hey, great job, you found that horse you were missing because you cleaned! And your room looks so nice! It’s really comfortable to play in now, and you did that.”

5. Emphasize it does not have to be perfect or complete to be worth doing. I don’t want to will my kids my paralysis of inaction because I can’t start part of something unless I can do all of it.

“We don’t have time to do the whole room, but let’s pick up the legos before bed so you don’t hurt your feet. And then it’ll already be done tomorrow!”

Other small but important things: make sure everyone is fed and not cranky when you start, including you. Do what YOU need to be in the right patient headspace for this. Put on music. Get coffee. Take breaks! Take dance breaks, tickle breaks, whatever. Make em short, set a timer, keep it consistent. Stop completely if they’re getting overwhelmed or stressed and be prepared to finish another day. They may complain and flop around a lot the first few times. Stay tooth grindingly positive and keep at it, it WILL get better. If you mess up, start again. It’s ok. It’s never too late.

[mylove-isnot-fragile]

I’m an adult with ADHD who finds cleaning their room a STRUGGLE, so I APPRECIATE THE HELL OUT OF THIS

[shyocean]

Why are we never taught?

Why are we expected to just know?

And, for God’s own sake, why were we never exposed to the idea that being good at something often happens After being bad at something and doing it imperfectly anyway?

Seriously.

[frickin-adhd]

I teared up reading this. My mom and I “fight” over my bedroom all the time and she doesn’t believe me when I tell her I want it clean too because it hasn’t been clean in 16 years because all she does is tell me to clean it and get mad when it’s not clean. This is so important.

[ashereden]

Are you being a good girl?

no I’m chewing on electrical cords

[thenightling]

A bit of trivia:  A lot of people don’t understand what it means to “Count sheep” to sleep. In reality it’s an Insomnia treatment method where you pick a random topic where there might be several examples that fit the criteria “Disney witches” for example or “Films that feature Dracula as a character.”  It can be anything at all.  "Movies with Danny Elfman musical scores.“  You don’t Google the answer.  You lay there and try to think of things that fit the topic you chose and count them. That’s how you really "Count Sheep.”  

[wewillmake]

My mum used to do this for me when I was a kid with awful anxiety and couldn’t sleep. She’d tell me to ‘design ten pairs of shoes in my head’ or something similar. Therapy probs would’ve also helped but we were kinda poor and she has lots of doctor anxiety so she did her best with the tools available…

[decaffeinatedwastelandcomputer]

[ladyshinga]

[closet-keys]

When I was a kid I was genuinely horrified by the idea of growing up and I think a large part of it was the insistence by adults in my life that puberty would turn me into someone completely different. They were like “sure you don’t like make up and boys now but you’ll feel differently after puberty” or like “sure you think you wouldn’t want kids now but you’ll see once you’re older”

it’s like damn, stop invalidating kids’ personalities and listen to them and maybe you won’t be so shocked when they don’t transform into a new person later

[traegorn]

My wife and I don’t ever plan on having kids, but my Dad always had one piece of parenting advice I’ll never forget.

He said “Pay attention to who your children are when they’re little. If you do that, you’ll never be surprised at who they become. The only people who think kids suddenly become other people when they hit adolescence are the ones who never listened to what their kids were telling them the whole time.”