[youthworkerb]

My kid turned 3 in February. He's shown some interest in using the toilet but clearly cannot tell when he needs to go. Co-parent wants to put him in underwear both around the house and out and about. My instinct is that since he can't tell when he needs to go, he's just going to have accidents over and over and that's going to build a bad association with using the toilet. She seems to think I'm being anal/unrealistic because I don't want pee on my couch or in his car seat. Is my instinct wrong? Is peeing your pants daily a necessary part of figuring out when you need to go?

(I've already sat in a puddle of pee on furniture at her house twice, also the other day she put the pee-soaked clothes just loose in the diaper bag and I reached in for a diaper and grabbed a sopping wet sock like 10 hours later)

[breeanant]

— Octavia Butler, always

[louisegluckpdf]

i remember learning the word melancholy at age 7 or something and thinking oh this word's gonna be huge for me

[ahotknife]

i ❤️ hydroxyzine

[tobydontknowsh-t]

there's probably a better way of wording the last part but like come on it doesn't matter if we're all the same to fascists

[morallyambiguous]

upstream, mary oliver; gravity and grace, simone weil; journal of a solitude, may sarton

[megs-mayhem]

@unpretty

[unpretty]

it’s DIRT

[ceekari]

unmute for comically aggrieved farmer

[fieldbears]

reblogging for the second time because I still laugh uncontrollably. in my mind the cows are trying to be gracious about their strange gift. ‘yes we love it thank u’

[fizzgigfurball]

@diseonfire future?

[vet-and-wild]

I know I literally  just reblogged this but I love this video so much it always makes me laugh because

1. “LADIES”

2. The very disappointed “Eclair…”

3. “WHAT?” (High pitched mooing in response)

4. The way they turn into Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch as they get progressively more frustrated

[youthworkerb]

The Pleakley voice "WHAT in the absolute SHIT are you DOING? What's that about??" needs to be a reaction sound lol

[youthworkerb]

it is very difficult to advocate for the best interests of children when the reality is that not one single solitary aspect of our society is actually designed to promote the best interests of children, least of all the family court system

anyways I'm feeling pretty defeated today 😞

[matineaux-deactivated20260222]

kind of weird how parts of your soul are left in various locations without any warning… like yes i’m always at the top of that hill, sitting at the bus stop, in the cool light of the Japanese restaurant, standing at the pier etc etc

[sleepymccoy]

how many libraries could you get to from where you live now without looking up directions?

none

one

two

three

four

five or six

seven or eight

nine or ten

eleven to fifteen

sixteen to twenty

twenty to thirty

more than that

Voting ended onFeb 22, 2025

You can use any travel method you like, walking, public transport, so on. You can get an uber but their map has failed so you'll have to give directions. You can travel to other countries and count those libraries but you have to be able to completely navigate from your home without assistance. So you can catch a plane but must be able to travel to and from the airport. No limit on how long it takes. If you know which block it's on or which tram line but aren't sure precisely, but you feel sure you'd find it once you got there, count that as a yes (if you're not sure maybe google it now and see if your plan would work). You cannot rely on asking for directions though, this must be all your knowledge

[youthworkerb]

My parents neighbors set 2 BOB strollers (a double and a single) out on the curb and ohmygod I want to take them. I live 2,000 miles away and don't really have a use for them currently but it is so tempting

[youthworkerb]

At the airport

Woman with a dog that bears absolutely no resemblance to a Yorkie: he's a purebred, it's a new type of Yorkie

[travelsafely]

there needs to be a cultural shift in america like im not talking about culture war bullshit i mean the average american needs to learn to care about their community and the rest of the world and not be a self-absorbed asshole with a "fuck you i got mine" attitude.

[youthworkerb]

I mean yes there are a lot of self-absorbed assholes out there but the root issue is not just hatred or some inherent moral deficiency. The lack of care for their communities? Generations of people have lived their whole lives steeped in a culture of bootstraps rugged individualism and intense shaming of interdependence and the idea that people might actually need community to survive and thrive. This has caused a deep deep mistrust of others. The "fuck you I got mine" attitude? The zero-sum game and scarcity mindset of late-stage capitalism has led to a belief that some people deserve to win while others deserve to lose, and if others are losing, you must be winning (or at least you're not losing as badly as they are). And this is a game with life or death stakes - people are living their entire lives in fight-or-flight mode

Or at least this is what I've observed working with very poor families in the rural Midwest. And this is not to excuse the harm that people cause when they have this attitude, but the solution is not as simple as "joe schmoe just needs to flip his empathy switch" it's very easy to say "those people just need to learn how to care about their fellow human beings" it's a lot harder to go out and meet them where they're at and build trust. If you want to actually shift the culture, you (yes you!) can start by building relationships

[annabelle--cane]

it's rotten work. especially to me especially if it's you. I'll fucking do it but christ alive.

[geopsych]

Treasure hunt, finding things around you

Here's an assignment, only for anyone who feels like doing it. In the month ahead, by the start of February, find as many of these things as you can or choose to. Photos or not photos as you prefer. These aren't to be submitted to me but are just a kind of treasure hunt for you to write down or keep in a notes app. 1. Moss, as many kinds as you can find. 2. Lichen, 3 colors. This is fun because it can be on buildings and things like curbs, grave stones or monuments. 3. 3 or more kinds of birds, extra points for different types like songbirds vs. ducks and geese vs herons or other stalking birds. Yes, pigeons count. 4. 3 kinds of trees you can tell apart, evergreens or ones that are leafless now.

5. One beautiful sunrise or sunset. 6. If you're in a place that gets cold, 2 kinds of ice, like icicles and puddle ice would be 2 kinds for example. If you're not in a cold place then interesting water things like a puddle with oil colors in it or drops of dew on grass or a flower. 7. 3 kinds of weather. This one's easy. Maybe pictures of a sunny or partly cloudy sky and a dark cloudy sky and maybe a picture of trees or flags being blown by wind.

8. Any animals. They're things like Pokemon but in the real world. lol Yes squirrels count. Rats do too. 9. Stand in 3 kinds of places, for example by a stream or river, high on a hill—that can be in a city or in the country. Pittsburgh for example has some great hills. San Francisco too. If you're at Oberlin maybe you can find a pile of dirt haha—and third, maybe a public space like a plaza or a town circle or if you're in the country then just an especially nice spot along a road or trail. 10. Finally, look for any especially nice or beautiful scene around you, whether it's frost on a plant in the sunlight, a beautiful window you pass in the evening (taking pictures of people without permission especially through a window is rude so try to avoid that), ice on a car window or any scene or tiny thing that just catches your eye in a pleasing way. A beautiful tree, a beautiful sky, a cute cat, whatever.

And of course if you find cool or interesting stuff not mentioned here, that's extra credit. :-) If you see something really good you can tell me about it and if you feel like letting me know how it went at the end I would be interested to hear from you. I know some of you already look for this stuff. Take this as a little extra encouragement. Maybe when you post things from this list, use the tag #noticing stuff. Or does someone have a better tag for it?

[youthworkerb]

I've been showing everyone I know this bird belly flop / snow angel I saw on a little mindfulness walk last week

[violetsandshrikes]

When I was a kid, my mother used to make a point of teaching me and my brother outside of schooling. She came from an incredibly progressive family, and has always been a big believer that ignorance always leads to a lot of the evil we see in the world

Basically, we’d do…what I guess you call additional study, after school? Which might sound tedious or bad, but we loved it, even my brother who didn’t enjoy school or academics and had a serious learning disability.

We used to use some old encyclopaedias we thrifted, but nowadays you could use Wiki or something similar. We’d open the book, choose a random topic, and spend the next month or so learning about it.

My mother would often have it so we had a few different things we were learning about in month: a place/culture, a religion, a historical event, a person, etc. My brother and I had those cheap, A4 spiral books, and we’d go to the public library and research, write down little notes, draw diagrams. We’d do activities like paint maps of new places or new animals we’d learned about.

I’ve been getting back into this again, and I cannot stress enough how enriching it is. It’s easier now with the internet available, but I still have an A4 book I jot little notes in. It’s alleviated a lot of boredom and restlessness. I can highly recommend.

[youthworkerb]

Years ago I had the idea to do this with the google doodles! There's a doodle library where you can filter by date, topic, even color and then pick one to learn more about

Recently my (almost 3 year old!) kid has been really interested in learning how his body works so we've been watching those magic school bus episodes where they go inside the digestive system or the respiratory system or whatever

[youthworkerb]

Here: had to work from home with my kiddo home from daycare Monday and Tuesday due to the snow storm Sunday night (we got around 8 inches) and I had to cancel my afternoon tomorrow because we are getting another 2.5-3 inches. Still love the snow though!

Hometown: multiple people in my friend/family orbit have lost their homes in the wildfires. Several others are at risk. My grandma (93 and nearly bed-bound) lives just 2 or 3 miles from the mandatory evacuation zone for one of the fires. So sad and scary

[youthworkerb]

My grandma is now under mandatory evacuation. Went from no warning to warning to mandatory in less than an hour