Dad World

Our 2-year-old calls for me (dad) for almost everything. Nightmare in the night? Dad. Need to put on shoes? Dad? Need to be picked up? Dad. Mom tries to do something? No, dad!

I don’t mind this. And I know the phase will end, and I will miss it.

But it seems to be really hurting my wife. I think she also knows, deep down, that it’s just a phase and that it’s nothing she is doing wrong. But I can see in her eyes that she feels that our daughter loves her less than she loves me.

Any advice? Neither one of us wants to force our daughter to show affection to anyone. But any ideas how to make mom feel more included/wanted?

It's a big step forward...

My two year old stood up, looked at me, said “I love you dada,” and then gave me a big hug. That can turn even the worst of weeks around.

Heavy metal puked like 6 times, drank some water and cooled down some. Felt better about 5 minutes later, so I went out and finished my yard and did my neighbor's.

Feeling 100% fine now. Sometimes you just have to get the evil out.

It was a 2-act show and she was going on in the second act. We watched the first act together (which ran about an hour and a half) and then her mom took her backstage during intermission. She was the second dance and when she came on with her group I had the biggest feeling of pride I have have every felt in my life.

Then, 10 seconds later, she ran off stage because she was too nervous with a full auditorium of eyes watching. 😂 Everyone thought it was cute, but after the show on the ride home she apologize and said, "I was just too nervous and scared." To which I replied, "It's okay to be nervous and scared. It makes us human. Even Daddy is scared and nervous about some things, but the important thing is to try our best and keep getting better."

Even though it was just 10 seconds, I'm a proud Dad and I can't wait for the next one. Hopefully she gets a few more seconds in hahaha.

Driving to camp a local radio station was doing one of those fake call-in drama segments. My 12yo asked what I thought about the situation. I explained that those segments are fake and that the “callers” are local improv artists or out of work actors. After listening to the segment, my 12yo said”You can tell by their fake radio voice”. When we got to camp the first thing said after hellos was “Did you know those radio call in shows are fake?!”. I guess the tweens have a topic for the day.

Well, dads—it’s official, I’m old. Strained my back lifting the glass table top on Saturday. Finally had to go to urgent care today because the pain is so bad. No activity or “activity” for at least 7 days.

When did I get this old?

My eldest is two and a half and she goes to nursery three days a week. There’s another girl at the nursery, around the same age as her, who seems to have some issues with hitting. Let’s call her Amy (not real name). We know Amy hit my daughter a few months back. Nursery were spoken to, they said they’d monitor and teach kind hands etc. Since then we’ve heard grumbling at the nursery gate about Amy that suggest she’s still causing trouble, but nothing that affected my daughter.

Yesterday my daughter told us “Amy hit me” in a heartbreaking little voice, but we got no more useful information out of her. My wife raised it with the nursery this morning, and was told that Amy had hit another child, and they were continuing to work on her. And yeah, fair enough, my toddler (and many others, I suspect) doesn’t have the consistency of language to differentiate between “I was hit” and “I saw someone else hit”, so maybe it’s communication thing. But this Amy obviously has some issues.

I’m a bit lost as to what to do. We’ve told our daughter to loudly say “no” and tell an adult if someone is mean to her. And I know that kids who hit are likely to have problems at home and so I don’t want to teach my daughter to be a mean girl in return. But this behaviour is obviously getting to her, and I just want my little girl to feel safe and happy.

I don’t know if we can ask the nursery to do much more, the staff are aware and keep an eye out, but they can’t be omniscient. And she has friends there, so I don’t really want to move nurseries. Does anyone have any ideas?

Going on extended leave today for 8 weeks and I am so looking forward to spending quality time with my son (and wife). He's really starting to develop and is becoming more of a "person" every day.

To get a discussion going, any do's and dont's with a kid that age? Lifepro tips?

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Father's Day! Might be a bit early for most of the world, but the Australian Dads already are in their special day. Lol

Hope everyone has a safe weekend.

Much love,

Rox

Hey, just wanted to thank you for making a place here. Hope we can keep the same positivity and support going. Not sure how things entirely work yet on the fediverse but I seem to be getting the hang of it.

Toddler dad about to spend Father's Day alone with my daughter as my wife leaves town for the weekend. Super excited to just have some 1 on 1 time together ❤️ that little girl just makes the whole world melt away

Anyone have any experience building tree houses? Wondering about costs and how to achieve structural integrity. I think the most daunting thing for me is to ensure the floor can hold up a good amount of weight. (I wanna play too lol)

Anyone have any good suggestions? Educational stuff is good, but I'm also interested in other games that kids can play solo or with parents. (We're a PC gaming house, but I'm open to suggestions for any platform.)

My 2 year old daughter gets along great with her newborn sister, and they’ve had some sweet moments. But my toddler has claimed dibs on every play mat, baby chair, and swing. The “mine” phase arrived quite suddenly, and sometimes with hilarious results (imagine a 3-foot-tall toddler’s legs just dangling from a baby rocker). Not complaining or asking for advice. Just sharing an anecdote to help this community start growing.

So Mario Party (specifically Mario Party 2) was big part of my childhood and today I played Mario Party Superstars for the first time with my 4 year orld daughter. We just played minigames and man she was TERRIBLE lol. But we had the best time playing for an hour or so. Her favorite minigame was the one where you catch falling ice cream. I kept trying to tell her to move her character to the shadow to catch one, but she insisted on "making Mario dizzy". Randomly, she would catch one and it would be the best thing ever. We probably played like 100 times.

Love making these memories.

Hello everyone,

I'm not sure if this community will grow to the extent of Daddit, but I just wanted to give an alternative to those who wish to separate themselves from Reddit. I really enjoyed reading through stories on Daddit and I hope this place fosters the same loving environment. Please feel free to let me know how we could improve this community.

Love,

Dad