Ooh, I know someone with an occupied uterus who would appreciate these! They’re actually really cute!
from now on the only gender is goth
Next step: use Celine Dion’s healing goth sparkles to put out the devastating wildfires caused by people Revealing the Gender of their unborn children. I think.
I see many Winnie the Poohs at the hospital (aka Winnie aka Pooh aka Pooh Bear), as you may guess. Many look like this, a bit flat and with small wounds, designed to have a removable shirt:
They come for spas:
New hearts and stuffing:
And plumping up so they have a proper belly again:
Sometimes they look like this:
A bit more loved… or as his person said, in more “desperate condition”.
He also had a spa (not everyone does):
As you may’ve noticed, he needed a new nose and there were several options:
His heart had a pooh on it as well as some magic from a heffalump:
And after a bit of arm and smile surgery, soon he was healthy and ready to fly home:
His person wrote “He looks wonderful!”
The final Pooh I’m going to show you today just flew home yesterday. He is always called Pooh Bear. He is 14 years old and showed every year of hugs.
Here are the photos his person’s mom sent for diagnosis:
As you can see, Pooh Bear was a bit flat and a bit gray. He came in for a spa:
Got new stuffing and a magical Heffalump heart to preserve a bit of his original stuffing:
And finally was clean and plump and fluffy and ready to fly home:
He could even sit on his own! His people said his chubbiness was perfect and as I said, he flew home yesterday!
I have a 4 year old I run short 15-20 minute ‘D&D’ games for. I thought some of you may find how I run these games interesting so here ya go…
The Player Character
The player can play any kind of character. They could be a weird LEGO barbarian, a squirting bath time turtle, or a broken clown doll named Zulu (my kid has issues) they all are viable given the simplicity of the rules.
Every character starts with 3 stress counters at the beginning of each session.
The Rules
To succeed at a task the player must roll a d6 and roll equal to or greater than:
DC 2-easy
DC 3- average
DC 4-hard
In non combat encounter, if a player fails a roll they can spend 1 stress to reroll and decrease the DC by 1.
Ex:
‘Can I convince the ogre to be my friend by making him a pie?’
‘Absolutely! You need a 3 or better.’
‘I got a 1… *hands over a stress* can I put whip cream on it and try again?’
‘Yes you can. You now need a 2 or better.’
‘A 6!’
‘Congrats the ogre loves the pie and thinks of you as a sister!’
In a combat encounter the players are either attacking a foe or dodging a baddie’s attack (the story teller never rolls dice, just the kids). Always assume the players go first in most circumstances.
If the player is hit by a baddie’s Attack they lose 1 stress. If the character has no more stress the baddie wins that fight and the story progresses in a natural way.
Minions lose after 1 hit, and to dodge their attacks or hit them is DC 2. (If there are no villains accompanying the minions you can increase their to hit DC to 3)
Villains lose after 2 hits, and to dodge their attacks or hit them is DC 3. (The villain can escape instead of being defeated for plot purposes if necessary)
Ex:
‘I rolled 2 to zap the goblin with my rainbow laser gun!’
‘You missed. The goblin screeches loudly at you trying to make your ears pop. Roll a 2 or better to protect your ears.’
‘I rolled a 4! I filled my ears with Cotten. Can I try to zap it again?’
‘Sure, you still need a 3 or better.’
‘5! I rainbow blast it!’
‘He is blinded by your radiance, runs into a wall, and knocks itself out.’
recently i taught one of my eighth grade classes about sappho. the main focus was on the structure and fragmentation of her poetry, but of course it’s hard to talk about sappho without talking about her love of women (though straight people manage to pull this off all the time, somehow)
i was very upfront with them about it. i didn’t dance around the topic. i told them that sappho was known for loving women romantically, and i showed them one of her poems about a woman. hearing the word lesbian did not blow their minds. they did not freak out at the idea of a woman loving other women. they were respectful and mature. they asked some questions- and they were smart questions, too, like whether sappho’s sexuality was part of the reason her poetry doesn’t survive. we even got into some of the dicier parts of ancient greek sexuality, like pederasty. when class was over, none of them were freaking out about having to learn about an ancient lesbian. they were arguing about taylor swift on their way out, because they’re in 8th grade and that’s what 8th graders do
if anyone ever tries to tell you that we shouldn’t tell students about queer people because they “can’t handle it,” that’s absolutely not true. students are absolutely capable of discussing lgbt issues, and they can even want to talk about it, because it’s something they might not feel comfortable bringing up on their own if they have questions. there’s no reason why students can’t be introduced to queer rights and queer people, even in middle school. even in elementary school. queer does not mean “not child friendly”
and if you don’t think middle schoolers should learn about queer folk…well, then i know a bunch of 8th graders who are far more mature than you
had the sweetest moment this weekend with my 18-month-old baby cousin. my aunt and uncle were kicking a tennis ball back and forth and encouraging him to play. I was, as always, silently watching from my wheelchair (I’m not much for athletics anyway lol). he pointed at me while my aunt was holding him. she put him down and my uncle kicked the ball to him. instead of kicking it right back like earlier in the day, he picked up the ball and carried it to me, placing it down very emphatically in front of me. I was worried and anxious that he’d get frustrated when I didn’t kick the ball and become upset because I “refused” to kick it and he obviously wouldn’t understand why. I looked at him for a split second apologetically, expecting him to start fussing or cry when I wouldn’t do what I thought he was asking. but suddenly, he just got behind the ball so that he was in front of me and kicked the ball to my uncle on my behalf.
I teared up. he wasn’t demanding I kick the ball – he was putting it down dramatically to make sure I’d be watching and so I’d know he was helping me with my “turn.” at 18 months old, he not only noticed I was being excluded on his own, but actively brainstormed ways to include me with zero prompting from adults. It was the sweetest and most empathetic gesture towards me in months. I love him so much. my heart is melting.
i’m still smiling about this 🙂 even the tiniest children are way more perceptive than people give them credit for!
Eating dinner with a friend and her very sleepy two year old, I give the kid her plate of veggies and say ‘okay it’s hot so we’ll have to blow it,’ kid blows on her dinner then absently says ‘happy birthday’ to her broccoli
This is the cutest little kid content and I’m here for it
Not Yelling At Children is Better Than Yelling At Children, More At 11
“No shit” studies like this get funded because a lot of people still believe that “strict parenting” (i.e. screaming at your kid, using physical punishment) will “fix” their kids’ ADHD symptoms. I only did child therapy for about a year and a huge contributing factor to my burnout was watching parent after parent, no matter how well intentioned, fall into the socially ingrained trap of blaming their kids’ behavior on “lack of respect” or “laziness” or “manipulation.” They had to be constantly reminded that their children’s symptoms were not actually about them. Every time they forgot, they’d slip back into the same parenting strategies that, frankly, landed their family in crisis stabilization therapy in the first place.
The thing is, the success of any given parenting strategy can only be seen over time. Like any behavior modification, you’ll only get valid results if you’re consistent. If you’re calm with a kid most of the time but every now and then you beat them, being calm is going to seem like it “doesn’t work” because your kid knows the other shoe could drop at any second. They’re still in fight-or-flight mode waiting to see what you’ll do next, and it’s almost impossible to make well-reasoned choices when your amygdala is in charge. It can take a long damn time to build a communication pattern in which your kid trusts that you’ll stay calm. Most parents give it about a week and then declare that their kid must just be different or worse than other kids, or that the therapist/caseworker doesn’t understand what its really like.
Studies like this are so important, because it gives us something to point to when parents feel unsure of what to do with a child whose moods and needs aren’t easy for them to understand. I guarantee that for every study like this saying what “we all know,” these parents are exposed to 50 idiots saying they just need to whip some respect into their kids.
Not to mention that a) C-PTSD makes ADHD symptoms worse and b) a lot of people with ADHD also HAVE C-PTSD, because people were abusive and blamed them for being “lazy”/”stupid”/etc
Steel Phoenix Studios 