I for one, am shocked at this representation

I've wanted a play set for my daughter since we moved into our new house with larger yard. My mother-in-law got her a little playhouse which I haven't actually set up yet because we just put the fences up in our backyard.

I was scrolling through Facebook marketplace and found this for only $100, I'm going to pick it up on Sunday and I hope to be able to reassemble it on Sunday as well, I'll have three friends helping me do that. Original price for this new is $2,400

Any tips and tricks would be much appreciated, from my looking online some people recommend using bar soap on the edges of wooden pieces that but up against each other to help prevent squeaking. I will most likely do a sand and stain next year in the spring.

Proud dad moment. Last night, my 6.5 YO son took down the king of evil and returned peace to Hyrule.

We played Ocarina of Time together for the past 5 months and he stuck with it. He never would have been able to get through without me gently guiding him (frequent, but vague hints rather than "go here, do that"), but I only had to beat one boss for him (Bongo Bongo is way tougher than I remember)!

He's hyped to try another, but I told him I'd be helping less with the next one - we'll see how that goes. Majora's Mask is most likely the next just because he wouldn't have to relearn controls.

It's been a terrific journey and a fantastic bonding experience for us. These memories are here to stay.

I wanted to reach out to the dads here. I’m not sure what to say other than offer encouragement to keep going and not give up. I lost my dad 10 years ago. He took his life after battling personal demons and alcoholism for 20 years. I wish he knew how much love was there. I wish he felt it. I still have so much of it. I thought I’d give some here.

Idk if this is the right sub but it’s worth an attempt to say:

As a dad, I’m proud of this community and you guys for seeing the end of every fucking day.

We do dad shit. We piss off of the porch and eat beef jerky. We can strap anything to a trailer and show the whole neighborhood how to back it up.

We are persistent assholes and, if you’re anything like me, your own hubris kicks your ass more than anything else.

Three dads in a garage can fix anything, and that’s my hill. Even still, knowing when to work on ourselves isn’t always clear. It’s okay to need a break. It’s okay to not have all of the answers. Just like anything, take it one piece at a time. One piece is enough.

Please reach out to someone if you don’t know where to start. We can’t live with you, but nobody should live without you.

Much love and godspeed

My son is seven weeks old. Before he arrived, everyone told me that the second he was born, this magical switch would flip in my brain and I’d feel this overwhelming cinematic flood of fatherly love. My wife had that connection immediately.

I just... didn’t. And I still dont.

I take care of him constantly. I do the 2:00 AM diaper blowouts, I pace the living room rocking him when he screams, and I make sure my wife is resting. But emotionally, I feel like a sleep-deprived night-shift employee taking care of a very fragile, loud roommate that doesnt even know I exist. I make sure he’s safe, but that magical lightning bolt hasn't hit.

I was staring at him in his bassinet around 3 AM during teh witching hour, and I just felt completely numb and exhausted. Then the wave of guilt hit me like a freight train.

Did anyone else go through this in the beginning? When does the bond actually click, or is there genuinely something broken in me?

I'm a single dad - my wife died a little over two years ago. I don't feel like I always crush it but in this instance my chest is puffing out a bit.

My son (13m) really wanted a game table for his birthday. Foosball/air hockey/table tennis/poker. 4-in-1. We had one already but it was like a $60 Walmart special we bought several years ago now and it was really cheap and falling apart.

So I said yes - but - our basement is unbelievably cluttered with toys that we haven’t purged since he was like 4. And he already created a two-net soccer field in one half of the basement, which forced everything else to the other side. Complete horror show.

So the deal was I get a Bagster (mini-dumpster with soft sides if you don't know what this is - Waste Management comes and picks it up) and he can recruit friends to help him purge a bunch of stuff. I paid $20/kid. Fill the Bagster and fill my car with donations. And we'll get it built before his birthday.

I had to supervise more than I wanted, but they finished and then they built the brand new table without my help. There are two boys are staying over for a sleepover and they played some foosball and air hockey before settling into poker. Reminds me of my own poker games in my middle school days.

Helluva productive first day of October school break. Not sure when the last time he's had friends over for 10 hours and not once have they played video games was. Probably never. Boys learning some life skills and responsibility. And I got my basement cleaned out and a complicated game table built for $80. Enjoying the bourbon tonight.

After making that perfect grilled cheese that your kid specifically asked for and doesn’t want anymore, just put it right in the trash! Same with the banana and any other produce.

You’ll save so much time, you might even be able to eat your lukewarm leftovers before the kids are napping! No more minutes wasted pleading and offering. Just put loose cereal on any flat surface and get on with your day.

Edit: This sub really needs a humor / satire flair. And my son eventually ate half!

I need to say this all here... Or else I feel like I am going to breakdown.

I (m36) love my wife (f37). We met in 2023, and got married a year later. We were perfect together. We went through hardships, ups and downs, and now truly believe we are soul mates. I have never been so happy.

So when we discussed having kids, I thought it would make sense. Before I met her, I didn't want kids but mostly due to the fact that I never expected to actually find my soulmate and get married. Since getting married made us so happy, children made sense.

The pregnancy went by well enough. I was excited. I work with other families, so I want to be the best father possible, and raise a happy, healthy, and successful child.

Our child was born premature, 34 weeks due to preeclampsia. He is healthy and good now, but he spent the first three weeks of his life in the NICU. We visited every day for 3-4 hours.

However, since our son returning home to us, I have been feeling more and more depressed. Some of it, I am certain is because of the lack of sleep that comes from raising a newborn. However, I can tell I am falling into depression more and more. I am eating much less (to the point that my wife commented about it). I have zero drive to do any of my usual hobbies (E.g. Working out, board and video games). I feel numb and quiet, no opinions no cares most days. As a result, I have been obsessively reading books, especially romance novels, just trying to feel something.

I feel like I lost my wife... The baby takes priority, as it should, as he needs all the support and care to grow and thrive... But I feel like he is a wedge in our relationship. We don't sleep together anymore because we take shifts with our son at night. We don't have the energy to be intimate. I miss her.

And... I should feel sad to say this... But I don't love my son.... At least, not how I love my wife, nor how I view my wife to love our son. I know I need to care for him... To raise him... And to keep him safe... But I don't feel love for him like I would imagine a parent does...on the best days, I feel nothing for him.

I don't know if I should tell all this to my wife. I don't know if this will pass as my son will get older. All I know now is... Is that I am not happy, and it sucks.

Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

UPDATE*** Thank you everyone for your advice and support. Reading your comments actually triggered me to have a good cry session, relieving a lot of tension within me. Much of the advice included seeking professional help. I am strongly taking that into consideration and reviewing my insurance for it now. That said - that cry really helped a lot. Thank you again everyone

And my wife is threatening me with a good time if she gets cleared by the doctor today. Apparently she thinks I’m a DILF. Anything to keep in mind if we get the go ahead?

My wife and I both work from home 8 am to 5 pm. We have a 2.5 year old daughter. The trouble is that my wife seemingly avoids spending time with her any chance she gets. It all started with her saying she wanted to sleep in more. I had no problem with it because I am a morning person. So from 6 am until I start work at 8 I play with my daughter. Sometimes we go to the park, sometimes we make pancakes, sometimes we just play dolls in her room.

My wife and I get off at 5 and her nanny leaves, my wife will play with our daughter for 30 minutes and then come up with any excuse to leave the room. "oh I'm hungry I am going to go eat." "Oh I need to go do my skincare routine." "Oh my sister is calling I'm going to the other room to talk to her on the phone."

So from 5:30 until she goes to bed it's usually me playing with her. Mom does do the bedtime routine and put her to sleep. When it comes to doing the rules based stuff she's all for it. And it doesn't get better on weekends. Mom will go out with girlfriends, or even ask grandma to come watch her and take me out with her.

It's starting to be so bad when my wife does try to interact with our daughter she says things like "no mommy I want to be with daddy."

Today, she did it again and I blew up. She put our daughter in the bathtub and then called me to come in there and play bubbles with her because she was hungry and wanted to go eat. I said fine and she could tell I was annoyed so she offered to stay. Only this time my daughter said "no mommy go I want to be with daddy." I finally snapped and told me wife of course she wants to be with me you avoid her every chance you get.

Honestly if I knew having kids with this woman would be like this I would have never done it. She was the one who had to convince me to have a child. I was content without one. Now that she's here I don't regret her but I'm starting to really resent my wife.

Had our first via IVF. He’s 7 months old now, we just found out wife is pregnant…

Who’s been in this boat? Is it as crazy as it feels like it will be?

Freaking out slightly.

Is anyone else annoyed every time they have to fill a bottle in a dark room? Why oh why are the labels on the graduations white? If the same people choosing the label colors are the same people ensuring they are BPA free then I am more than a little concerned...

Anyone else dealing with loneliness? I never thought at the age of 40, 3 kids and a successful career I would be this lonely.

Tried to make friends here on Reddit but all I get are 🍆 pics.

Maybe because I live in the Boston area and in general people are so busy and cold here?

I just wanted to vent 🙃

Adding small paver patio to backyard because AC unit needed replaced, and had them put new unit on side of house, so now have space that needs filled, but isn't conducive to growing anything, so pavers work best. Anyways, did the Dad/husband thing and asked the bosses (wife/son) what they liked best. Settled on these small pavers. Again, dadded it out and calculated i needed ~150 to fill the space. Did the trip to HD, got the stuff, got back home and hit the apex of my daddom. To save myself 28 trips to backyard, and my back, I used my son's ride on car either remote control to haul the pavers out back. Did it look/feel ridiculous? Yes. Did it save me half the trips? Also yes. Am I ashamed? No. As I told my wife, its only stupid if it doesn't work.

Almost 4 years since I left our marriage due to her cheating, physical and financial abuse, you name it she pulled it in some way. We were together for a little over 11 years total.

I didn’t expect anything to be easy or amicable, and it certainly hasn’t been. Tbh, things were more amicable immediately after I left than they are now. We were still talking and putting our daughter first. Now my ex uses her as a messenger.

I thought with time things would calm down and we’d at least be able to communicate. And I’ve calmed down on my end. My mental health wasn’t great there for a while, but I’ve put in the work and have made great strides.

One of the things that hurts the most is that I’ve been completely cut off from people in her family that I truly, deeply love. Her parents who were there for me so many times when my own couldn’t care less about my struggles or tribulations. One of them is very sick, and I have to rely on the recollection of a 6 year old about watching her grandparent wither away in real time. It honestly makes me angry that ex puts our daughter in that position at all. It’s not right, and I don’t dig for information - so when she announces to me about long hospital trips and describes what happened to grandparent recently, I almost always start crying because I’m not prepared for it.

She refuses to even try to coparent. Put our kid into a shitty school when she could have gone to the best public option in our state, due to where I strategically moved after the split - something she explicitly agreed to in the custody paperwork.

I didn’t fight it, I didn’t take her to court, just hoped she’d see how bad the school is (I have friends who’s kids went there, along with those that are teachers and they all volunteered to talk to her about this schools many, many issues) and now she’s opening up her third frivolous attempt to have things changed or going after me directly via the courts.

I just want peace and basic respect, common decency and to put our daughter first.

Am I asking for too much? She cheated so I left. She got the house, my dog, primary custody, and to be with her cheating partner.

Why am I the one getting punished for it years later?

I've recently become a stay-at-home dad, I love it. It's probably the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. With that being said, the porch has been my mortal enemy. It's very disorganized, there's nowhere to put stuff and I can NEVER keep it clean. It's stuck in a loop. WWYD?

I dont know what to do with my current situation. Im struggling financially and my mental stress is hitting the roof.

My rent has gone up, so have food prices in the UK, now I can barely put any money to my savings account for a rainy day.

Mrs is a Stay at home mum which i have no issue with but the stress of trying to support my family is getting to me. I genuinely had a moment where I thought maybe my death pension will set them up (dont worry im not going to do anything to myself) I dont even know why I started to think like that.

Ive made property investments which have failed and I'm suffering internally but having to put on a brave face.

Tell me it gets better dads.

Iknow it's obvious. Don't all jump down my throat.

I'm working on a new mortgage and looking at a 5yr fixed term... The. Realised my son will be 8yrs old after the fixed term ends... And to me that's just fucking insane.

If only there was a way to revisit earlier times... I guess this is when people start to decide they want more kids huh...

Today when I was peeing my 6 year old son ran up behind me and hit me in the balls. What's the worst way it's happened to you guys?

I know people will probably judge me, but I honestly just need some perspective from other dads because I can't focus on work and my stomach has been in knots for three hours.

It happened at 7:45 this morning. We were already running twenty minutes behind, my wife is out of town for work, and I had a client call at 8:30. My son decided today was the day he would refuse shoes, throw his jacket across the kitchen, and go completely dead-weight on the entryway floor laughing. I tried the calm gentle parenting voice. I tried turning it into a game. Nothing worked.

I just broke. I grabbed his backpack, slammed it onto the bench, and shouted "GET UP AND PUT YOUR SHOES ON RIGHT NOW!" at teh top of my lungs.

His little smile vanished. His chin trembled, his eyes welled up, and he scrambled to put his shoes on backwards without saying a word. The entire drive to daycare was dead silence. When I dropped him off, he clung to my leg quietly sniffling before his teacher took him.

i had to peel his little fingers off my jeans and walk away. Now it's mid-morning, I'm sitting at my desk, and i feel like the most cowardly monster alive. How do you live with yourself knowing your kid is sitting in daycare thinking his dad hates him?

Daughter is 11 years old. Custody is split evenly. So one week with me (Dad) and the other week (Mom). Mother wants me to punish daughter even though she is great with me.

When my daughter is at her moms house she acts horrible. She is mean to her siblings, mean to her mom and other family members. Mostly verbal screaming and name calling. Some physical but nothing to concerning beyond typical sibling fights. Biggest thing right now is her taking her sisters clothes to wear to school. Her mom isn't really there much so they are all being raised by their Aunt more then anything.

At school no issues. Grades are so so but their mom just moved their school 1 hour further away from me. So I'm waiting to find out how that goes.

At my house my daughter is fine. She follows my rules or if she doesn't she will after I tell her once. Their are no confrontations between her and her siblings and none between her and me. All my kids listen to me when a rule is in place.

So the issue is that their mom punishes over there and expects me to continue the punishments over here. If she is grounded there then she shouldn't come here and be free from punishments. I have no issue talking to my daughter about her behavior my issue comes in continuing a punishment here when she listens and doesn't act out here.

Extra info.

-I work from home so I'm always around

-My daughter has hurt herself, while being at her moms place, with a razor.

-She has been with a therapist for 3 years now and there hasn't been a change in behavior

-My daughter wants to live with me full time. I have offered this to her mother and it gets turned down. I even offered it after she hurt herself so I could watch her nonstop but their mother tried drugs instead.

My biggest issue is that if I started making my daughter hate it at my house then she will not have a safe place anymore. She could try to act out more and hurt herself or even run away.

For those Dads in the US, our favorite time of the year is happening on Nov 1st.

Yes, Daylight Saving Time is happening Nov 1st. Take the needed precautions and have fun

For those that are unfamiliar with the story, it features a mouse that is about to harvest a red ripe strawberry, but is told by the narrator that big hungry bears LOVE red ripe strawberries, drriving him into a spiral of psychosis and fear, ultimately resulting in the mouse sharing the strawberry with the narrator so that the bear can't get to it.

Having read this book 50 million times in the past year to my toddler, I have come to the conclusion that the narrator in the story is actually the big hungry bear. He tricks the mouse into giving him the strawberry willingly, even though as a big hungry bear he could easily take it for himself.

The truth is, the bear doesn't even care about the strawberry. The bear derives joy from the manipulation and the infliction of fear upon the mouse, which makes the strawberry taste that much sweeter.

My 2.5yo has been getting more and more difficult to get to bed over the past month or so, demanding more stories (up to 4 or 5 books) a song or 2, and then still sitting up in his bed and chattering to himself/his teddies for 45min or so some nights.

About a week ago my wife discovered a trick.

Hold him sideways across your chest (like an infant when you're rocking them) and tell him "close your eyes".

He does exactly what you tell him, kind of like he forgot how to go to sleep, but is thankful for the reminder. His eyes flutter for a minute (but don't open again) he snuggles in, and you can then easily put him down, put his blanket over him (and make sure he has a teddy- currently Detective Pikachu- to cuddle), say good night and leave the room.

And he is out, just like that. No talking to his toys or anything.

"Close your eyes" appears (for now) to be the magic command!

I’ve been on paternity leave since August, set to go back probably November first and I’m bummed! Not only because I’ll be missing my new baby, but because I absolutely love my wife. These past few months have just reinforced our love for each other and how much we love being around each other.

No, I’m not complaining about going back to work, as I know it’s something that’s gotta be done. I’m just going to miss being around my best friend all day everyday.

Have a good night my dudes!