#parenting :)

[theonion]

In a revelation shedding light on a previously unexamined facet of childhood development, a study published Thursday by researchers at Harvard University found that those who were breastfed as infants tended to excel at suckling later in life. “In all 50 states, children who were breastfed outperformed their peers on suckling aptitude tests, having far more pronounced suckling power and an average latch force of 9.2,” said study co-author Holly Kline, outlining major breakthroughs from the decades-long study on the impacts of infant nursing and the ability to suck milk directly from a breast as an adult.

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[1-800-local-slut]

Before and After (Part 1)

The bullet that went through his brain knocked all the part of Rex that sucked clean out of him. But he still existed before that.

Rex 'Splode' Sloan x Black! Alien! Reader

Warnings: really hard pregnancy, vomit, smut mentions, Rex doubts his parenting abilities, also Rex and reader are young parents trying to figure it out, Rex being a cunt but this was before he got his brains blasted out lol, woke!Mark, I tried to make the characters talk like teenagers because I feel like we don't see enough of it in the show, Rex and Eve broke up WAY before he hooked up with reader because man stealing is never the move

Note: you're from a planet called Moraya and your parents sent you to Earth to stay with your uncle due to a disease sweeping the planet. They couldn't leave because your mother is the head of medicine, and your father is a high-ranking member of the government. By the time the crisis was dealt with you were a teenager and had adjusted to life on Earth, your parents understood your choice to stay. Your powers are mostly mental. You can control minds, have telekinesis, take over people's bodies, manipulate people's emotional states, and sometimes see the future in your dreams. Your body functions like a human, so your vulnerable to injures and human deaths but not illnesses (like car accidents, falling and breaking your neck, choking, drowning). You can fly, but not everyone on your planet can. It's more of a recessive gene since overtime your people didn't need to do it as often. That's all y'all!

༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺

If Rex finished high school, he might've remembered to use a condom that night. Nah. He still wouldn't have done it. He was twenty years old, with a three year old and his nineteen year old fiancé. You two were broke as two jokes. You were trying to get through med school, he was trying to save the world, but you two still found the time to be the best parents possible. He was stressed all the time, a few gray hairs were growing and the bags under his eyes were never leaving.

But Rex hasn't stopped smiling since the moment you agreed to marry him. Not when your baby woke up screaming in the middle of the night, not when your baby threw up on him four times in a day, not when you broke his hand during labor. Not even when he was woken up by you struggling to put on your crocs to go to get food in the middle of the night.

At first, Rex spent so much time wishing he just pulled out. Of course Plan B wasn't enough, you were an alien. But no matter how much you reassured him that it would've worked and that the Plan B just failed, he still didn't believe you. To this day he's ashamed to admit that he didn't want his baby at first.

Even suggested it wasn't his, to which he got a firm slap.

"Pregnant?!"

"I just thought I'd let you know-"

"So what, you like need a ride to the place? Because I kind of don't have my car right now."

Silence settled over the HQ and disgust filled your face.

"No, Rex, I don't need a ride. I just wanted to let you have a choice-"

"What, you wanna keep it?! Listen, you're cool but I'm not gonna have a kid. I mean how do you know its even mine?" Just then Mark came in and let out a soft 'oooo'. Even Invincible, as clueless as he was sometimes knew that was definitely the worst thing to say to you.

You let out an offended gasp before anger replaced disgust.

"Are you calling me a slut?!" The slap that followed honestly left him reeling. To this day he could still feel your handprint on his face sometimes and it's almost been four years since you slapped the taste out of his mouth.

"I was OFFERING you a chance to know it. I have family on my home planet. Seeing as it's your child too I thought you might've wanted a chance to raise it but you've answered the question before I asked. I will be taking it home with me when it's old enough to make the journey with me."

"Oh. Okay, cool. So you aren't asking me for money?"

"I wouldn't wipe my ass with the crumpled two dollars you have in your pocket. Me and MY CHILD will be good without you, trust." Then you were gone, and only Rexsplode and Invincible remained in the room. But Invincible decided to be Mark for a second and talk to his friend.

"Dude...she's having your baby." It was the first thing he said when Rex sat down on his bed as the two teenagers sat down in his room in the Gaurdian's HQ.

"Yeah, I'm doing okay after that slap." He scoffed while he grabbed a shirt that smelt clean off his bed and removed his costume.

"Did you want me to be on your side here...?"

"Okay yeah, maybe I wasn't the most sensitive but what did I really say wrong?"

"Are we being deadass???" Now in his own regular clothes (where he got them from Rex still doesn't know), Mark made a face of disgust. The type of face you make when you're truly questioning your homie.

Rex gave an indignant shrug. He knew but his pride hurt more than his face at that point.

"We'll do a play by play, maybe it'll help you. Okay, she comes in, tells you she's pregnant. This is the same girl who had to leave her home and adjust to living in a strange place and only has one other person on Earth who understands her. She's going through something emotionally heavy, away from her own people who probably have customs that she can't partake in, because she's probably unable to fly back while pregnant.

Also we're teenagers, she's a year younger than us so there's also the fact that she has to kiss young adulthood and the rest of her life goodbye because she's choosing to keep YOUR BABY, and she didn't even just take the kid and dip. I don't know man, maybe you shouldn't have accused her of sleeping around and then instead of being any type of understanding you told her you couldn't even give her a ride to Planned Parenthood."

Awkward silence settled through the room.

"Also why did you call her 'cool' like you haven't known her for years?"

"Don't make me sound like a loser."

"Hey man I hate to break it to you but you're doing that on your own."

"I don't even know it's mine!" Arms thrown out to the side, he grunted in exhaustion. It felt like you knocked a tooth lose, damn.

"We know she isn't sleeping around because she hasn't been in my bed." With a dramatic rub of his hands Mark lifted both of his eyebrows and made a dumbass face. Rex's own face crinkled in disgust and he looked at Mark while he leaned back on his palms.

"What if you're not her type?"

And Mark had the audacity to snort, and motion towards himself.

"Have you SEEN me? I would sleep with me too."

"...Would that count as masturbation or selfcest? Or twincest?"

"No because it's me not a twin."

"What if the other you becomes sentient and wants its own life."

"Yeah but...no...wait."

And as time went by, you went through pregnancy. Alone. You went through four months of what from a distance looked like a horrible experience, and while it tugged at his heart strings you told Eve who told Mark, who told Rex that you would die before you spoke to Rex again. Especially about your baby. It got to the point where you struggled to control your powers and had to fess up to Cecil. Who even expressed his disgust with Rex's behavior in a subtle way.

"You're the first reason I've ever had to figure out maternity leave for a pregnant alien teenager." Was all he said after Rex denied paternity leave.

It took one night for Rex to actually start growing a pair. They fully grew in after he caught a bullet to the cranium.

It was one night after a mission, two weeks before you had to start maternity leave, and the Guardians just returned from a pretty mid battle while Mark was on a little vacation according to Cecil.

While everyone celebrated, Rex left to use the bathroom when he heard it. You cried alone, in your spare bedroom that you sometimes crashed in. You were laying in your bed, attempting to muffle your cries, clutching your stomach and head. A sliver of light from the door widened until you realized Rex was standing in your door way.

You turned, looking over at him and scowled.

"You-" A gag cut you off. Were you trying not to vomit? Boxes of some of your things, you were clearing out for your maternity leave but it looked like you were getting ready to never come back. Then he remembered what you said. When it was old enough, you'd be flying back home with the rugrat.

"You are the last person I want to see. Piss off." And it would've worked better if you didn't immediately throw up in your hand and make a mad dash to the toilet before the rest of your vomit got all over you. He was a dick, not a monster so he followed.

While you threw up the contents of your stomach into the toilet, he couldn't just let the team hear. You'd clearly gone out of your way to avoid them seeing you crying and suffering already. He slid into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

When you finally did stop, you slumped against the bathtub. You sat, staring blankly at the floor before your face crumpled and you buried your face into your hands. You began to sob, with vomit on your shirt and your shoulders shook violently.

After a moment of Rex drowning in guilt you let out a shaky breath and hugged yourself.

"I miss my mom."

You staggered to your feet before you shoved him roughly out of your way into the sink, then left the bathroom. He heard wind from your room, realizing you were flying home and for the first time in a long time Rex began to think. He began to think real long and real hard.

It took the two of you to make it. You chose to keep it. You didn't even try to force him into fatherhood. The least he could do was loan you a hand until it was time for you to go. Without realizing it, he was cleaning the toilet. Everyone else was downstairs partying, celebrating their newfound strength as a team and winning the fight. And Rex was cleaning your vomit off the toilet, because without him you wouldn't be throwing up in the first place.

It wasn't a total 180 from there. He was still Rex, you still didn't even want to talk to him, but he tried. He left little treats he remembered you like only for them to be left untouched completely where he left them. Except for the time you stormed down the metal steps of HQ and threw the box of strawberry waffers at his face.

"Fuck, ow!"

"We didn't need shit from you then. We don't need a fucking thing from you now."

As you turned to storm back up the steps he grabbed your arm and narrowly avoided a swift slap.

"Listen, listen. You're right. You're right to be mad at me. I was being a dick."

"You still are."

Wrestling your arm free, he remembered that fire that attracted him to you in the first place. He caught you by your shoulders before he realized you could just kick him in the balls and settled for just grabbing one of your arms. Your back turned to him, he wasn't even sure if you were listening, but he had to speak now.

"You're uncomfortable, I know you are. And I know it's partially my fault. At least tell me what I can do to ease your discomfort just a little. You hate me, it's my fault. But let me help. Just a little." The tension in your shoulders dropped just a bit.

"...I'm having really strong cravings for hot chocolate."

He didn't start falling in love with you for a while afterwards. You were on maternity leave now, but he climbed through your bedroom window with the bacon wrapped shrimp you had requested when he texted you, he was out if you were hungry. He spun around on your desk chair when he realized. You've been pregnant for a while now. While you devoured the shrimp he noticed.

At six months you didn't look three months from giving birth. You seemed to be enjoying his presence just a bit now. Sure, there where changes but those were more so personality wise. You no longer snatched the food from his hands anymore and sent him away, you even let him sit less than ten feet away from you sometimes. Infact, you had the bump of a three-month pregnancy. Did you just have a small baby growing in there?

"It'll be a big one." You said, wiping your fingers as you watched Annie on your laptop.

"Really? It doesn't look like it."

"I'm not far along yet. But-"

"You're six months pregnant."

"Oh. Because my planet is so far away from my own solar systems Sun, my planet rotates slow. Time is different. Years are longer. I did some math; I'll be pregnant for about a year and a half.

"A YEAR AND A HALF?!"

"Shut the fuck up! Yes Rex, on my planet it wouldn't be so long. But the time is weird here, everything moves so fast." You stifled a yawn as you sipped your milkshake.

"...Do you think it's gonna tear you in two?"

You giggled. And his diversion worked. You spoke about home before, but since you got pregnant it seemed like you were plauged with constant home sickness. It had to be hard for you to be away from home this way. When you were going through something so momentous, and your planet was a weeklong flight. That was if you flew without sleeping and pee breaks.

"I don't want to think about that. I already know the birth is gonna hurt."

As you laughed, the light shifted around you. He noticed things on your face he never noticed before. The way your mouth curved when you smiled, the way you covered your mouth when you laughed, the small crinkles around your eyes. You were hot before, he knew that. It's why he fucked you. But he never noticed that you were more than that. You were beautiful. Genuinely beautiful.

And after that night he tried to fight it. He didn't want to be a parent. But he couldn't date you without being a part of his own kid's life. That would be low even for him. As your stomach grew so did his feelings for you. Infact, when the Lizard League put a hole in his skull, he woke up to keep fighting because he pictured you.

He was being dragged down into death, seeing his life flash before his eyes, and then finally he saw you. But it wasn't a memory. It was a prophecy.

His head laid on your lap, you smiled down at him while you squished his face in your hands. Next to him, a small bundle wrapped in a blanket slept soundly. He heard birds singing sweet songs, the Sun casted warm light on his skin and gave you a radiant glow, and you were brighter than all of it. You leaned down and planted a kiss on his forehead, telling him he had to get up and go. There was an emergency. He had to go, he had to fight, had to blow shit up.

He did and from there, the rest was history.

[thedaddycomplex]

When your son’s metalcore band is, once again, playing a punk show, your normal attire, once again, meets the occasion.

[captain-safetypants]

I am deeply appreciative of the Tumblr ADHD community sharing their childhood struggles and adulthood coping strategies to help me parent my child who is the ADHD of all time with a bit more understanding and compassion. I remember being a kid! I do not remember being an adhd kid, because I was not one. Their child brain does not work the same way my child brain worked. It gets rough sometimes, but y’all help explain and contextualize their struggles in a way they are currently unable to do. It helps. It helps so much.

I can never leave Tumblr because after years of sporadic therapy utterly failed to even approach the core of my problem some random tumblr user was like “I processed my trauma by writing a 10,000 word work of filthy fanfic erotica” and I was like “fuck it I’ve tried everything else” and now I’m 17 chapters and 20,000 words deep into an unpublishable work of obscenity and after careful literary analysis with one of the Beloved Mutuals I have come to some Terrible Revelations about my childhood and may now continue the process of Healing. Where else am I supposed to get this kind of experience. Who does this. Why are we like this. I’m never leaving. I love y’all.

[thepersonalwords]

If you can't do what you really want to do, then do the next best thing!

Stacey Culpepper

[idontmatter2you]

Via Dump a Day on Pinterest

[typhlonectes]

[tastefullyoffensive]

Mom With Special Needs Daughter Goes Off On Entitled Father Who Demanded His Toddler Should Get To Pet Her Service Dog

[thehmn]

A lot of people around me are having kids and every day it becomes more apparent that hitting your children to punish them is insane because literally everything can be a horrible punishment in their eyes if you frame it as such.

Like, one family makes their toddler sit on the stairs for three minutes when he hits his brother or whatever. The stairs are well lit and he can see his family the whole time, he’s just not allowed to get up and leave the stairs or the timer starts over. He fucking hates it just because it’s framed as a punishment.

Another family use a baseball cap. It’s just a plain blue cap with nothing on it. When their toddler needs discipline he gets a timeout on a chair and has to put the cap on. When they’re out and about he just has to wear the cap but it gets the same reaction. Nobody around them can tell he’s being punished because it’s in no way an embarrassing cap, but HE knows and just the threat of having to wear it is enough.

And there isn’t the same contempt afterwards I’ve seen with kids whose parents hit them. One time the kid swung a stick at my dog, his mother immediately made him sit on the stairs, he screamed but stayed put, then he came over to my dog and gently said “Sorry Ellie” and went back to playing like nothing happened, but this time without swinging sticks at the nearby animals.

[anexperimentallife]

I love this.

[asynca]

my parents never came to anything I did.

I have so many memories about this, but one in particular: when I was away at camp with 89 other teenagers, and at the one-month mark the post was collected distributed to all the dorms. 89 other children tore open their boxes and, shovelling handfuls of sweets their parents had sent them into their mouths, read pages-long letters and handed around photos of their brothers and sisters.

I didn't. I didn't get anything, I sat on my empty bed watching them. The teachers had to call my parents and ask if perhaps the post had gone missing...? but my parents were surprised they were required to interact with me while I was away.

Well, today, my 3-year-old daughter had a fun-run. The childcare centre invited parents to come but stressed that if we weren't able to, it was alright. There was no fucking way I wasn't going. My daughter wasn't going to be the only child there without a parent watching.

I got time off work and stood there in the beating sun and plastered in greasy sunscreen waiting to see my little girl emerge from inside the centre and stand on the track.

When she did, her little eyes searched through the crowd person-by-person for me, and absolutely lit up like the sun when she spotted me.

Mine filled with tears as I waved at her and cheered.

I'm breaking the cycle.

[happyherringbonkpickle]

[cpericardium]

seems reasonable

[wordswithloveee]

[drmajalis]

Too good to stay on twitter