Samantha John

eating potato chips with chopsticks so my fingers don’t get greasy

@Romy_Holland We were a mix and about 4 months I stopped offering bottles. I think to make the switch you’d have to trade off a few sessions of refusing to give him a bottle and him being mad at you :(

@samanthamjohn how old was she when you made the switch? my baby *finally* seems to have outgrown painful reflux as of like 2 weeks ago but now he prefers bottles so strongly he freaks out if i try to nurse. i’d really hoped to switch back but it seems basically impossible now.

ive been exclusively pumping for months and I keep thinking I should probably just stop, but every day I just keep going. my life would be a lot better with those hours back each day and my guess is that I'll feel more like myself when my hormones go back to baseline, but somehow I just don't seem to know how to stop. it almost feels like a mild addiction or something.

Hot take: @Aella_Girl Substack advice posts are the millennial version of George Saunders story club. Different content but same way of helping you direct your attention

@_samantha_joy My 16 month-old loves to list off her favorite things (dogs name, neighbors name, mama, dads etc.) so this style makes sense to me. Each book is a list of interesting things in the world that I enjoy perusing with her.

I mostly had in mind all the "my first words" or "my first library" books that just seem like glorified flash cards btw.

I'm open to being convinced I'm wrong, but I feel dubious about the value of 'baby books' and don't plan to buy/use them. And I'm someone who is so bullish on the value of reading/literature, I'll be using Montessori to start phonics at ~2.5yo. But 'baby books' seem like they fit in the category of "looks educational to adults, but not all that valuable from a child's perspective". At least for a child under ~12-18 months. If the goal is building vocabulary, it's far more effective (and easy) to let your baby engage with real objects in the world and provide the names that way. If the goal is the child regularly hearing rich language, it's far easier and more effective to just talk to your baby and narrate everything you're doing. You can also just read *real* books and poetry and get the added benefit of providing varied prosody. I see a lot of parents stressing out, like "my baby won't sit still while I read to him/her" or "my baby just wants to rip/turn the pages or throw the book" and idk, my response is just ... what are we even doing here? for whom? again, I'm open to arguments, but I highly doubt handling board books at 8 months old really makes that much of a difference in whether a child eventually loves reading, especially if you're going to invest heavily in them loving to read once they're a toddler.

Willie Nelson is 92 and still touring and making music. I guess this is the opposite of FIRE and I love it. newyorker.com/magazine/2025/…

the joy of “sleeping in” until 7am is something you only experience when you have a young child or a long distance running hobby.

@Aella_Girl I think a lot of the toil is preference. Eg babies take as many or as few baths as you care to give them, if you don’t mind a mess they don’t either etc. in that way your teen boy energy would serve you well. But you can’t know for sure what it’s like til it’s too late to undo

I think some people, more commonly women, are better suited for babies than I am, such that they'd experience less suffering. I know if I had a baby I could do it, I am functional during hard crunch periods, but id: A. Be having them as a single mom (I'm not wealthy enough to hire reliable round the clock care for years, and I would 100% not want to put them in school) and B. My mental makeup is not well suited for childcare. I am extremely non-feminine in most ways related to early childhood rearing. I live like a teenage boy. I very carefully have constructed my life to be as free as possible from people needing things from me. I have cooked a meal once, maybe twice in my life. I am really messy. I don't like loud noises or being interrupted. I hate chores because they are boring and distracting (hence my lack of showering), and I spend more than is reasonable paying other people to do routine tasks. I'm really low neuroticism and don't mind when things go wrong. I have the "goofy absentminded dad" archetype. Again: I believe I would be a great mom and have forced myself to do hard things for a long time when I need to, but especially in the early years, doing it alone and with my psychology, would be an immense sacrifice that would definitely suck for me quite a lot. My drive to have kids is almost entirely to have made people who talk to me in full sentences.

It’s surprising how much fun I have going to a weekly yoga class to do the ashtanga full primary series. I thought it would be boring to do the same sequence over and over but instead I see my progress and discover new things each time.

Current favorite AI use case is my iPhone turning groups of photos into videos which I use to entertain my toddler while she’s pooping. I wanted to be no screens, but since I also look at my phone while I poop it seemed hypocritical to deny her.

It’s 2026 and new TVs still come with the soap opera effect out of the box. Does anyone actually want this or is it a matter of defaults from years ago that nobody bothered to update?

I sent a new years letter to friends with a life update and it gave me so much anxiety. I kept imagining everyone thinking I was pretentious and self-centered for sending it. I got back really nice replies and life updates from folks. I’m glad I was brave this time.

Sometimes I read a book and want to stop because it’s stressing me out but then also feel guilty about ditching the characters in such a bad spot. This is happening with Cat’s Eye which is excellent but I guess I can’t really recommend it.

When he was younger my dog used to go nuts chasing lizards even though he never caught a single one. I realized today that he doesn’t really do it anymore, and it made me kind of sad. Now he’s 4, middle-aged for a dog, and he’s given up his wild improbable dreams.

Of course she cared not at all for this beautiful flower and is much more fascinated by her collection of dead leaves.

Spending time with my toddler daughter outside is a million times easier than inside. There are about an equal number of dangerous things + things she can break and infinitely more entertainments not provided by me.

@Aella_Girl A very short and hilarious book about this very topic: The English Understand Wool by @helendewitt

Ok over last few years I've had hordes of literary agents banging down my door and I have no idea how to choose. 1. Am I optimizing for "which agent seems likely to get me the best deal with a publisher"? Is that most important element that sets agents apart from each other? 2. If so, how do I tell which agents would be good at this? What markers do I look for? 3. Some agents are more personal fans of my work vs more professionally noticing opportunity. How important is it to weight on the first category? 4. What questions should I be asking them, and what answers should I be looking for? 5. Should I just be like 'are u nice + have represented high profile stuff before"? Over the years I've done calls with many but they all seem very nice and perfectly competent but they all blend together and I am utterly at a loss for figuring out what to do. Idk if relevant but I have ~3-4 potential books that could be written, or one book that's a combo of 3-4 major elements, and so my vision is not super clear yet. How important is it to get my vision clear before selecting an agent? How much can agents help with vision clarity later down the road?

@Romy_Holland 1. Love that you are live-tweeting your pregnancy/birth, this is the content I didn’t know I needed. 2. Look up vocal toning. I figured it out half way through labor and wish someone had told me sooner. 3. You got this! Can’t wait for your hot takes on life with a newborn.

i’m having contractions that hurt badly enough that they make get on all fours and moan things like “this is so fucked up who invented this?” but they’re still not rhythmic or super long in duration. the internet tells me this could continue for days before true labor begins. how tf did i not know this was a thing i could be in for?

started a new job that doesn't allow us to use @arcinternet and I'm so sad. It's an actual productivity dip :( I feel so overwhelmed by tabs now!

@AriX Talk to @adamgries—this is his wheelhouse !

Anyone know of any Discords or other communities where people nerd out about agents, reinventing the operating system, future of computing, etc? Asking for a friend!