The series by Willard Price - African Adventure, Undersea Adventure etc? Again might be under her reading level but ds loves the over the top adventure. They aren't a problem for any of the reasons you mention, but they're old - both dh and I read them as kids - and they're rather 'colonial' in their descriptions of local people in other countries. Books by Jules Verne - ds is enjoying these now. I'll second The Saturdays. Mrs Fridby and the Rats of NIMH?

Your Money or Your Life - Joe Dominguez In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan The Tightwad Gazette - Amy Dacyczyn The Baby Book - William Sears The Well Trained Mind - Susan Wise Bauer I didn't follow the recommendations in any of then slavishly, but each fundamentally altered how I live my life in a permanent way. Although this was more about giving structure to things I already believed in rather than introducing me to new ideas.

She's definitely not wrong. Pertussis (whooping cough) would be my big concern although I think that is usually an issue with a younger baby. A newborn died from that here a while ago and there was a lot of publicity. The disease was contracted from an unvaccinated adult in that case.

This relates to what I've noticed: my fruit and veg bill drops dramatically if I forgo the supermarket and shop wherever ethnic minorities are in the majority. At the moment I buy fruit and veg from a Vietnamese owned store (ethnically speaking - I'm sure they're more Australian than me by length of citizenship). Prices are lower overall, and there are often bags of less-than-perfect products at very low prices. I was wondering about people who suggest meal planning: I do that too, mostly as a way of cutting impulse spending (and eating). But does anyone plan meals specifically around what's on sale, and how does that work? I imagine I would have to go to the supermarket, buy what's on special (actually there are two competitors in the same centre, so ... check at both?), go to the fruit and veg shop and get whatever is lowest priced (seasonal, or discounted, usually both). Then I'd need to sit in my car, plan the menu, go back into the fruit and veg shop to fill in the gaps and revisit the supermarket for the same reason (although with a good pantry of staples the latter wouldn't be as necessary). That's how I've theorised I'd get the most for my grocery budget but it does sound like a complicated process - I've never actually tried it. I'll mention another thing that's never mentioned in this sort of thread, so it probably falls into the 'politically incorrect' category, but eating less is actually a viable strategy in some instances. I say this because when I started a weightloss programme that involved some changes to our overall shopping habits I thought our grocery bill would go up, but with eating less our bill actually stayed the same. We opted to use smaller plates, which helped the mental transition. This certainly isn't practical for all families, but it was an interesting observation when applied to ours.

I use similar quantities but 2 egg yolks rather than a whole egg. We also add lemon juice at the end, and garlic never hurts. I use sunflower oil as olive oil is too strongly flavoured, but I recently tried macadamia oil and it was very good, although expensive. My recipe is the type that slowly adds the oil to the egg and vinegar, and I use an electric whisk. Dumping it all in a blender or processor is quite appealing!

We have very hot summers and the kids manage fine with fruit that isn't chilled. Salad might need more chilling. Most of the time dd will just have leftovers at room temperature. If she takes soup then she uses a thermos - as with most nowadays it's metal, not glass lined. Her preferred lunch at the moment is either a pasta salad (pesto or tomato and garlic or butternut and goats cheese) or chana masala (chickpea curry) and a chapati. We make 3-4 days at a time and they go from the fridge straight into her school bag, she doesn't worry about cooling or heating. In addition she takes a piece of fruit. And sometimes a cookie :-) I don't think you'll find a lunch box that does everything you want. If it were me I'd opt for an insulated lunch bag that can take a cooler brick and a lunch box, and either keep the thermos separate or put it in the same insulated bag but not touching the cooler brick. You also get bowl shaped thermos containers. This might serve him better than a typical wide mouthed thermos, but we had mixed results keeping food hot with the one we had (it was heated in the microwave before sealing). A speciality kitchen shop should have a few options.

I agree with those saying another cup of coffee, at least if you're only having one other caffeinated cup a day. But don't leave it too late or it will mess with your sleep. Better yet, try for a nap and save coffee as an extra pick-me-up on days you can't get the nap. As for getting up in the night, I don't think it's too much of a big deal unless you don't get back to sleep again. At one stage I was waking for a pee at 4am (and no, that would not be the first time) and then I couldn't get back to sleep. Eventually I started setting an (gentle classical music) alarm for 2am and going then just so I wouldn't need to wake at 4am! It did actually work at "resetting my clock".

Any chance you injured yourself swallowing tablets? Dd did this recently dry-swallowing a tablet, which, as she now knows is potentially very dangerous. We put her on a soft food diet - puréed fruit, soup, yoghurt mostly. It took a couple of days before she progressed to food like rice, and another couple before she was happy eating hard food. It was really painful for her, and terrifying for me (because I'm the one who Googles stuff) but the soft food approach gave it time to heal itself.

I've been looking at accommodation in Greece, and most apartment owner reminds renter that there's no noise from 2-5pm, that's when people rest. In other words, I think the early afternoon slump is natural, and in many parts of the world it's acknowledged and built into daily life. Yours does sound extreme, but it also sounds as though you're working hard in the morning, so maybe that's to be expected. I have extended times when I've been like that, often when I was under other emotional stress. I know you mention a toddler, but I would work really, really hard to fit in a nap. At one stage when dd was 3 yrs I'd have her sit on the bed with me (perhaps playing with an electronic something or other?) while I dozed. I'd also see about a protein rich lunch, see if that helps. In my experience feeling like this doesn't last forever but I do remember how awful it felt when it did - having to function when you really just ... can't.

Well, he's a grown man so I assume he's happy with the arrangement or he'd leave. It's a bit of a leap to cast him as the helpless victim with a tyrannical wife just because he works and she stays home but expects him there at a certain time or has opinions on where they as a couple live. I think that balancing the relative importance of the individual and the couple in any marriage is challenging, and there are many ways it can be managed. If he's the type of guy who would never cook a meal or take a cup to the kitchen or iron his own shirt or sweep a floor and they're both happy that she stays home and does those things, then what's the problem? That's her job. In our situation, we have children at school, so that alters the equation a bit, but many people would think our decision (note the pronoun) for me to stay home is strange. It doesn't always work best for him. It doesn't always work best for me. But on average, as a couple, a collective, the current arrangement provides the best outcome.

Yes! And my morning coffee is always in bed. It makes an excellent bridge between 'asleep' and 'awake'.

I'd love to hear. I think you will find the 46L pack is too big for carry on. I have a 30L and measured it a couple of days ago for RyanAir's carry on measurements and it's spot on. Presumably even over packing it would make it too large (I've read they do occasionally actually check but I don't know if that's just travel lore!). I recently tried the Marie Kondo folding method for all my clothes and I couldn't believe how much fitted into my drawers. I think it would work well for travel cube too (it's halfway between a fold an a roll).

I opened the dishwasher once and a mouse ran out... (The dishwasher had not been run yet). The kids were young and the dishwasher was in a laundry off the kitchen so we didn't necessarily always keep it closed before it was ready to run. We caught 11 mice before we found and sealed the hole (in the baseboard of the laundry cupboard). One was under the bedding of a trundle bed in my daughter's room. A bed that dh happened to have slept in that night...

I'm having the same and from what I read, mostly it's not something they bother about. Mine starts to get really noticeable then goes away again. I'm not sure they'd see anything if it wasn't happening when they tested. I worry a bit because I'm exercising properly for the first time (although it doesn't happen then, only when I'm lying down). I also think when I stress about it I become hypervigilant and notice it more for a while. Where a friend who had something similar did find she had a heart issue it was part of a much bigger story of a genetic condition which (in retrospect) had lead to several unexplained deaths in the family. I will try to get it checked out one day.

Roast the broccoli and brussel sprouts with garlic as in the following recipe. It's for hoisin salmon so I imagine the flavour combo will be equally good. http://www.halfbakedharvest.com/hoisin-caramelized-salmon-sesame-soba-noodle-bowls/

You can look and see where your memory is going (well the IPad's memory!) by looking under settings > general > usage. If you have upgrades pending, for instance, that takes up memory - if you're not planning on updating the iOS, it can be deleted. You will be able to see how much memory each app is using. I've also had a couple of weird instances (on my iPhone) where things I've deleted still show up when the phone is plugged into the computer making it necessary to also delete them via iTunes on the computer (this has happened with tv programmes mostly).

Roundup is the one that kills everything, I think. We used it when we removed lawn. None of them are safe, and you have to keep kids and pets off at first, at least while it's wet. We 'revived' a dead lawn this year, and starting to water while we were still having really hot days (as opposed to letting winter rains revive the lawn more slowly and less efficiently) made the weeds grow like crazy. They were far, far too thick for weeding out. I've gone with a broadleaf weed killer, and will repeat again in a few weeks once the lawn perks up (it hurts the lawn too, but doesn't kill it). This is certainly not the way I prefer to do it, but I spent probably 10 hours weeding a small patch of verge lawn last year (our yard itself is mulched) and I didn't make a dent in the weed population. Poison it is.

It tends to depend on how well you can wring them, and how warm or airy the room is. I find that with 'normal' clothes it takes longer than overnight, at least 24 hours, I'd say. To speed up drying I often roll a washed item up in a towel and leave it that way to absorb for a while before unrolling and hanging the item.

With carry on you're limited in how heavy the bag is going to be anyway. If you're going airport-taxi-hotel-with-lift a wheeled case might be easier, but less so if you're doing public transport, rough sidewalks and an apartment with no lift! The other issue might be what makes you look less the Tourist - looking at video of a European sleeper train I noted immediately that almost everyone had small wheeled suitcases. But travelling with budget airlines in Asia I noticed mostly backpacks.

We are finding absolutely amazing places to stay on AirBnB. But the cheapest places do seem to go fast - we're booking for December and some cities / areas are already showing "only 10% of properties remaining" for our price range.

That's so funny, as it's exactly what happened here. I had read the WTM and I clearly remember her rolling around the floor of the car having a tantrum one day at that age because she wanted to go to school. The child had never been to a school, and knew no one at school but she loved watching the BBC show The Tweenies. And she had Strong Opinions. I've come to realise that there's no one size fits all in education, nor one size fits for always. She did Montessory preschool because I needed it. She did international school because there was no welcoming homeschool community where we lived as expats. She homeschooled because that was always my dream and it provided stability as we established a life in a new country. She went to Montessori school when I couldn't mesh her growing academic needs with the social needs of a toddler. And for the last 4 months she's been in extension classes at a Christian school where, despite the fact that this atheist may have insisted "over my dead body" at various time, she is excelling and I continue to exhibit signs of life. I still believe in homeschooling, but I believe in my kids more. I believe in their unique needs and abilities and their resilience. And I believe in myself and in the need to nurture my own needs and acknowledge where my own expectations and desires are not in my children's best interests. So to the OP, this is not a failure, this is growth, and change. And that's ok. I hope your son finds a place that suits him.

One thing to remember is that wheels and frames add weight. Sometimes it really doesn't matter, but if you're actually going to be carrying it anywhere you don't want the empty bag to already represent a significant weight (or a significant proportion of your carry-on weight limit).

I would have had to opt not to reply or I'm pretty sure I would have offended. That's outrageous. I'm not sure it isn't unethical - someone is basically fixing the competition by asking that your dd not compete.

We're doing it for a 33 day trip to Europe in winter, so it had better be doable! The plan is to do laundry every 7 days. I just looked at the backpacks available, and took one that was comfortable and could unzip all the way around.

At the one school the kids were at the 'class mother' would coordinate donations from everyone and buy birthday and end of year gifts for the teachers. $10 from each parent in a class adds up!