It's interesting...this exact scenario actually came up during the campaign. Obama said that he would act without Pakistan's go ahead if he had credible evidence that Osama Bin Laden was there and had a chance to get him. He was attacked repeatedly by both Senator Clinton and Senator McCain as being incredibly naive because of this answer. So maybe "any acting president" would do the same thing, but during the campaign the two other candidates who came closest to being president mocked Obama for saying that he would do it.

It's sort of a strange question. I mean, obviously whether one considers the things President Obama has done to be "good" or not is going to vary by individual and by personal political leaning. But he's a not a president who's criticized for not doing anything. There have been presidents like that, but he's not one. If anything, he's criticized for doing too much. It's pretty clear, whether you like him or not, that he's accomplished a great deal in a short amount of time; I imagine he'd be lot less controversial if he were less effective. So it's not hard to give you a huge list, as Sis has done, but somehow I doubt that's going to convince you that he's a great president. If the standard is "what good has he done that everyone in the country agrees is good?" then I'm not sure we've ever had a good president.

I consider myself pretty possessive about my food, and it still wouldn't bother me. The first bite I'm not concerned about. What really gets me is when someone tries to take one of the last bites of a cookie, because I time it perfectly to run out at the same time as the milk.

If you have a Roku, we've found a couple of series on their Kidlet station. There's Class of the Titans, which is a Percy-Jackson-esque animated series (Canadian, I think). It's not really retellings of myths, but it's full of references to them. And then they have Mythic Warriors, which has animated versions of a bunch of myths...I'm not sure how accurate they are, though (I haven't watched much of it myself, but the kids have spotted many differences between those versions and the ones they're familiar with from other sources).

I think kids tell you (not necessarily with words) when they're ready to learn to read. I wouldn't insist on formal lessons for a reluctant kid until they're kindergarten age. IME, if a young kid is really ready to learn to read, you won't be able to stop them from learning :).

:iagree: DH and I were pretty broke when we got married and for the first few years of our marriage (okay, we're still pretty broke)...but I often wish we'd made doing some pre-kid traveling more of a priority and scraped the money together somehow. It only gets harder to justify a splurge on non-essentials every now and then as you get older, add kids and a mortgage, etc.

2 connecting rooms at a value is our favorite at Disney. I'm big on being on property, though, so if that's not important to you, you can find a better deal elsewhere. I really love Pop century, and they've redone all the rooms over the past year or so, so they're pretty nice.

I keep almost replying, but then Mrs. Mungo just says everything I want to say before I can post, so I'll just throw out a general :iagree: in her direction. Race baiting in American politics is certainly nothing new. Why, it used to be a Democratic trick back before the Civil Rights Act and the Southern Strategy and all that. The more things change...

I just explained it (briefly and matter of factly) to my almost 10 year old. "They'd been looking for him for almost 10 years," I told him. "Like Valjean!" he responded. Er. We just saw Les Mis at DH's high school this past weekend.

DH tutors math, and he charges $40/hr. He's a high school teacher, though; I'd expect to pay less to a student (assuming your son is one).

Thanks everyone! I've been looking at amusement park websites all day! I think what we're going to do is get a season pass to Six Flags....it's good for every Six Flags in the country, so we can use it at the Atlanta one and stop at the NJ one on the way up this summer AND it will be about $10 cheaper per person than ONE day at Busch Gardens. I'm sure Busch Gardens is prettier, but this seems like a much better deal (and we can see pretty when we go to Disney this fall :)). Also, surprisingly, it looks like there are quite a few coasters DS5 can do at Six Flags in NJ; they have several with a 44 inch height requirement instead of that no man's land for kids who are almost 48 inches like a lot of other parks seem to have.

We're driving from Georgia to Cape Cod mid-June and are thinking of stopping at a theme park for a day or two on the way up. My first thought was Busch Gardens, but then I started thinking about Hershey Park, and then I started wondering what else I was overlooking, and decided to start a thread so that I could be even MORE overwhelmed with options :D. My main hesitation about Busch Gardens is my 46.5 inch tall, fearless five year old. It looks like there are a lot of kiddie rides he can do, and then a lot of big coasters he can mournfully watch his big brothers go on, and not a whole lot in between. It seems like Hershey might have more mild coasters he could do. Thoughts? Anyone want to sell me on your favorite park? Kids will be 5, 8, and 10, and are mostly up for trying anything; they've done several Disney trips, but not much else, amusement park-wise. And we pretty much are looking at stuff that would be along our route--or at least wouldn't add more than an hour or two to the total drive time.

....and the day after I post, there's an article in the local paper about cuts to our pre-K program. Turns out there's a waiting list that 8-10,000 kids are on, and they're increasing the class size from 20 to 22 for next year, along with cutting the calendar from 180 to 160 days. It's funded with lottery money, along with the college scholarship program whose future I'm much more invested in than pre-K, on a personal level.

Georgia has univeral free pre-K, but my understanding is that that's pretty unusual.

$50 is a huge bargain for a week of petsitting. If it were me, I might feel uncomfortable asking you again if I weren't able to give you a thank you gift; I'd feel like I was taking advantage.

We have a basement, as do all the houses in my neighborhood. I grew up in the same area (north Georgia), and I don't think any of the houses I lived in growing up had basements. I don't know what the percentages are, though. I'm super paranoid about storms, and I would be a mess every time there was a tornado warning if we didn't have a basement. I really wish our basement were finished, though, so it'd be more pleasant to be stuck down there with 3 kids and assorted pets!

There's a lot of middle ground that's well-written and full of big ideas but still more accessible than some of the older classics. Roald Dahl is always a hit around here. I don't think there are any kids' books of any generation more beautifully written than Charlotte's Web and Tuck Everlasting.

We've used the Online Etymology Dictionary before: http://www.etymonline.com/

Well, I have a fairly similar sounding kid, and I'm pretty much going with your option 2 for next year. He'll be finishing Singapore 6 sometime in the fall (I'm guessing; he's about 1/3 of the way through 6a right now, and he just started it a few weeks ago). I'm hoping to jump into AOPS pre-algebra at that point. The description says for kids who enjoy math and have finished through 5th grade math, so I'm hoping that since he'll have finished through 6th grade it will be a little less intimidating for him. I guess where I'm differing from some of the PPs is that I don't hear you saying that your DD dislikes challenges in math specifically, but that she's resistant to challenging herself in general. Of course, I may be reading into it...but that's what's going on with my DS. A super streak of perfectionism and a sort of phobia of being wrong. I was talking about this with DH the other day; on one hand AOPS kind of sounds like a disaster waiting to happen...on the other hand, he absolutely HAS TO learn that it's okay if something is hard and if he doesn't immediately know the right answer, that, in fact, much of his schoolwork should be that way. And math is his strongest subject, and also, I think, maybe the safest place for him to learn to challenge himself, since eventually he will get to the right answer and he'll know he's gotten there (as opposed to something like writing where it's impossible to ever be certain you've achieved perfection). A little rambly, but those are my thoughts. I'm really hoping AOPS pre-algebra is going to work out for him. I've talked to him about it some, and he's excited about it, so that's a good sign.

thanks! I have some Jean Craighead George around that I haven't been able to interest the oldest in as an independent read. I might try some as a read-aloud to suck him in... Haroun and the Sea of Stories is on DS9's school reading list for next year :). I haven't read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; I'll take a look. All boys...I'm not sure I can interest them in Austen until they get a little older and more...romantically minded ;)

I need ideas for my almost 8 and almost 10 year olds. They're both strong readers, and I'm finding more and more that I prefer to "save" books written for children for them to read to themselves. Either that or we've already read them. So I'm starting to turn to age-appropriate, not specifically for kids classics. We just finished The Fellowship of the Ring, and now we're starting Watership Down. I have a few other ideas, but I have a hard time judging how well they might hold the kids' attention. Any thoughts on Oliver Twist or Great Expectations, for example? Other books you've read successfully to kids that age-ish? They don't have to be just non-kid books; if you have a favorite children's read aloud for older kids, I'd love to hear them, too...I just feel like we've already hit a lot of the biggies from that category, whereas there's a whole new world out there when we expand past kid lit.

Thanks for the ideas everyone! She is spayed, and, in fact, seemed completely content to be inside UNTIL she got spayed, but that's probably a coincidence. We've tried the spray bottle a couple of times, but she's been known to jump in the bathtub with the kids, so I don't know that water is much of a deterrent for her. I'd be good with just ignoring her and seeing if we can wait her out, except that she's quick and wily and, despite our best efforts, usually manages at least one escape a day. It's especially tough this time of year, when the weather's nice out so I have 3 boys running in and out all day. We've gotten where we open the door to come inside crouched over with one hand out ready to stop her if she's on the other side. Sigh. I'll try some of the negative reinforcement ideas here (sorry kitty!). We also have a screened in porch which she loves, but I haven't been letting her out there because there are some rips in the screen on the door, and she can get out. I'm going to go out there now and see if I can make some temporary fixes with a staple gun. There's also a barbecue deck attached to it (it's on the second level), that I'm fairly certain she won't try to jump off of. So maybe between those two things I can convince her that 1. she doesn't want to go out in the yard because it's a terrible, horrifying place and 2. life can still be worthwhile as long as you have a barbecue deck to hang out on. My other cat, incidentally, wouldn't go out unless I pushed her out the door. She's almost 12, and has never expressed the tiniest bit of interest in going out. We had her littermate until he got sick and we had to put him down last fall, though, and he was just like this new kitty. I did finally give up on him and start letting him out sometimes, but the kids were younger then and less able to follow directions about closing doors and all that; I thought it would be easier this time. But it's funny...two cats with identical upbringings and genetics and completely different personalities. (I also keep thinking maybe if we got another kitten, she'd have more to do and be more content inside. But I'm afraid to even suggest it to DH. Anyone want to weigh in on that idea? 3 cats aren't much more trouble than 2, right? right?)

We got a kitten for Christmas. She was in a foster home before we got her (when she was around 10 weeks old), so she'd never been outside. First couple of months she was fine, but she's now totally obsessed with getting outside. It's all she thinks about. She camps out by the door. She meows to get out. She seems really miserable being inside. I don't know what to do. I don't want to let her out, but I don't want her to be the saddest kitty in the world either. We have a harness for her, and take her out on that sometimes, but she doesn't really like it. She wants to run and chase bugs. Anyone had a cat like this and managed to get through it? It's been many weeks now that we've been having this battle of wills with her, and she shows no signs of giving up.

When I first read this, I thought you were asking if there's any evidence that drinking occasionally makes you a better parent. And I'd have to say yes. Some days I think it's very very good for my kids that I know I have a glass of wine to look forward to at the end of the day :lol: (sorry...I know I'm still not doing anything to get the thread back to its original intent!)

Who knew a thread about controversial nutrition information could run up against that other controversial issue? :lol: