Mine's at 64 right now. I have a light jacket on, and it's comfortable. I think we had it at 62 last night. I have to ease into winter, so that's the lowest it's been. 64 during the day is good for me, and I'd like to get down to 60 at night, but we have a baby coming in January, so I'm not sure how that will work. My oldest was sleeping with the window open until it started getting under 45 or so at night, so I'm not too worried about him, anyway.

I voted other. I like them with the skin okay, but I do have a strong preference for no skin, I must admit.

Yes, feed store in the spring. Or Craigslist. You could also order from somewhere that will send you fewer than 25 (My Pet Chicken will do as few as 3, last time I checked, if you're in an urban area so they won't be in the mail too long) and then you just have a couple of extras to sell when they get big enough to go outside (we did this once, and didn't have any trouble selling the extra pullets on Craigslist; plus that way we got to decide which ones we liked the best and keep those).

I don't use it, but I should :) I say, "this is a _______, not a circus" from Les Mis a lot. Like, "this is a minivan, not a circus!" to shut kids up.

I waited a little over an hour, as did DH when he voted a couple of hours later (I got in line a little after 1). My friends who live in the next precinct over hardly had to wait at all, though.

:iagree: Of course feeling shy can go to extremes and lead to behaviors that are problematic (coming across as rude, shyness limiting ability to make friends or function in the world, etc.) but that's true of pretty much any personality trait. My 6 year old is extraordinarily self confident. This is a great thing, but it's also something that can cross over to arrogance....it's my job as his parent to keep a check on this and to teach him ways to wield his confidence in a socially acceptable way. But no one would suggest that I'd be giving him a negative label if I said, sometime when he was quick to answer a question or to volunteer himself for some challenging job, "he's very confident." I think a lot of us who are on the introverted side of things get frustrated with our personality type being constantly labeled as inferior and dealing with subtle and overt suggestions that we should try to become extroverts. So, yes; to me it is calling "shy" a negative label that's the problem. I never want my kids to get the idea that there's something wrong with how they naturally FEEL, even as I acknowledge that they will have to come out of their comfort zones and adjust their behaviors to get along in the world.

I might get him a kreg jig. so he can build stuff for me ;). Maybe Nate Silver's book, since he's mathy.

Neal Cassady. Who was a friend of Jack Kerouac--Dean Moriarty from On the Road was based on him. When I heard it last night, I thought it was so obvious that it would turn out to be a pseudonym....but I guess it's only immediately obvious to those of us who had an obsessive Jack Kerouac phase in high school ;)

Yes, this. I remember hearing about how I shouldn't label when my oldest was younger. One day we checked the book "Shy Charles" out of the library; he was about 4 at the time and I think it was the first time he'd heard the word defined. It was clearly a huge relief to him to have a word for how he felt and to know that there were other kids (and mice) who felt the same way. He NEEDED that label. It's only a negative thing if you see it that way.

DH grows one every winter these days. I don't mind the way it looks (and, in fact, it always freaks me out when he first shaves because he looks like he's 12 to me for the first few days), but, yeah, I could do without the scratchiness. But it's his face, so it's his decision. He lets me tell him what to wear, so it all works out.

I always have good luck putting bread in a cold oven instead of preheating it first (at least yeast bread). And starting at a lower temperature and then raising it just at the end to brown it after it's mostly cooked through.

That sounds like my almost seven year old. It's exhausting, isn't it? I LOVE his enthusiasm and his confidence, but....well, I need a break from it sometimes. At least until he's more independent about it. ETA: what about a movie instead of a play? Then you could invite over some people and have a screening.

Yes. I could possibly get more upset about this if George Lucas had done a decent job on the last three Star Wars movies.

We watched Beetlejuice a few days ago, and it was a hit. Edward Scissorhands? Haven't watched it in awhile, but I think it's okay? We meant to get around to E.T. before Halloween, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Ghostbusters.

DS started playing guitar last year at 8, and we bought him a full size guitar (after he tried out a couple of smaller ones). He's tall, but not, it sounds like, as tall as your DS. That's with an electric guitar, though (we were told by several different people that electric guitars are easier for kids to play and they're less likely to get frustrated and give up on them); DH has a full size acoustic guitar and it looks HUGE when DS holds it.

I think it's probably just habit and familiarity more than anything; they've had the touches for a long time. I guess the app selection is probably better, too. Also, they fit in their pockets :)

I used to turn the heat up just enough for it to cut on and then put the bread in our small half bath with the door closed. Since it was a tiny room with its own vent, it got a lot warmer than the rest of the house when the heat ran.

My kids got one last year from the grandparents (to share, not one each). It doesn't get used much, honestly. sometimes I'll have my oldest read a book for school on it. But, then, they have itouches, and they seem to prefer those, despite the bigger screen on the kindle.

I have between 30 minutes and an hour scheduled (for all of mine--1st through 6th grade), depending on the day. My 4th grader rarely works on his main math (Singapore 4a) for an entire hour, though. If he burns out, or if he's finishes an exercise with extra time left, he works on multiplication tables (hot dots) or does some Brain Pop math, or we do Beast Academy for awhile, or some other math activity.

Ephraim Ari Asa Samuel Dov Judah Lev I have a thing for three letter Hebrew names. I have an Ari. But I fear we in the south are too slippery with our vowels for us to use most of them. I did try to talk DH into Lev this time around, as less trendy than Levi and more useable for us than Leo, since my good friend already used Leo. He won't go for it, though. I like Asa with Noah.

My 9 and 11 year olds: *make most of their own breakfasts and lunches (mostly stuff like cereal and nachos, but they can also do mac and cheese on the stove, bake a potato, etc) *empty dishwasher *wash, dry, fold, and put away own laundry (11 year old independently, 9 year old with minimal help) *clean kitchen after dinner with help *clean rooms *vacuum their rooms plus all public areas upstairs *clean their bathroom *11 year old mowed the lawn until we got a bigger yard and a riding mower. It will be awhile before we let him do that *clean windows sometimes, mostly when I'm giving them extra chores for being obnoxious

I had a 22 pound terrier mix who was completely housebroken when he was 8 weeks old. So I think it doesn't really depend on the size of the dog, but I do think there tends to be overlap between breeds that are known for being tough to house train and breeds on the small side. I hear you on the bad luck with rescue dogs....just to throw another idea out there--we adopted our latest after fostering her first. We didn't go into fostering intending to adopt so soon (we only made it to the second foster dog before caving!), but I don't think I'll ever do it another way now. Our last couple rescue/shelter dogs came with a lot of issues, and I was on the verge of saying to heck with it and buying a puppy next time. But fostering turned out to be perfect; we specified that we only wanted to foster small dogs, and we were able to live with her and find out all her quirks, good and bad, before we decided we couldn't live without her. But we also got to know we were helping a dog who needed a chance (she was rescued from a high kill shelter when she was very, very pregnant before she came to us).

I'm in metro Atlanta. I'd like some defining of terms, here, too. I'm guessing more people than not are in the metropolitan area of some major city, depending on how we define metropolitan area and major. According to this from the Brookings Institution, "Two-thirds of our population lives in the top 100 metropolitan areas, and 84 percent of Americans live in all 363 metros."

:iagree: DH is in his 10th year; I'm used to him being burnt out and frustrated by the END of the year, but he's already there now, and it's only October. He did web development for a non-profit before he started teaching, and he's started to seriously think about going back to that. If only he could find a spare minute between teaching, chauffering kids to math tournaments, grading papers, planning, and tutoring to make up for all the pay cuts he's taken over the past few years to brush up on his programming.... It's really frustrating how people who love to teach and are great at it are driven out of the profession by the parts of it that have nothing whatsoever to do with teaching.

My 11 year old goes upstairs around 8 or 8:30, lights out at 9:30 on weekdays and 10 on weekends.