Welcome back! What I want to know is, cupcakes being allowed to be brought to school or not, do you eat them in your spare time? ;)

I am trying this and so far, I really like it! Thanks for sharing!

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

Couple thoughts: Is your sil geuninely intersted in the kids? If so, they could take things to show her? You could let them know that Aunt would love to see them. Also, just because you limit contact with the children doesn't mean that has to apply to your dh and yourself. Looks like your kids are old enough to stay home while you go for a little visit. If they ask, well, the kids aren't interested or they are involved in their activities. This doesn't mean not going to Christmas or something meaningful to your children. There are some activities that family does where the kids have things to do so they don't have much adult interaction. Tough situation for sure. In my family, since the adults modeled picking on my children, the cousins started in too. Not pretty. We rarely see them. It doesn't do any good talking about these beahaviors because they believe it is my problem; I am making mountains out of molehills and of course, they were just kidding anyway. Oh- and they just had the best intentions and weren't trying to hurt x's feelings but they need to buck up anyway. Bleh... I dealt with this attitude growing up. Enough is enough. My dh and myself have been very careful, with what type of adults our children have a lot of contact with. Are they supportive of our children? Can they really see who they are or is it just about if they are behaving the correct way? Of course, the kids run into adults that are scratchy people, but the impact isn't as much as it would be if the adults we primarily interacted with were scratchy as well. Being honest about the situation is the way to go. They will encounter all kinds of people in life. :grouphug:

Posted it twice.

Several things: Did you give a letter that was signed by yourself so they can have him treated medically? Legally you are still the custodial parents, but how will that change if he won't come home? I would definetely contact social services to sort out how this sort of situation should be worked out in the future. I would not send any money to the family, but make expense payment arrangements with social services. One thought I had on the unfriending is they expected you to jump and fork over money to take care of his expenses. Perhaps they wanted to have him there but not have to manage any major expenses so they were just stringing you along to see what you would give them. My other thought on this is perhaps they were jealous that he contacted you because they thought they had everything under control on their end. My other thought was, did your son really need the medicine for himself, or would the people he is staying with need them? I would try and get medical proof just to know. I would think you could do that since you are the custodial parents. Last, like others said, it is weird that you have been unfriended. Again, I agree with having the situatuion checked up on. However, if they are unhealthy people, it might be a pattern they have when they don't know how to deal with perceived conflict. Really very passive aggressive. In my opinion, these types of behaviors can be designed to make the people they are used against feel guilty and shameful enough so they will "chase after" or "go through hoops" to make everything right, except that it isn't even your fault what is happening. The balance between letting the situation play itself out and making sure your son is safe and being taken care of in a non abusive way, feels to me like walking on a tightrope where you can fall off if you move to far one way or the other. Again, you are doing a great job communicating when you get calls. I encourage you to not let your life stop because of this situation. Take your vacation. My fear would be this choice would be something that would get thrown back in my face: see, you didn't want me anyway or you would have waited to have a vacation or I see how it is, as soon as you got rid of me, you decided to have all the fun.) So, if you do have a chance to chat, I would let him know you are vacationing. Perhaps somewhere not to far from where he is (2-3 hours away). Maybe it would peak his interest enough to come. Perhaps though, no matter what you do that involves having fun with the rest of the family will make him jealous and upset anyway. I don't know if any of that is helpful for you. :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: This is such a tough situation and it makes me upset for you everytime there is an update because I just keep wanting to hear that he has decided to come home.

Ah the memories...

:iagree:

:iagree: I am just going to get the first couple books and see how it goes. Amazon sells them but you have to still pay shipping. I haven't found what i consider to be fabulous deals out there for LOF. I don't have the patience for ebay right now but from what I can tell, there really haven't been great deals there either.

Wow! :grouphug: :grouphug: I agree about waiting on school and getting everything else in order as much as possible.

Yum!

I don't have the revised version of Volume 2: Middle Ages. Does anyone have a schedule of how they fit together that is not the revised version? I can figure it out by chapters instead of pages. However, if someone has already done it showing the page numbers, it would save me some time :)

O.k. so can I get a planner or calendar and save it as a file and then use it in OneNote? Thanks!

I can't figure out a calendar that works in OneNote. It looks like any template I choose I have to add all the dates. Help! :willy_nilly: I have 2007 and 2010.

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: This has got to be the longest summer for you ever.

Praying here.

Yes. I have seriously wondered about the bidding up either by the seller or the seller having someone they know bid it up so they get more money. I was hoping that if this was the case, there would be a way to tell it. :)

How can you tell when the seller is bidding up the price?

That is so great!

I would file with paypal. Let them know you are waiting on the items. They will tell you exactly when you need to revoke payment. If you don't receive items by the revoke date, I would have them refund your money. If you get the items after, you can always repay. Let them know what is going on and what you have done. I haven't had a bad experience with this board selling or buying. I'm sorry that your exeperience hasn't been postive.

I wouldn't have a play date again unless it was at a public place where you could watch the interaction while conversing with the mother. IMO, mother is underreacting. Perhaps she really doesn't see the problem or is tired of dealing with the problem. Either way, protect your child and be watchful when your child is playing with hers. :grouphug: So sorry that your son was hurt.

stick shift

Thanks for the update! :grouphug:

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: You are handling this way better than I could. I just keep thinking..this new reality... isn't reality. Still prayin!

Thanks!