Yes, you definitely have to thread the needle between popular and already used.

if you have an indoor garage/basement where they play (or you live in a warm winter climate - I'm so sorry that I've forgotten where you live!), maybe a set of those gym scooters with the handles on the sides. Mine adore those. Get a set of like 4 of those and a big lightweight bouncy ball and they can do all kinds of fun things in a garage or on a big empty wood floor. mine have also liked a tent. Yours might be a bit too young for one, unless you can find a very sturdy one. Don't fall for those trendy teepee things - an actual camping tent is more fun and generally better quality for the price. Ours loved having a little closed in area like that. You could kit it out with body pillows, blankets, etc. (again this relies on having a bit of extra space)

"good dog" training is also an excellent idea

have you done keyword research btw? you might find that more people tend to search for one or another of various basically synonymous ways of saying "well-mannered" - polite, domesticated, trained, well-behaved, etc. - and that some of them have many more searches than others. if your business name can tap into a popular keyword set, or at least a sometimes-used keyword set, you have a leg up on SEO (and on people's natural reactions to the name, since SEO is just a reflection of what people are already doing)

The Polite Dog

A dollhouse from these people: https://elvesandangels.com/ or something similar - sturdy, open-ended play. We did a set of lazer tag guns one year which was a hit but only lasted a short time because batteries. Those ball pit balls are favorites.

Yes, Lanny. and don't try to gimmick things - don't pay people for reviews, or go spamming your site places where it isn't relevant (these things are probably obvious but you'd be surprised what people think is a good idea), or stuff titles of pages so full of keywords that they're incoherent.

The most important thing I can say to you about SEO is that you must make sure you're not making coding errors and stuff, if you're listing on your own site; the second most important thing is that search engines are designed, in their ideal form, to let searchers find the best material for their search. That means that the best way to do SEO is to focus on what appeals to your customers, what works for your website, what makes sense to someone looking for your things. Keyword research is also really important, because it gives you the long tail (that is, lots of varied keywords and phrases that you might not have thought of yourself that people do search when they look for your type of material or items).

cindylouwho2 on etsy is a great resource for SEO information. I know the Etsy part of it will be useless to you but she does also have a lot of info on SEO for google, as well as keyword research, marketing, tons of stuff. She does it for free because it interests her; she was an IP lawyer in a past life and is just brilliant but has mitochondrial disease and set up an etsy shop selling jewelry so that as her cognitive function declines she can still be productive (she no longer has the brain for the stuff she did in her healthier years but her brain is still miles ahead of mine). Our shop on Etsy is very successful. We are the most successful label shop on Etsy. I would say a good 1/3 of that is because I read her advice regularly. Anyway, here is her google+ page (which is closing soon): https://plus.google.com/collection/ofehY and here is her sort of regularly updated list of interesting articles: https://www.etsy.com/teams/10713/etsy-relevancy-seo-and-stats/discuss/18383437 I find those massively useful, tbh.

I bought some jackfruit tamales frozen from the grocery store once. They were not spectacular.

these threads always make me feel like my kids are maybe not the world's most destructive kids after all

one of the kids, I don't really remember which one, put a piece of salmon in my work printer DS10 used to put my mom's tennis shoes, when we were living with her, wayyyy under her bed where only he could crawl he also put mustard on her cat, and shampoo in the cat's food bowl, and etc.

I doubt that even in Canada, drugs (the previous poster meant street drugs, not prescriptions), alcohol, and repeated expensive higher education that is abandonded halfway through a semester is included gratis along with universal health care.

Well, clearly this happens with other kinds of crimes. For example, it's a crime (simple assault?) to punch someone who hasn't physically attacked you - but I don't know a huge number of men who would want that prosecuted, or would want to be involved in that prosecution. Sure, they care, but they don't care for it to go through the legal system, kwim? Or like if someone steals the money out of my change drawer, I'm offended, it's bad behavior, it's stealing - but I'm not going to the police about it. Or maybe there are some things that some people in society are just used to, and don't consider a serious problem, even though they're less than desirable. Maybe if you're socialized to believe that some forms of sexual assault are more or less inevitable and/or not something that seriously bothers you, even though you don't want them, you don't think of them as a problem or even as assault.

I just gotta say that for some reason I, a distinctly non-religious person, really enjoy reading this thread on the years when you guys post one. There are some things about religion that I think are super valuable, and this thread almost always makes me wistful about it.

I also love hashed browns, so I voted for almost every option (frozen ones splatter so that is a no on the frozen ones)

$2k out of a scholarship fund is definitely not "must become professional at this" money. How many kids/parents spend $2k/YEAR on sports, or music lessons, or etc.? It's just something that gives him that possibility, something to add to his resume, something to see if this is a way he is interested in going and good at. If not, no big deal. ETA and by $2K/year I mean not that $2k all in one week is too much, but that many people spend $2k/yr for many years for say violin lessons for a kid who is never going to be a concert violinist - totalling $20K. Or $4k/yr on youth hockey, or something, for 5 years.

I'm as far from a feminist as you can get, but saying that "cat calling, whistling, etc. can be ignored" is pretty much the definition of "we poor women have to endure this."

When my dad died of pneumonia (or COPD, take your pick), it helped me to learn that it was very common for people who lose a close loved one to feel guilty regardless of the circumstances. I felt very guilty and I still do, but I recognize that it is not necessarily justified or logical.

I like this one from Minimalist Baker: https://minimalistbaker.com/tomato-and-vegetable-white-bean-soup/ It's basically a can of tomatoes, two cans of white beans, a can of tomato sauce, onions, garlic, basil, oregano (or whatever else you like in the way of spices), and whatever veg. you have available. Recently that's been squash but it would also be good I think with kale or zucchini or carrots or maybe even turnips. I like it because it always gets eaten and can always be made from what you have on hand, as long as you have a couple of cans of beans and a couple of cans of tomatoes in the pantry.

The topic has a lot of visitors because the title reads like a spam/advertising title (which, surprise, it was) and yet has generated a lot of posts, which suggests a possibility of drama. They're just checking in for the drama, trust me, not the unsolicited advice of someone no one knows yet.

I thought Tibbie's idea of looking into blue-collar work made a lot of sense. Much of the white-collar economy in the US is either service-oriented, which NightElf's DS won't do, or requires many years of (sometimes gen ed) school, which he won't do. He might be willing/able to do something entry-level that isn't public-facing, like painting, landscaping, etc.

I think tutor is almost certainly right ne___ tutor - needs fits context wise

I have only a 13 yo, but so far I find hunger impossible to predict regardless of snacking or number of meals already eaten that day. Sometimes she eats 500 calories a day and sometimes she eats 4000, it seems like, with no real answer for why one way or the other.

My most recent, born the day of my scheduled induction (but 8 hours before the induction!) was a 2.5 hour labor and I lived 45 minutes from the hospital. In my previous experience, between the time I arrived at the hospital and the time I got the epidural (or the time when they said sorry, we won't have the epidural in time) was about 2 hours. First they want you to wait an hour to make sure you're really in labor, then they draw your blood and run labs, then they page the anesthesiologist, then they page him again, then they tell you sorry, no epidural (or then he shows up and you get the epidural and it is good). But my most recent baby was a different experience - I'd called ahead like I always do and told the nursing staff that I DEFINITELY WAS GOING TO HAVE THE BABY WITHIN 2 HOURS OF SHOWING UP and that I HAD A VERY LOW PAIN TOLERANCE AND BECAME IRRATIONAL AND LOUD DURING TRANSITION. I was super duper clear this time. When I showed up I was sure I wasn't getting the epidural. I'd gone into labor up the mountain, left the house after 3 10-minute spaced contractions with pain a 2, and by the time I was down the mountain at the hospital they were 3 minutes apart and pain was a 5. From my own experience, if I get to the hospital after pain is a 4 (for me pain is almost precisely correlated to cm dilated and yes, I do get to 10 with no epidural), it's too late. So I showed up and was pretty upset and the triage nurse said, god bless her, "oh, I remember you from on the phone." and then she paged the anesthesiologist right then, told me I didn't have to have labs run, and admitted me on the spot, no hour long waiting session. I told her when I got rich I'd buy her a car, I was so happy.