SpecialClassical
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Posts posted by SpecialClassical
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When we were looking at a house our realtor would walk around with us. I understand that, but what drove me nuts was her commentary along the way. And If I mentioned a concern to my husband, she would come up with a solution. I seriously could not have a conversation with my husband because she inserted herself into everything that was said. I am of the mind that if I am going to buy a house, I am going to examine it carefully and I don't need the realtor's take on every little detail.
However, I'm wondering if I should have expected that as normal realtor behavior? I am an introvert and the realtor was an extrovert, so maybe it was a personality thing?
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Count me in!
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I worked in the field for a short time, and I think she needs to cooperate and do everything she can to show them that her daughter is her priority. Social workers come across some people who treat their children as possessions and are more interested in keeping them than parenting well. She needs to convey that she has her child's interests at heart, not her own.
She needs to look into the possibility of her parents taking care of the daughter while she moves out, if it comes to that. It is better to be proactive than have the child traumatized by a removal.
She should retain a lawyer with experience, if only for a consult to give her advice on how much to say. My gut says cooperate, but don't volunteer any information.
If she has been smoking marijuana she is breaking the law, most likely. Could she be involved in other poor behaviors? Might she be better off with Dad?
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Check into Legos for education. I was looking for some plain sets one day and found that the education sets are much cheaper.
Google: discount school supply and you will see some generic sets as well as specific ones. I thought I found a source that was even cheaper, but now I don't see it.
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Well, simply put I would say he might have diminished impulse control. We have experienced the situation you described since our daughter was small. We required her to obey and disciplined her for her outbursts. Then we found out she had FASD and began to understand her better. People say with consistent dicipline the child will learn self control, but with a kid who has organic neuro issues, that control is much harder to exercise. (She is our fourth, so i can see the difference.) How that plays out is that if someone asked you or me to do something we didn't want to do, we would grouch about it in our head, but some children don't have the ability to keep it inside. I think it is a positive that he does the task. That shows he knows the right thing to do is help someone else. Hopefully someone can help you figure out the impulse control issue.
The way I try to have compassion for her is by thinking about how I feel when hormones or situations are pushing me to the edge and then realize that she felt like that the majority of the time before we found meds that helped her.
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I have several friends whose families eat out for every meal. I have taught newbie Army wives (especially in foreign countries or remote locations) to brown hamburger, make iced tea and cook scrambled eggs. Plenty of people don't cook at all.
I guess it all depends what circles you are in. We had international college students visit our home and they asked about some baked goods we served. My friend whose husband worked with the students said that the students didn't think Americans cooked, so I guess they were surprised my daughter did the baking. I thought it was funny that they assumed that, but maybe I was the uninformed one!
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I don't really know what most people do. I do know that when I worked full time and pre kids we ate out a lot. I was just too tired to cook half the time and DH won't cook. I have little doubt we'd eat out more and use more convenience foods if I didn't have the energy otherwise.
That is interesting. I always tell myself I would eat better if I wasn't at home around food all the time. But I would probably be so worn out, I would tend toward convenience foods as well.
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I think it's still typical. LOL
But yeah I hear you. How is that a recipe?
Is it still typical? I hear all the time about the typical American diet and wonder if very many people actually eat out several times a week and have only prepared foods when at home. Maybe I just spend too much time one these boards and on reading about whole foods.
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I realized this might have looked like an ad. Sorry about that. I think this type of thinking in regard to food was typical of the time and is very much the way my husband grew up.
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My 10 yr old boy enjoys cooking. He is able to make homemade biscuits, muffins, etc and stovetop things like pasta and eggs. So my mom gave him the BH&G cook book. He started reading some recipes to me and they were entertaining!
Flip Flop Pancakes - Step one says, " Look on pancake mix package directions. Mix batter according to directions to make 12-14 pancakes."
Circus Time Lemonade ingredients- lemonade concentrate, cold water, ice cubes, lemon slices. Again, "Add as much water as it says on the side of the can."
French Fried Potatoes ingredients- frozen French Fried Potatoes, salt. The intructions are pretty much turn on oven, bake potatoes, sprinkle salt on them. Pretty sure the bag of taters says the same.
There are some real recipes in there, but these were too funny.
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PT and OT assistant programs are competitive around here, so your experience in the nursing home would be a plus there, especially if you ended up working with the elderly. Both of those careers have good outlooks and very good pay. If they interest you, start asking about qualifications right away. Good luck!
Oh, and don't be intimidated by the academics. Since you have homeschooled so long, you are probably more solid on the foundational stuff than most students.
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Obviously I do not know Julie's church or her leaders, but church dicipline is biblical. Our church practices it and it is done with grace and very careful consideration by our elders. And it is rare, never to be used as a power play.
Matthew 18 describes how discipline progresses. If a person refuses to repent on private levels, witnesses are to tell it to the church. This isn't meant for shaming, it is meant to hold members accountable to a standard they have agreed to and the purpose is to bring about true sorrow when faced with losing your church family. In a healthy church Julie would be supported and I assume the elders would speak to her about what will be said. People are going to know something is wrong and if the elders can make it clear that Julie has been a model wife and set her up as not only innocent, but the example of mercy that she has been other members will have no room to gossip.
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Perhaps a nueropsychologist would be able to help you by doing an evaluation of his behaviors and thinking processes. Your pediatrician should have a recommendation of a good one in the area.
And I don't know that an MRI is going to show all types of damage to the brain. Maybe someone here knows of another, more accurate way to check for these types of problems in the brain?
I'm so sorry for the struggles. I know personally how hard it is to manage a demanding child with serious special needs. You love them and celebrate their good points, but I only get through the emotional storms is by the grace of God.
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Yep, you just discribed my kids. It' used to be just 2 of them but now all three are like this. Im really, really sick of washing folded clothes that didn't get worn, but are dirty from being on the floor, and stepped on. NOTHING has worked to get them organized. On the bright side, ds has a girlfriend and has recently started putting things away, keeping his room clean, and picking up around the house so said girlfriend can come over. I hope she's around forever! :D
I have charged my children a quarter for each folded item that comes back through the wash. I am about to re-institute this policy and apply it to all but the 4yr old!
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The children.
My DH is from Russia and our son is adopted from Russia. DH grew up there and lived there until he was 18. He said that they point is, the Russian government doesn't understand Americans. They think that our people will be so outraged that they will put pressure on our government to repeal the Magnitsky Act. What they don't understand is that human rights are so important to Americans, that they're not going to put pressure on our government to repeal it, even if it means adoptions are banned.
Russia is shooting themselves in the foot. They have no real desire to take care of those orphans, or they would have done so already. We're talking about a country where ambulances wait at stop lights and if you call the ambulance and you're old, you have to lie about your age and health conditions or they may decide it's not worth the bother to pick you up if you're too old. Seriously. They don't care about people. There is a huge stigma against adopting orphans in Russia. When we adopted DS in 2004, his St. Petersburg orphanage was pretty nice. It had recently undergone renovations and there were more in the works. Why? Because so many foreigners were adopting that money was finally being funneled into the adoption system. Lots of money also greases palms in different document offices. When were at one office to get a birth certificate or something, DH laughed because in Russian the sign said something like, "Certificates will take a minimum of 2 weeks to issue." Our facilitators greased some palms and we were out of there in 20 minutes flat. I know it sounds awful, but the system largely works on bribery there. It's very common. Our money paid to those workers in the document offices ends up back in the Russian economy because people use it to buy goods.
Russian orphans who age out of the system only have about a 20% chance of living any sort of "normal" (meaning functional) life. Most are sold into prostitution rings, lead a life of crime, become drug addicts, or commit suicide (I think I read 10% commit suicide). If the Russians aren't adopting them (and I agree it's best if they can, but they aren't and there are SO many orphaned and abandoned children) then it's morally wrong to deny them a chance at a good life.
It is tragic that 19 adopted Russian children have died in the US in the last 20 years. Any death is horrible and I'm not trying to minimize that, but we're talking 19 out of 60,000. How many children adopted within Russia or left in orphanages have died in the last 20 years? They won't release those statistics, but I would bet every material possession I own that the statistics are much, much higher.
The Russian government has the right to send representative to check up on the welfare of my child at any time. We had to sign papers stating so. You know how many times they've contacted us in the nearly 9 years we've been History Kid's mom and dad? Zero. Do you know how many times they've contacted other families we know with kids adopted from Russia? Zero. The Russian government doesn't care -- it's all political posturing.
Our end of the system isn't perfect. In fact, I think it's very flawed. Much more education and post-adoption support need to be made available. They need to weed out the people who are adopting to, "save a child" or feel it's their "mission" to do so (not knocking God here -- there is a big difference between feeling like God is leading you to do something and you have the love in your heart to do so, and feeling like it's just something you're supposed to do). Those are the people who are ill-equipped and end up abusing the child or end up so totally overwhelmed that they don't know what to do. Anyone who follows the Pearls shouldn't be allowed to adopt. Those are the families that abuse their kids to death. That may be an unpopular view, but I'm sticking to it. Flame me if you want. I really don't care.
Many people have this whacked-out, idealized vision that they're "rescuing" these children and the children will love, appreciate, and respect them for what they've done. That is SO far from reality and it's a burden to put on the child. It sets up an unfair power-struggle where we impose gratitude on a child who is dealing with their own real and complex issues of loss. Adoption only happens through loss of a parent. Even in cases where the parent is still out there somewhere living, it's the loss of that natural parent-child bond. It's real, it needs to recognized, and no Little Orphan Annie happy-crappy song and dance is going to gloss over that reality. We chose to adopt History Kid because we wanted a child and were having trouble conceiving. If he is thankful we did so, that's a bonus, but we never expected thanks -- we never expected anything in return. We hoped for love and were lucky enough to get that (not all parents do). We were very well-educated about adoption, but we were mostly SELF educated, and that's the problem with the system. We read and watched everything we could get our hands on. We talked to other adoptive couples. We had to attend some state-mandated training, but it sucked. Really, it glossed over a lot of true issues and the small bits of pertinent information they gave us were things anyone who had actually looked into adoption for more than 5 minutes already knew. Training and education available sucks. Post adoption support sucks. It's nearly non-existent. Also, I think more post-adoption visits need to be made. We had only 2, I think? I'm trying to remember when they were. One happened sometime within the first 6 months, and I think another was a year later, and then we were done with it. Issues cropped up for History Kid AFTER that time. It would have been nice to have some support and to be guided to different services then instead of needing to do all the research on our own (and finding pathetically little in terms of supports).
I'm sorry for rambling. This is obviously an issue very close to my heart. My son would have been lost in an orphanage. If you see the pictures of him we received before we adopted him and compare them to the pictures even days after, you'd see a different kid. My mom says she hates to look at the 2 pictures we initially received because his, "eyes look dead -- there's no light in them." Kids need and deserve families.
We have adopted domestically and internationally. I fully agree with what you said regarding adoption education. The post adoption support was very limited. I couldn't even get sound information regarding severe malnutrition. On the positive side, our agency has since offered sessions on that topic and others (with a fee, of course).
Your whole post sheds light on the realities of international adoption of children.
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We get dressed, but we're on vacation this week. I've been wearing this while drinking my coffee:
Then, when it's time to get dressed, I wear this:
My neighbor on one side makes fun of my pink "bunny suit" all the time. My in-laws, husband, daughter, and I all bought them at the VT Teddy Bear Factory's outlet store a few years ago and we wear them all week when we're in VT on our annual ski vacation.
I went outside in my blue tracksuit yesterday, and ANOTHER neighbor said, "Are those your pajamas?!!" The original fun-making neighbor was also outside, and he said, "That's nothing - you should see her bunny suit!" and they laughed and laughed.
At that point, I said, "You're all jerks!" and stomped off... ;)
That's awesome!
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Not fifteen chores: but yes, we have to make the beds, put our clothes in the basket to wash and clear our breakfast bowls before Latin at 7:30. In the winter we bring in wood for the fire regularly, and often help with taking special treats out to the chickens. In the evening the chores are putting up the chickens, getting wood in, putting away our things, clearing dishes after supper and dog dinners. (I usually do the breakfast for the dogs--around 5:30 or 6:00 am) Early birds around my house.
We also have chickens and other animals. The 10yr old and 8yr old do the animal chores as well as kitchen and bedroom chores in the morning, but not usually that early. I'll be sure to share your post with my Eeyore!
Oh, the other animals are pets; I don't want anyone to think I'm sending them out to milk cows or anything. And I do go out and partner with them in doing the chickens sometimes, especially now that it is so cold out in Michigan.
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Well, before this takes a bad turn, thank you to everyone! We actually are slow in " getting ready for the day" as we call getting dressed,groomed, and doing chores, but I do feel more productive once we have accomplished those things.
We all do what works best for our families (and change if we need to in order to accomplish our goals). That is fine with me!
My point to my son is that being homeschooled doesn't equal all-day jammies. I think I will institute an occasional jammie day as a reward for cheerfully getting ready in the morning. The results made him smile and he wanted to know the numbers of each answer choice.
Now he wants to know if other parents make their kids do 15! chores every morning. I told him he was out of luck in that area. Not sure how he came up with 15 chores unless eating, putting clean undies on, etc are chores. Silly boy.
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I voted Banana's because my son like to wear jeans or shorts and nothing else...seriously does not like to wear shirts :)
My daughter usually stays in her PJ's until after lunch.
I change out my PJ's after I shower. Some days that is first thing in the morning. Most days it is after lunch.
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P.S. I know this has been done before, but I found nothing with the search feature. Oh, and my son is a 10 yr old sweet,sensitive pessimist!
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My son is convinced that "normal" homeschoolers spend the day studying in their pajamas. People have made that remark to him when they talked about where he goes to school. They think he is lucky to do school in his jammies, so he thinks he has been ripped off because I make him get dressed!
So, even though I know home schoolers are all very different, would you be so kind as to answer this poll? (If I can get it up? )
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I used to look like Lisa Welchel, and I would probably look like her now if I dropped a bunch of weight. Actually I think I looked more like her older, plainer sister. My husband has been told many times that he looks like Kiefer Sutherland. Frankly I think K.S. is kind of ornery looking and my husband is very sweet.
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One thing to be aware of in any church where there is an image of accountability is if the Pastor has surrounded himself by elders or a board that are his personal "yes" men. I have seen it happen and once it does it is truly heartbreaking. :(
This happened at our church of 16 years and it was so awful. The pastor turned out to be plagiarizing, lying, and manipulating in order to build his kingdom of people who adored him within our church. When he was exposed the elders and many members could not see the truth and the elders did not follow the biblical model of correction. Not only did the church fall apart, but the pastor claimed depression right up until he took on a new,bigger pastorate one state a way. Heartbreaking is a good word for the whole mess.
We now attend a church with a plurality of elders who are willing to obey scripture even when it is very difficult. I was worried about the possibility of the church being legalistic, but it is actually very grace filled. The balance of humility, grace, and truth is a beautiful thing to see.
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Our local Meijer in west Michigan is awesome. They always have lanes open and often have an employee walking up and down to help people find the shortest line. If you need to find something in the store they get on it immediately. At Halloween the lady even told me where to go to buy pumpkins since theirs had run out. Returns are a breeze as well!
S/O expectations of realtors during a house showing.
in The Chat Board
Posted
Hmm, I think I will adopt your method and drive the realtor crazy!